1936 The Year of the Three Kings | Lisa's History Room 1936 The Year of the Three Kings October 2, 2009 by Lisa Waller Rogers 1936 The Year of Three British Kings: dad George V and his 2 sons - George VI & Edward VIII The year 1936 brought many changes within the British monarchy. In January of that year, the first monarch of the House of Windsor, King George V, died and his son, Edward VIII ascended the throne. King Edward VIII though was not destined to rule long. He had a married American mistress – Wallis Warfield Simpson – who was in the process of divorcing her second husband. The King’s choice of sweetheart would soon bring him tumbling down. Wallis Warfield Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (1896-1986). Wallis' second husband Ernest Simpson couldn't keep her happy. She was accustomed to a grander style of living than he was capable of providing.

They were living well beyond their means and having to fire servants when, in 1931, she was introduced to the playboy Prince of Wales, who ascended to the British throne in 1936 as King Edward VIII. The King - called "David" by his friends and family - dropped all his other married girlfriends and became obsessed with Wallis, showering her with jewels and clothes and taking her on expensive ocean cruises - while she was still Mrs. Married Simpson. The King shocked the nation – already reeling from the King’s scandalous behavior of appearing in the society pages with Mrs. Simpson – by announcing that he planned to marry Mrs. Simpson. The British people and the government would never have accepted Mrs. Simpson as their queen. Divorced people were not accepted at court, especially ones with two living ex-husbands. Although the King was not forbidden to marry Mrs. Simpson, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin advised him, on religious and political grounds, that he must make a choice between the throne and marrying Mrs. Simpson – or the government would resign. By December 1936, King Edward had made his decision.

He used his power to expedite Wallis’ divorce from Ernest Simpson [divorces took years back then] then, declared to his kingdom – the United Kingdom, Canada, and India – that it was impossible to carry out his duties “without the help and support of the woman I love,” and gave up the throne. Edward became the only monarch in the history of Great Britain to voluntarily abdicate. Edward’s younger brother, King George VI, then ascended the throne. Edward did marry Wallis and they became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, settling in France until World War II began. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon [pictured] was Wallis’ sister-in-law. She was married to King George VI, the Duke of Windsor’s younger brother who ascended the throne following his 1936 abdication. Elizabeth was known as “The Queen Mum” in later years, after King George VI died in 1952 and their daughter, “Lilibet,” became Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth II’s mother – also called Queen Elizabeth when she was queen – died in 2002 at the age of 101.

The Queen Mum hated Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor, and was determined that Wallis would never reenter British society after causing the abdication crisis. She also blamed the Duke and Wallis for the premature death of her husband George VI in 1952 upon the stress of his reign as king – again, because of her brother-in-law’s abdication to marry Wallis. Wallis wasn’t so happy with the Queen herself and returned her hostile sentiments, ridiculing the Queen’s fussy style of confectionary dress by nicknaming her “Cake.” Wallis had never forgotten the snub that King George VI gave her – at his wife Queen Elizabeth’s insistence – of refusing to allow Wallis to be referred to as “Her Royal Highness.” The abdication and the subsequent exile to France of the newly titled Duke and Duchess of Windsor turned out to be a gigantic blessing for the UK, because, by September of 1939, Great Britain would declare war on Nazi Germany. It was a good thing King Edward VIII had been replaced with the level-headed King George VI and his queen, Queen Elizabeth (known later as the Queen Mum).

They had the good sense to see the threat a Nazi Germany presented and the courage to lead the British people through the terrible bombings of Great Britain by the Nazis. King George VI began his reign as a reluctant king. He was a nervous man with a pronounced stutter who never wanted to rule. But, with Queen Elizabeth by his side, they were able to summon the strength from God and selves to help the British people endure the war and oppose the Nazi regime. “When war broke out in 1939, George VI and his wife resolved to stay in London and not flee to Canada, as had been suggested. The King and Queen officially stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the war, although they usually spent nights at Windsor Castle to avoid bombing raids. George VI and Queen Elizabeth narrowly avoided death when two German bombs exploded in a courtyard at Buckingham Palace while they were there.” So, as history would have it, Great Britain owes an enormous debt to Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor, for spiriting the Duke away before he could do any real harm. At the time, it seemed a great sadness for the Duke to have to give up the throne because convention wouldn’t allow for him to be married to the Duchess.

