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Sweden

First photo of Prince Oscar released by Swedish Court

The Swedish Court has released the first photo of five-day-old Prince Oscar of Sweden. Prince Oscar was born on 2 March at 8.28 PM, weighing 3.6 kilos at Karolinska Hospital in Sweden. He is the second child of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and her husband Prince Daniel. Prince Daniel announced the arrival of their son himself during a press conference later that evening. Princess Estelle, his older sister, was sleeping at the time and learned of his birth the morning after.

Prince Oscar is third in line in the succession to the throne of Sweden after his mother and his sister Princess Estelle. A 1980 change in law made his mother Crown Princess in favour of her younger brother Prince Carl Philip, who was born in 1979. By then, changes in the law were already planned, though officially Prince Carl Philip was Crown Prince for eight months.

The birth of Prince Oscar was greeted by two 21-gun salutes on the island of Skeppsholmen, opposite Stockholm Palace and the little Prince received the title Duke of Skåne. He is the third Swedish Prince to carry that title and both his predecessors became King of Sweden, Charles XV and Gustaf VI Adolf. The name Oscar is also not unfamiliar in the Swedish royal family. There have been two Kings named Oscar and several princes carried the name, like his great-grandfather Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten, whose full name was Gustaf Adolf Oscar Fredrik Arthur Edmund and who unfortunately died in a tragic plane crash before he became king.

A Te Deum Thanksgiving service took place the day after his birth, just after his full name Oscar Carl Olof was announced by his grandfather. A christening is expected to take place around three months from now at the Royal Chapel in Stockholm Palace and by then we will also know who his godparents will be.

Photocredit: The Royal Court, Sweden