METTE-MARIT'S RATING HALVED, MARIUS STAYS IN CUSTODY, AND A 120-YEAR-OLD SECRET - The week in Norwegian Royal News with Mark Francis

0:03 Calorouga Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Crown and Controversy Norway the weekly addition I Am Your Palace Intrigue host Mark Francis. It has been another extraordinary week in Oslo. The trial of Marius borg Wabi continues its relentless progress through week six, producing testimony that was by turns devastating, intimate, and deeply strange. While outside the courtroom, the pressure on Crown Princess Meta Marie continued to mount from multiple directions. A scouting organization called for her removal as patron, a doctor defended the timing of a December press conference, a bookstore built a display, and somewhere in the archives of European history, a century old question about the royal bloodline itself quietly began stirring again. Let's take it from the top.

0:57 When Monday arrived, there was no court session, but the case still moved. Hoeby's defense team used the pause to submit a formal request for his release from pre trial detention. He had been held since the day before the trial opened on February third, after prosecutors accused him of violating a restraining order and threatening the woman known in court as the Frogner woman with a knife. His lawyer, Ellen Hodger and Danaeus confirmed the petition had been sent to Oslo District Court. The prosecution's response was immediate and unsupportive. Police prosecutor Andreas Koshski confirmed the state to decided not to release Hoyby on his own initiative and would let the court decide. Under Norwegian law, a defendant detained when a trial begins can remain in custody until the verdict and for weeks afterward. On Tuesday, the court issued its ruling Hoybe stays. The judges found that a strong probability still exists that he could commit new criminal offenses if released.

1:53 Offenses carrying potential sentences of more than six months. The legal grounds for continued detention, the court determined remain firmly in place. Also on Monday, Norwegian news organizations held what was described as a crisis meeting after five violations during the trial. Three involved prohibited photography inside the courtroom to involving publication of a protected victim's first name. Riijan Kyelling Neuber, Secretary General of the Norwegian Editors Association, issued a clear warning if outlets that have already commissioned violations. Make new mistakes, they risk the entire newsroom losing accreditation. We cannot tolerate more mistakes, she said. Tuesday and Wednesday produced at some of the most emotional testimony of the entire trial. A close friend of the frognant woman took the stand and described the night she first heard what happened. Around two or half past two in the morning. She said, I called her on speaker. She could hear the frognant woman in the background, her voice shaking. Can I come sleep at your place? Marius has trashed my apartment and beaten me.

2:57 When the friend arrived at the apartment the following day and saw herself, the scale of destruction became real. Glass everywhere, the chandelier torn down, the mirror above the makeup table hanging loose and broken. A second friend described picking up the frognant woman that night. What met me was a sister I didn't recognize. She told the court. She was emotionally numb, very distant. The frognant woman was at the same moment receiving calls from friends of Hoybe urging her not to go to the police because of his reputation. The friend who collected her eventually gave her an ultimatum. If she was going to stay with her, there could be no contact with Marius. The frognant woman stayed for roughly three months. One witness delivered the detail that perhaps best captured the emotional logic of the relationship. She testified that the frognant woman at once said to her, I can handle being hit. I can take it as long as he's okay. It's something I can live with. The witness said, she responded immediately, that's not how it's supposed to be at all, but the statement had clearly stayed with her. Another witness testified about an incident allegedly just days before the trial began. According to her account, the frog no woman had told Hoiby she needed to leave his apartment because the proceedings were about to start. Weiby panicked.

4:07 Winner said he pushed her into a door, and then she testified, he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and threatened to harm himself if she left. More crown and controversy in just a moment. The court also heard from a man who had received what the indictment describes as a death threat from Hoibi via Instagram during the same August twenty twenty four night. The message read you are an effing dead man. The man said he wasn't frightened. He thought Hoiby was drunk. I didn't really feel threatened by it, he told the court. I wasn't afraid. I didn't think it was anything more than a message. There were important evidentiary developments midweek as well. A neighbor named Ingrid Meyer, who lived in the same building at the time, told the court she had recorded two videos on her phone after hearing loud arguing and shouting. She later decided they were relevant and sent them to the police. The prosecutor said the recordings were made at seven fifteen in the morning and five point fifteen in the afternoon on the same day. When asked whether the shouting voice on the recordings was his, Weeby's response was telling I still can't hear what is being said, but it's probably me.

