Stavanger (Norway) | King Harald V of Norway, who went into exile in the United States as a child during the Nazi occupation of his homeland and refused a string of European noblewomen in order to marry his school sweetheart, has died. He was 89.

The palace announced his death Friday morning.

Harald was Europe's oldest monarch. The popular king modernised the royal house but refused to follow in the footsteps of other aging monarchs who have abdicated in recent times. His son now automatically becomes King Haakon VIII.

Like other royal houses in Europe, the Norwegian monarchs serve a largely symbolic role, enjoying celebrity status while real power in the democracy of 5.5 million rests with an elected parliament. Harald was crowned king after his British-born father, King Olav V, died in January 1991, and reigned during an oil-and-gas-driven economic boom in his country.

Harald was born in 1937 in Asker, near Oslo, becoming the first Norwegian prince to be born in the country since King Olav IV in 1370. In the following centuries, Norway didn't have a king of its own until Harald's grandfather, Haakon VII, was elected king following the 1905 dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway.