OSLO — King Haakon VIII took Norway's throne on Friday after the death of his father, Harald V, and used his first act as monarch to convene an extraordinary cabinet meeting, announce his royal title and adopt the motto his father and grandfather had also used, "Everything for Norway."

Haakon, 53, inherits a monarchy long popular for its modern, informal style but battered this year by his wife Crown Princess Mette-Marit's disclosed friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and by the rape conviction of her son from a previous relationship, Marius Borg Høiby. His accession is automatic under Norwegian law.

Harald died at 6:35 a.m. at the National Hospital in Oslo, the royal court said. He was 89 and had been Europe's oldest monarch. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said in a statement, "A whole nation is in mourning and the people of Norway are left with a deep sense of gratitude for a long life in the service of Norway."

New heir

Ingrid Alexandra, Haakon's 22-year-old daughter, becomes crown princess. A 1990 amendment to the Norwegian constitution gave first-born children of either sex precedence in the line of succession, positioning her to become Norway's first female head of state since the 15th century. Haakon had continued to take precedence over his older sister, Princess Märtha Louise, because the change was not applied retroactively.

Path to the throne

Haakon, born in 1973, was the youngest child of Harald and Queen Sonja and became crown prince in 1991 at 17, after the death of his grandfather King Olav V. He attended Norwegian state schools, graduated from the Norwegian Naval Academy in 1995 and studied political science at the University of California, Berkeley, rather than follow his father and grandfather to Oxford. He married Mette-Marit, a single mother from Kristiansand, in August 2001 over a fierce public debate about her past.

Family strain

The new king's household enters the succession under strain. Marius Borg Høiby, who has no royal title but has been raised inside the family, was convicted this year of rape, sentenced to four years in prison and is appealing. One rape took place on the royal estate at Skaugum, outside Oslo, the BBC reported. Mette-Marit, diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2018, received a lung transplant two days after her son's trial ended. Earlier this year she also apologized publicly for a three-year friendship with Epstein that she said she wished had never begun.

Public verdict

Historian Trond Norén Isaksen told the BBC that Haakon would bring a different manner than his father but would be no less respected, adding that the new king "has been pulling enormous weight for many years given his parents have become older and his wife has been ill." Tove Taalesen, royal correspondent for Nettavisen, said Haakon was "very much ready for the task."

The skeptics

Not all of Norway is convinced. Polls conducted earlier this year found nearly half the country felt Mette-Marit could not become queen, the BBC reported, even though her accession was assured by her husband's. Caroline Vagle, royal correspondent for the magazine Se og Hør, told the broadcaster the family's most important task now is to be "completely open about what actually happened" with Epstein, though she cautioned that "I also don't think we should overestimate the impact of one or two difficult cases."

Haakon takes over a democracy of 5.5 million in which real power sits with an elected parliament and the monarch's role is largely symbolic. Doctors will not declare Mette-Marit stable until a year after her lung transplant, a benchmark that will fall inside her husband's first year on the throne.