In 1896, Prince Carl married his first cousin Princess Maud of Wales, youngest daughter of the future King Edward VII of the United Kingdom and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Denmark, daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel. Their son, Prince Alexander, the future Crown Prince Olav, was born on 2 July 1903.

After the Union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved in 1905, a committee of the Norwegian government identified several members of European royalty as candidates for Norway’s first king of its own in several centuries. Gradually, Prince Carl became the leading candidate. He had a son (and hence an heir to the throne) and Princess Maud’s ties to the British royal family were viewed as advantageous to the newly-independent Norwegian nation.

The democratically-minded Carl, aware that Norway was still debating whether to retain its monarchy or to switch to a republican system of government, was flattered by the Norwegian government’s overtures, but declined to accept the offer without a referendum to show whether monarchy was truly the choice of the Norwegian people.

After the referendum overwhelmingly confirmed by 79 percent majority that Norwegians desired to retain a monarchy, Prince Carl was formally offered the throne of Norway by the Storting (parliament) on 18 November 1905. When Carl accepted the offer that same evening (after the approval of his grandfather Christian IX of Denmark), Carl became Haakon VII. In so doing, he succeeded his grand-uncle, Oscar II of Sweden, who had abdicated the Norwegian throne in October following the agreement between Sweden and Norway on the terms of the separation of the union. Haakon’s coronation took place in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim on 22 June 1906.

The figure is represented at the funeral of his father-in-law, King Edward VII, on May 20, 1910. He wears the uniform of an honorary Colonel of the King’s Own Royal Norfolk Yeomanry Regiment. Since the reforms carried out throughout the English army in 1903, there was, within the Voluntary Militias (Yeomanry), the Norfolk Imperial Yeomanry (King’s Own) Regiment, which was maintained and financed at the express wish of the newly crowned King Edward VII (who lived at Sandringham House in Norfolk), who held the rank of Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment.

As a curiosity about this uniform, it should be noted that it is the only regiment of the English army that, in modern times, uses a leather helmet.