But now we know that it would have been a disaster for him to be King during World War II. Because, as it turned out, both he and the Duchess were Nazi sympathizers. They held their wedding ceremony at the Chateau de Cande in Mont, France, the home of Nazi collaborator Charles Bedaux. Within months, Bedaux had arranged for them to travel to Germany to dine with Adolf Hitler. It was widely believed that Hitler planned to install the Duke back on the British throne after the Germans had conquered England. The Duke was desperate for a kingdom and made no secret of his fondness for fascism. Fortunately,the Duke’s brother, the King, got wind of his brother’s nefarious activities and schemes and, at the start of the War, whisked him and the Duchess off to a British island [the Bahamas] far out in the Caribbean. Had Edward been the British monarch during WWII, not George VI, we might today to looking at a frighteningly different world order. King George V, the Duke of Windsor’s father, never thought much of his son David. He was disgusted by his son’s playboy ways and inability to grow up and settle down.

The King [George V] was reluctant to see Edward inherit the Crown, and was quoted as saying of Edward [the Duke of Windsor]:”After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in 12 months.” George V knew his son well. King Edward VIII…or “David,” the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Windsor, – he had so many names, it can be so confusing – was self-indulgent to the point of self-destruction. King Edward VIII’s reign as monarch was one of the shortest in British history, lasting only 325 days, or about 11 months, one month less than his father had so sagely predicted. Edward never did have a coronation ceremony. He was never crowned king. Readers, for more on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor on this blog: When a Royal Physician Killed a King When a Royal Physician Killed a King Roseanne T. Sullivan Almost thirty years ago, news broke on November 27, 1986 that Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather had been involuntarily euthanized fifty years earlier, on January 20, 1936, when she was nine years old and he was seventy.

The deed had been done by the Lord Dawson of Penn, the king’s physician. “P’incess is three,” a Time magazine article on April 1929 about Princess Elizabeth reported, “No one else except the Queen rides out so often with the King ….” King George V had called her Lilibet. She had called him Grandpa England. The king had been so fond of his oldest granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth, that the Bishop of London, Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, was astonished one day when he arrived for an audience to find the king crawling about with the little princess on all fours. May 16, 1935: nine-year-old Princess Elizabeth waved from the Buckingham Palace balcony during her Grandpa England’s Silver Jubilee celebration, eight months before his death In 1986 when the truth came out about the circumstances leading to the death of her grandfather King George V, reporters were not able to reach the Queen to find out her reaction.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman replied to those who called, “It happened a long time ago, and all those concerned are now dead.” A Murder of Convenience Most of the world only came to know about the involuntary euthanasia of the King of England in 1936 because the notes of Lord Dawson, the royal physician who killed the king, were finally revealed by his biographer in 1986. His biographer had discovered those notes when he was writing his life of Lord Dawson in 1950, but he and Lord Dawson’s widow decided not to include the king’s euthanasia in the biography. King George V’s final words had been publicized as, “How is the Empire?” and his reported words were often repeated with reverence and sorrow for how touching it was that the king was concerned for the health of the realm as he lay dying. But, according to Lord Dawson’s notes, the king’s final words actually had been, “G-d damn you!” and they were addressed to his nurse, while she was injecting him under the supervision of Lord Dawson with a non-fatal dose of morphine to put him to sleep. I wonder, did he curse at his nurse because he suspected what they were going to do?

After that first shot of morphine that evening, he never regained consciousness again. The “mercy” killing took place later that evening. At 9:30, Lord Dawson wrote a medical bulletin that declared, ”The King’s life is moving peacefully toward its close.” After the king was unconscious, Cosmo Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, came and prayed by the king’s bedside. After the Archbishop left, Lord Dawson prepared two fatal injections. The king’s nurse refused to cooperate, so Dawson administered the injections, the first containing three-quarters of a gram of morphine and the second containing one gram of cocaine. According to his notes, Dawson coolly arranged the king’s death to occur before midnight, in order for the announcement to appear first in the morning edition of The Times and not in some lesser publication later in the day. To make doubly sure the story got into the Times morning edition the next day, Dawson phoned his wife in London during the evening to tell her to alert the Times to hold the press.

