On 9 March, at the age of 97, Erling Sven Lorentzen, the Norwegian-Brazilian magnate and widower of Princess Ragnhild, eldest daughter of King Olav V of Norway, has died

On 9 March, in his 98th year, Erling Sven Lorentzen, the Norwegian-Brazilian magnate and widower of Princess Ragnhild, eldest daughter of King Olav V of Norway, passed away. In his youth Lorentzen was a bodyguard, and among those he guarded was the Norwegian royal family, including Princess Ragnhild herself during the war years. In 1953 they married and soon moved to Brazil, where all their children and grandchildren live. For a time, until the birth of Ragnhild's younger brother Harald, it was thought that Norway might change the law of succession in her favour should there be no male heirs. In her youth Ragnhild, as a great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, stood 17th in line to the British throne; at the time of her death in 2012 she stood 77th. She was closely related both to Elizabeth II and to King Albert II of the Belgians. Despite her own unequal marriage, she spoke critically of the spouses of her royal nephews: Princess Marta and the heir, Crown Prince Haakon, who married an untitled single mother from a poor family