5:11 The prosecution also returned this week to the question of consistency. Audio played in court included the Frogner woman accusing Hoyby of lying in police interviews about taking intimate photographs of her without consent. Weyby's response on the recording, yes, I lied about it fine. In court, he explained that he had yet been charged with sexual offenses. Everything was leaking to the press and he didn't want to read about it the next day. The prosecution used this to argue a pattern. Weaby has only admitted things when confronted with evidence he can no longer deny. His own lawyer is questioning, and the frog Woman's lawyer, met Yvonne Larson's cross examination repeatedly exposed the same quality. In his testimony, he drifted back to his own feelings, his own jealousy, his own perspective, while prosecutors tried to center the impact on her. At one point, I asked how she must have felt identifying intimate images of herself in a police interview. He eventually said it must have been completely awful. When asked about the August fourth violence, he ultimately said, I think she had it completely awful. One message read in court illustrated where his head was in the aftermath after the violence.

6:17 He sent a photo of her clothes with the lion there go all the ugly dresses of an unfaithful whore. Asked if he thought in that moment about what he had done to her. Hoiby said at that moment, I didn't think about it. It was pretty blurry on the subject of intoxication, which has been central to his account. Blood tests from August fourth showed no alcohol by the time samples were taken, but did show cocaine, MDMA and THHC. When asked how intoxicated he felt, he said, I didn't feel much other than I was very sad and very frustrated and angry. Threading through the week and into Thursday and Friday was the reading aloud of private messages exchanged between Hoibi and influencer Norah Hauckland. Prosecutors say the archive spans more than eight hundred pages. Court officials read both sides of the conversations, allowed so judges could hear the full exchanges over several days. The messages revealed a relationship that swung constantly between warmth and hostility. Early in the relationship, the tone was affectionate. I don't want to completely let go Weaby wrote in one message. How Con replied, WE don't have to. But as how CON's public profile grew through reality television and social media, the pressure on the relationship intensified. Webby was alarmed by her participation in the military style program company Lauritsen. We both know it's going to crush our relationship, he wrote, everything will go to hell.

7:36 How came pushed back. I have changed myself for you. I behaved differently on social media, I dress differently. I said no to Farman even though I really wanted it. But there I have to draw a line. You have to choose whether you want to be with me or not. At times, the arguments escalated sharply. F you, Marius f Uugh Halkland wrote in one exchange. His response, well, f you too. In another message, Howayby wrote, if you ever walked past me on the street, spit you in that disgusting face of yours. In one message that receives particular attention in court, Hoyby wrote about his own identity. I was buried into a public family against my will, and it has been incredibly difficult to stand in the public eye without having anything to be proud of. For the prosecution, the messages illustrate a pattern of jealousy, emotional pressure, and volatility.

8:21 For the defense, the same exchanges show a complicated mutual relationship in which both parties argue, both used harsh language, and both continued reaching out after it ended. The trial is entering its final phase. Prosecutors will begin closing arguments on Monday the fifteenth. Victims lawyers follow later in the week. Defense closing arguments are expected to conclude around the eighteenth. Then the judges withdraw to deliberate more crown and controversy in just a moment. While the trial dominated the week's proceedings, the broader royal picture in Norway remained deeply complicated. The Fredericks Starred Scout District made headlines by publicly calling on the national leadership of the Scouting movement to suspend the Crown Princess Metamora from her role as patron. The local organization said it had lost patients with what it sees as hesitation from the national leadership, and that in the wake of Epstein related revelations and the ongoing trial, the time for waiting and watching had passed. The Crown Princess's appearance in court. Coverage took a new turn Thursday when a witness testified that friends of the Froglan woman had, on the night after the violence, attempted to contact Metamrite about the damage to the apartment the Royal household declined to comment, and then on Friday, a detail emerged directly from Hoyby's own testimony earlier in the trial, gained renewed attention.