“At about 11 o’clock it was evident that the last stage might endure for many hours, unknown to the patient but little comporting with the dignity and serenity which he so richly merited and which demanded a brief final scene. Hours of waiting just for the mechanical end when all that is really life has departed only exhausts the onlookers and keeps them so strained that they cannot avail themselves of the solace of thought, communion or prayer. I therefore decided to determine the end and injected (myself) morphia gr. 3/4 and shortly afterwards cocaine gr. 1 into the distended jugular vein […]”—Lord Dawson’s physician’s notes Lord Dawson’s notes also stated that he had been told by Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales, who was to become Edward VIII, that they did not want the King’s life needlessly prolonged if his illness was clearly fatal. Someone should have pointed out to Lord Dawson that it hardly needs saying that there is a vast moral divide between “needlessly” prolonging a life and matter-of-factly ending a life on time to get the death notice placed in the morning edition of the times.

The Times headline the next morning read “A Peaceful Ending at Midnight.” The story “Death of the King” in the middle-brow Daily Express provided lots of details, some of which may have been fanciful. The story reported that the queen and the prince were at the king’s bedside when he died. “Three doctors and three nurses, at his bedside almost constantly since the illness began, did all that they could do. [Sic] In vain. The King became unconscious; passed from unconsciousness to death.” The Year of Three Kings The Daily Express on the day after King George V’s death also noted that Princess Elizabeth was now second in line for the throne, after her father Albert, the Duke of York, but that if her uncle Edward, the new King Edward VIII, married and had children those children would take precedence. As it turned out, there were no worries needed in that department.

It’s a bit eerie how in 1935, the king had accurately predicted the fall of his son Edward: “After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself within 12 months.” And he said this about his second son Albert (Bertie) and his beloved granddaughter Elizabeth: “I pray to God my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne.” Before the year was out, as his father had predicted, Edward VIII threw over his throne to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson. They never had children, but any children would not have been in line for the throne after his abdication in any event. When Edward abdicated before the end of 1936, Princess Elizabeth’s father, Albert, became King George VI. And that’s how 1936 came to be referred to as The Year of Three Kings. After Princess Elizabeth’s father King George VI, died in 1953, Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England.

During this year of Our Lord, 2016, which is the year that marked the 80th anniversary of King George V’s death on January 20, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 90th birthday on April 21 to great fanfare. Back in December of 2007, she had passed her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, to become the longest-lived British monarch, and she became the longest-reigning British monarch in September of 2015. She is the longest-reigning queen regnant in the world, and the world’s oldest reigning monarch. Not just for her endurance, but also for her decorous personal life and her high standards of service, her Grandpa England would have been quite pleased. A Catholic Response Some observers characterize the ongoing campaign for euthanasia as a laudable part of the attempt to free our society of all Christian moral principles and to replace what they say are irrational Christian principles with strict adherence to modern day rational opinions of what things are right and wrong.

In contrast, the Catholic Church continues to point to what the Ten Commandments say, “Thou shalt not kill,” repeats that our lives and deaths are in the hands of God, and teaches the unpopular and difficult to swallow truth that our sufferings can be joined with the sufferings of Christ to help redeem the world. To the modern ear it sounds like lunacy when we hear how many saints have told us that if we knew how good sufferings are for us spiritually and how much good that our suffering can do for the salvation of others, we would willingly seek them out. Following for example, is a long quote about the last days of Mother Mary Angelica, founder of EWTN, who was almost unique in our times in her teaching about the value of suffering when it is united with the sufferings of Jesus. She told her biographer, Raymond Arroyo, that the years during which she was unable to talk after a stroke were for her purification. And she wanted to offer her sufferings to help in the redemption of the world. ….

Mother Angelica gave instructions to her caregivers to administer no pain relievers or drugs — despite her increasing suffering — that might unintentionally shorten her life because, as he said, she wanted to consciously suffer and offer her suffering to God. “Most of us would not think that way. We would think, ‘Get me out of here…’ What’s taken out of that picture is the love of God,” said [Father Joseph Mary] Wolfe as reported by AL.com. “Catholics believe that every human life, young or old, healthy or sickly, carefree or suffering, has intrinsic value, meaning, and purpose in the eyes of God. Following St. Paul, who powerfully teaches that Christians actually partner with Christ in his redemptive action by offering their sufferings to God, Catholics see suffering not only as something to be patiently endured, but something that, when lovingly united to Christ, helps to redeem the world. “It was on Good Friday…Mother began to cry out early in the morning from the pain that she was having. She had a fracture in her bones because of the length of time she had been bedridden.

