The late King Harald followed a family path. His father, King Olav V, had studied at Balliol in the 1920s and remained attached to the college.  The choice also fitted the close British–Norwegian royal relationship (Harald was a second cousin of Queen Elizabeth II) and Balliol’s standing in history, politics and economics—the subjects he read from 1960 to 1962 after finishing the Norwegian Military Academy. He later became an Honorary Fellow.