9:42 He said his mother had called him shortly before his first arrest to warn that police had been in contact with the family. She reportedly told him jump in the shower and put on clothes that don't smell like alcohol. Weeby's lawyers have been careful to note this does not suggest any wrongdoing, but the detail has proved difficult to move past. The Palace confirmed this week that Metamora has not appeared on the official royal calendar since late January. Palace communications chief Guri Varper explained that the Crown Princess now has an increasing need for adapted training, rest and recovery, and that her program is being adjusted to match a medical condition has announced in December. Doctors are also preparing to evaluate her for a possible lung transplant. That December announcement was itself the subject of renewed scrutiny this week.

10:30 That press conference revealing the deterioration of Metamora's lund disease was held on December nineteenth, the same date that Epstein related documents were released in the United States, among which was previously a known correspondence involving the Crown Princess. Observers had questioned whether the timing was deliberate. The physician who spoke at that press conference, lung specialist ra martin Holm, addressed the question directly. He told the publication journalist and that the date was determined by his own schedule. The timing was adjusted to when I had time, he said, explaining that in week fifty one, the week of the press conference, he was only available on the Wednesday and the Friday. He also emphasized that the gravity of what was shared for patients with severe lung disease beginning to talk about lung transplantation is dramatic. We never take that lightly.

11:17 The explanations have not fully quieted the questions. Pauling released this week showed support for the Norwegian monarchy has fallen from seventy percent to sixty percent in the space of a single month. King Harald continues to command extraordinary personal approval, scoring nine point two out of ten when respondents were asked how well he represents the Royal House. Metow Marie scores three to seven, down from seven to four. Anti corruption campaigner and former judge Eva Jolie, who says she retains great respect for the kingdom of the queen, was not gentle about the generation below them. The heirs are not as worthy. She said, it is difficult to see Metamory becoming queen when she has lived in the same house where two thousand girls were abused. Political commentator hahns Angle, however, was direct about the constitutional reality. Public opinion, however, negative cannot change the line of succession. You cannot abolish the constitution because opinion polls show that she is deeply unpopular.

12:11 He said. If the public mood is that people do not want Meta Marita's queen, it would require either that she withdraws herself, that the couple divorces, or that the constitution is amended. The legal framework, he noted, is the same as Denmark's. When the throne becomes vacant, the spouse ascends immediately. The formal ceremony can wait, the status cannot. Two final items that say something about the particular moment. Norway's royal family finds itself in a Norley bookstore. In Oslow's set, up a display this week titled Epstein Island guest List, featuring books linked two figures mentioned in the ongoing coverage, among them a twenty year old biography of Crown Princess Meta Marie, published long before her Epstein contact.

12:52 The employee who created the displays that it came from the fact that the story has dominated the news cycle, and added bluntly that those who didn't want to be associated with Epstein have themselves to think. The book's co author called it a bit special and declined further comment. And then there is the story that arrived at perhaps the worst possible time for the monarchy. A forthcoming biography of Queen Maud is expected to re examine one of the most explosive theories in Scandinavian royal history. Historian tour Bowman Larson has previously suggested that when Queen Maud struggle to produce an air in the early nineteen hundreds, she may have turned to a pioneering fertility procedure in London, and that the donor may not have been King Hearken the Seventh, but a British commoner, Guy Francis leaking the son of the Royal doctor nine months later, the future King Olive the fifth was born. If proven and there is no definitive proof, it would mean the King Harald and Crown Prince Hearken are not biologically descended from the man who founded the modern Norwegian monarchy. Historian Arnold Scree has spent years researching Maud's life in archives across Europe, and her book is expected to address the question. The theory has been dismissed by royal supporters for years, but it is back in the headlines now in this week, of all weeks. The trial continues Monday, and there you have it. If you want to email us addresses the Palace intrig at gmail dot com, please follows on Spotify, Apple all the apple of your choice. I'm Francis my thanks to John McDermott. This is ground and controversy Norway