They said you could hear it down the hallways, that she was crying out on Good Friday from what she was going through. “These two people said to me she has excruciating pain. Well, do you know where that word excruciating comes from? Ex, from, cruce, from the cross. Excruciating pain,” he said. Fr. Wolfe said that Mother Angelica saw suffering as an opportunity to make an act of love to God. ‘She saw something that most of us don’t see … that she could say, you don’t know the value of one new offering, one new act of love of God, one suffering that is united to Christ and offered to him. You don’t know the value of that,’ he said.”–“Mother Angelica’s passion: How the EWTN foundress embraced suffering in her final days as a gift to God” Outrage in 1986 and Beyond Euthanasia may seem like a recently trending topic. However, as the killing of the king in 1936 proves, support for euthanasia in one form or another had currency at least among the English upper classes for a lot longer than we might realize.

Support for euthanasia ebbs and flows. By recording what he had done in his notes, Lord Dawson seems to have assumed that history would praise him as having been far-sighted in what he must have thought was his superior wisdom in ending the life of the King for the convenience of everyone around. But in 1986, the public reaction against Dawson’s murder of the King in the name of mercy killing was outrage. What had changed? At the end of the 1930s and the start of the 1940s dawned, many in the United Kingdom and the United States thought that euthanasia would become the norm. But when news of Nazi atrocities against mental patients, handicapped children, and many others who the Nazis thought of as undesirable, including, priests, Poles, and Jews, came out in the late 1940s, the euthanasia movement fell out of favor. Euthanasia proponents found it difficult for some decades afterwards to convince people that the form of euthanasia they supported was not the same as Nazi murder of the unfit, the inconvenient, and the undesired. The topic went underground pretty much for decades.

The kind of euthanasia Dawson practiced and advocated when he spoke against a bill legalizing euthanasia in the House of Lords (as will be described in more detail in my next post on this topic) was involuntary euthanasia, which was the putting to death of a patient by his doctor without the patient’s knowledge and consent. In the late 20th and the start of the 21st century, public support has grown for another form of euthanasia, in which a doctor provides the means for the patient to end his or her own life, which is more correctly called assisted suicide. Public opinion also gradually became more accepting of allowing the doctor to take a patient’s life, upon the request of the patient, which is voluntary euthanasia. Today most people are still opposed to the idea of involuntary euthanasia, as Lord Dawson practiced it, in principle, but first-person stories I’ve heard and experienced about how some hospices and hospitals routinely misuse morphine to induce death seem to indicate that involuntary euthanasia in the name of pain management is quite common and routinely accepted, without being talked about much.

The Truth Was Known, At Least By Some Bizarrely enough, it came out that while Dawson was still alive, there had already been some scuttlebutt about the actual truth behind the so-called peaceful and presumably natural death of the King. In 1986, when the news came out in The Daily Telegraph of what the long-dead physician’s notes revealed, a reader wrote in recalling a doggerel verse that had been in circulation during Dawson’s life: “Lord Dawson of Penn That’s why we sing ‘God Save the King.’” Time Magazine’s cover story of Lord Dawson six years before King George V’s death, on Monday, Sept. 01, 1930, praised his services as the royal physician Stay tuned for more about Lord Dawson and the acceptance of euthanasia among the British upper classes in Euthanasia Story #2, coming soon.

Share this: King George V - Biography - IMDb King George V Biography Showing all 35 items Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (2) | Trivia (21) | Personal Quotes (6) Overview (4) George Frederick Ernest Albert Wettin Height 5' 6" (1.68 m) Mini Bio (1) King George V was born on June 3, 1865 in London, England as George Frederick Ernest Albert Wettin. He was married to Queen Mary . He died on January 20, 1936 in Sandringham, Norfolk, England. Spouse (1) ( 6 July 1893 - 20 January 1936) (his death) (6 children) Trade Mark (2) Trivia (21) King of Great Britain and Ireland, and Emperor of India, from 1910 to 1936. Grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II , Princess Margaret , Edward Windsor , and Duke of Gloucester . George nicknamed Elizabeth "Lillibet"; she affectionately called him "Grandpa England".

Queen Mary had been engaged to George's older brother, but he died before they could wed. So a marriage was arranged between Mary and George. Yet they fell deeply in love, and, in stark contrast to his father, George never took a mistress. In 1924 George V fell ill with bronchitis and influenza, and took a cruise on his yacht to recover. In 1928 he fell seriously ill with septicemia and a blood infection, and his son the Prince of Wales ruled for the next two years as regent in all but name. The King's recovery was slow, particularly since he was allowed to resume smoking just four days after he was brought to hospital by ambulance. Even after he resumed public duties in 1930, he was never to be the same again. In the years leading up to his death he suffered from many ailments including pleurisy, chronic obstructive lung disease, bronchitis and emphysema. Grandson of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert . In 1917, in the most questionable intervention of his reign, he personally forced David Lloyd George to withdraw his offer of asylum to Tsar Nicholas II and his family.

In the last year of his life Geoge V was frequently compared in appearance with Franz Josef . It was a melancholy comparison - the Austro-Hungarian Emperor was 86 when he died, the King not more than 70. He was strongly anti-war and following Benito Mussolini 's invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 declared that he would rather abdicate than lead Britain through another world war. Although as Prince of Wales he had struggled to conceal his contempt for socialism and the Liberal party, as King George V he kept his views hidden in accordance with his position as a constitutional monarch. His closest relationship with a politician was with his Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald . The King was instrumental in persuading MacDonald to lead a coalition government during the financial crisis of 1931. To show his loyalty to the British people, George created the House of Windsor out of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha by royal proclamation in 1917, and ordered his family members to relinquish all claims to their German titles. His coronation as Emperor of India in December 1911 was the last time the Delhi Durbar was held.

Had 6 children: Edward (1894-1972), Albert (1895-1952), Mary (1897-1965), Henry (1900-1974), George (1902-1942), and John (1905-1919). In 1924 he became the first British Royal to have his voice recorded when he opened the British Empire Exhibition. Was the first Crown Prince of England to be allowed to serve in the Royal Navy. His father, King Edward VII, was barred from serving on account of being the Crown Prince. His great-uncle, King William IV, served in the Navy only because he was not actually the original Crown Prince, but became the Heir Apparent upon the death of his brother; George's grandfather; King George IV. Ever since his service, Crown Princes have been expected to serve in the military, and have done so: King Edward VIII, King George VI, and Prince Charles have all served in the Royal Navy. Prince William broke tradition slightly, by serving in the Royal Air Force instead. Was the first sitting British Monarch to visit the United States.

Catholic Pundit Wannabe: When a Royal Physician Killed a King to Get His Death into the Morning News--Euthanasia Story #1 Sunday, May 22, 2016 When a Royal Physician Killed a King to Get His Death into the Morning News--Euthanasia Story #1 Almost thirty years ago, news broke on November 27, 1986 that Queen Elizabeth II's grandfather had been involuntarily euthanized fifty years earlier, on January 20, 1936, when she was nine years old and he was seventy. The deed had been done by the Lord Dawson of Penn, the king's physician. King George V had called her Lilibet. She had called him Grandpa England. The king had been so fond of his oldest granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth, that the Bishop of London, Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, was astonished one day when he arrived for an audience to find the king crawling about with the little princess on all fours.

“P'incess is three,” a Time magazine article on April 1929 about "Princess Lilybet" reported, “No one else except the Queen rides out so often with the King ....” May 16, 1935: nine-year-old Princess Elizabeth waved from the Buckingham Palace balcony during her Grandpa England’s Silver Jubilee celebration, eight months before his death In 1986 when the truth came out about the circumstances leading to the death of her grandfather King George VI, reporters were not able to reach the Queen to find out her reaction. A Buckingham Palace spokesman replied to those who called, “It happened a long time ago, and all those concerned are now dead." A Murder of Convenience Most of the world only came to know about the involuntary euthanasia of the King of England in 1936 because the notes of Lord Dawson, the royal physician who killed the king, were finally revealed by his biographer in 1986. His biographer had discovered those notes when he was writing his life of Lord Dawson in 1950, but he and Lord Dawson’s widow decided not to include the king’s euthanasia in the biography.

King George V’s final words had been publicized as, "How is the Empire?” and his reported words were often repeated with reverence and sorrow for how touching it was that the king was concerned for the health of the realm as he lay dying. But, according to Lord Dawson’s notes, the king’s final words actually had been, "G-d damn you!" and they were addressed to his nurse, while she was injecting him under the supervision of Lord Dawson with a non-fatal dose of morphine to put him to sleep. I wonder, did he curse at his nurse because he suspected what they were going to do? After that first shot of morphine that evening, he never regained consciousness again. The "mercy" killing took place later that evening. At 9:30, Lord Dawson wrote a medical bulletin that declared, ''The King's life is moving peacefully toward its close.” After the king was unconscious, Cosmo Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, came and prayed by the king's bedside. After the Archbishop left, Lord Dawson prepared two fatal injections. The king’s nurse refused to cooperate, so Dawson administered the injections, the first containing three-quarters of a gram of morphine and the second containing one gram of cocaine.

According to his notes, Dawson coolly arranged the king’s death to occur before midnight, in order for the announcement to appear first in the morning edition of The Times and not in some lesser publication later in the day. To make doubly sure the story got into the Times morning edition the next day, Dawson phoned his wife in London during the evening to tell her to alert the Times to hold the press. "At about 11 o'clock it was evident that the last stage might endure for many hours, unknown to the patient but little comporting with the dignity and serenity which he so richly merited and which demanded a brief final scene. Hours of waiting just for the mechanical end when all that is really life has departed only exhausts the onlookers and keeps them so strained that they cannot avail themselves of the solace of thought, communion or prayer. I therefore decided to determine the end and injected (myself) morphia gr. 3/4 and shortly afterwards cocaine gr.

1 into the distended jugular vein [...]"—Lord Dawson’s physician’s notes Lord Dawson's notes also stated that he had been told by Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales, who was to become Edward VIII, that they did not want the King's life needlessly prolonged if his illness was clearly fatal. If I could have been there, I would have pointed out to Lord Dawson that it hardly needs saying that there is a vast moral divide between "needlessly" prolonging a life and matter-of-factly ending a life on time to get the death notice placed in the morning edition of the times. The Times headline the next morning read “A Peaceful Ending at Midnight.” The story “Death of the King” in the middle-brow Daily Express provided lots of details, some of which may have been fanciful. The story reported that the queen and the prince were at the king's bedside when he died. “Three doctors and three nurses, at his bedside almost constantly since the illness began, did all that they could do. [Sic] In vain.

The King became unconscious; passed from unconsciousness to death.” The Year of Three Kings The Daily Express on the day after King George V’s death also noted that Princess Elizabeth was now second in line for the throne, after her father Albert, the Duke of York, but that if her uncle Edward, the new King Edward VIII, married and had children those children would take precedence. As it turned out, there were no worries needed in that department. It’s a bit eerie how in 1935, King George VI had accurately predicted the fall of his son Edward: "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself within 12 months.” And he said this about his second son Albert and his beloved granddaughter Elizabeth: "I pray to God my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne." King Edward VIII threw over his throne to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson before the end of 1936. They never had children, but any children would not have been in line for the throne after his abdication.

When Edward VIII abdicated before the end of 1936, Princess Elizabeth’s father, Albert (Bertie), became King George VI. And that's how 1936 came to be referred to as The Year of Three Kings. After Princess Elizabeth’s father King George VI, died in 1953, Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England. During this year of Our Lord, 2016, which is the same year that marked the 80th anniversary of King George V's death on January 20, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 90th birthday on April 21 to great fanfare. In December of 2007, she had passed her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, to become the longest-lived British monarch, and she became the longest-reigning British monarch in September of 2015. She is the longest-reigning queen regnant in the world, and the world's oldest reigning monarch. Not just for her endurance, but also for her decorous personal life and her high standards of service, her Grandpa England would have been quite pleased.

The Catholic Response Some observers characterize the ongoing campaign for euthanasia as a laudable part of the attempt to free our society of all Christian moral principles and to replace what they say are irrational Christian principles with strict adherence to modern day rational opinions of what things are right and wrong. In contrast, the Catholic Church continues to point to what the Ten Commandments say, "Thou shalt not kill," repeats that our lives and deaths are in the hands of God, and teaches the unpopular and difficult truth that our sufferings can be joined with the sufferings of Christ to help redeem the world. To the modern ear it sounds like lunacy when we hear how many saints have told us that if we knew how good sufferings are for us spiritually and how much good that our suffering can do for the salvation of others, we would willingly seek them out. Following for example, is a long quote about the last days of Mother Mary Angelica, founder of EWTN, who was almost unique in our times in her teaching about the value of suffering that is united with the sufferings of Jesus. ....

Mother Angelica gave instructions to her caregivers to administer no pain relievers or drugs — despite her increasing suffering — that might unintentionally shorten her life because, as he said, she wanted to consciously suffer and offer her suffering to God. “Most of us would not think that way. We would think, 'Get me out of here...' What's taken out of that picture is the love of God,” said [Father Joseph Mary] Wolfe as reported by AL.com. "Catholics believe that every human life, young or old, healthy or sickly, carefree or suffering, has intrinsic value, meaning, and purpose in the eyes of God. Following St. Paul, who powerfully teaches that Christians actually partner with Christ in his redemptive action by offering their sufferings to God, Catholics see suffering not only as something to be patiently endured, but something that, when lovingly united to Christ, helps to redeem the world. "It was on Good Friday…Mother began to cry out early in the morning from the pain that she was having. She had a fracture in her bones because of the length of time she had been bedridden.

They said you could hear it down the hallways, that she was crying out on Good Friday from what she was going through. "These two people said to me she has excruciating pain. Well, do you know where that word excruciating comes from? Ex, from, cruce, from the cross. Excruciating pain,” he said. Fr. Wolfe said that Mother Angelica saw suffering as an opportunity to make an act of love to God. 'She saw something that most of us don't see ... that she could say, you don't know the value of one new offering, one new act of love of God, one suffering that is united to Christ and offered to him. You don't know the value of that,' he said."--" Mother Angelica’s passion: How the EWTN foundress embraced suffering in her final days as a gift to God " Outrage in 1986 and Beyond Euthanasia may seem like a recently trending topic. However, as the killing of the king in 1936 proves, support for euthanasia in one form or another had currency at least among the English upper classes for a lot longer than we might realize.

Support for euthanasia ebbs and flows. By recording what he had done in his notes, Lord Dawson seems to have assumed that history would praise him as having been far-sighted in what he must have thought was his superior wisdom in ending the life of the King for the convenience of everyone around. But in 1986, the public reaction against Dawson’s murder of the King in the name of mercy killing was outrage. What had changed? At the end of the 1930s and the start of the 1940s dawned, many in the United Kingdom and the United States thought that euthanasia would become the norm. But when news of Nazi atrocities against mental patients, handicapped children, and many others who the Nazis thought of as undesirable, including, priests, Poles, and Jews, came out in the late 1940s, the euthanasia movement fell out of favor. Euthanasia proponents found it difficult for some decades afterwards to convince people that the form of euthanasia they supported was not the same as Nazi murder of the unfit, the inconvenient, and the undesired. The topic went underground pretty much for decades.

The kind of euthanasia Dawson practiced and advocated when he spoke against a bill legalizing euthanasia in the House of Lords (as will be described in more detail in my next post on this topic) was involuntary euthanasia, which was the putting to death of a patient by his doctor without the patient's knowledge and consent. In the late 20th and the start of the 21st century, public support has grown for another form of euthanasia, in which a doctor provides the means for the patient to end his or her own life, which is more correctly called assisted suicide. Public opinion also gradually became more accepting of allowing the doctor to take a patient's life, upon the request of the patient, which is voluntary euthanasia. Today most people are still opposed to the idea of involuntary euthanasia, as Lord Dawson practiced it, in principle, but first-person stories I've heard and experienced about how some hospices and hospitals routinely misuse morphine to induce death seem to indicate that involuntary euthanasia in the name of pain management is quite common and routinely accepted, without being talked about much.

The Truth Was Known, At Least By Some Bizarrely enough, it came out that while Dawson was still alive, there had already been some scuttlebutt about the actual truth behind the so-called peaceful and presumably natural death of the King. In 1986, when the news came out in The Daily Telegraph of what the long-dead physician's notes revealed, a reader wrote in recalling a doggerel verse that had been in circulation during Dawson's life: “Lord Dawson of Penn George V | Royal Family Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia 29 January 1936 St George's Chapel, Windsor George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 - 20 January 1936) was the first British monarch belonging to the House of Windsor, as a result of his creating it from the British branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. As well as being King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (from 1927, split into King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and King of Ireland) and the Commonwealth Realms, George was also the Emperor of India.

George reigned from 6 May 1910 through World War I (1914-1918) until his death in 1936. King George V is remembered for his role in World War I, during which he relinquished all German titles and styles on behalf of his relatives who were British subjects; and changed the name of the royal house from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. Another significant event in his reign was the passing of the Statute of Westminster which separated the crown so that George ruled the dominions as separate kingdoms. Contents Edit George was born on 3 June 1865, at Marlborough House, London. His father was The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. His mother was The Princess of Wales (later Queen Alexandra), the eldest daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark. As a grandson of Queen Victoria in the male line, George was styled His Royal Highness Prince George of Wales at birth.

He was baptised in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle on 7 July 1865 and his godparents were the King of Hanover, the Queen and Crown Prince of Denmark, the Prince of Leiningen, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Alice and the Duke of Cambridge. [1] As a younger son of the Prince of Wales, there was no expectation that George would become King as his elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, was second in line to the throne after their father. Education Edit Given that George was born only fifteen months after his brother Prince Albert Victor, it was decided to educate both royal princes together. The Prince of Wales appointed John Neale Dalton as their tutor, although neither excelled intellectually. In September 1877 both brothers joined the training ship HMS Britannia at Dartmouth. [2] For three years from 1879 the royal brothers served as midshipmen on HMS Bacchante, accompanied by Dalton. They toured the British Empire, visiting Norfolk, Virginia, the colonies in the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia, as well as the Mediterranean, South America, the Far East and Egypt.

Dalton wrote an account of their journey entitled The Cruise of HMS Bacchante. [3] Between Melbourne and Sydney, Dalton records a sighting of the Flying Dutchman (see entry for full account of sighting). When they returned to the UK, the brothers were parted with Albert Victor attending Trinity College, Cambridge and George continuing in the Royal Navy. He travelled the world and visited many areas of the British Empire, serving actively in the navy until his last command in 1891. From then on his naval rank was largely honorary. [4] Marriage Edit As a young man destined to serve in the Navy, Prince George served for many years under the command of his uncle, Prince Alfred, who was stationed in Malta. There, he grew close to and fell in love with his uncle's daughter, his first cousin, Marie of Edinburgh. His grandmother, his father and his uncle all approved the match, but the mothers, the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Edinburgh both opposed it. When George proposed, Marie refused, guided by her mother. She later became Queen of Romania.

[5] In 1891, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence became engaged to his second cousin once removed, Princess Victoria Mary of Teck (always called "May"), the only daughter of Prince Francis, Duke of Teck and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge. However, Albert Victor died of pneumonia six weeks later, leaving George second in line to the throne and likely to succeed after his father. [6] This effectively ended George's naval career. Queen Victoria still favoured Princess May as a suitable candidate to marry a future king, so she persuaded George to propose to May. George duly proposed, and May accepted. This arranged marriage was a success, and unlike his father, George reportedly did not take a mistress. [6] Throughout their lives the couple exchanged notes of endearment and loving letters. The marriage of George and May took place on 6 July 1893 at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace in London. It was claimed that at the wedding, the crowd were confused as to who was the Duke of York (later George V) and who was the Tsarevitch (later Nicholas II) of Russia, because their beards and dress made them look alike superficially.

[7] However, their remaining facial features were quite different. [8] Duke of York Edit In 1892, Queen Victoria created George, Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney. After George's marriage to Mary, she was styled Her Royal Highness The Duchess of York. The Duke and Duchess of York lived mainly at York Cottage [9] , Sandringham, Norfolk a relatively small house where their way of life mirrored that of a comfortable middle-class family rather than grand royalty. George preferred the simple, almost quiet, life in marked contrast to his parents.

Even his official biographer dispaired of George's time as Duke of York, writing: "He may be all right as a young midshipman and a wise old king, but when he was Duke of York...he did nothing at all but shoot animals and stick in stamps." [10] It has been claimed that George was a very strict father, to the extent that his children were terrified of him, and he is said to have remarked, "My father was frightened of his mother, I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me." In reality there is no direct source for the quote and it is likely that his parenting style was little different to that adopted by most people at the time. [11] As Duke and Duchess of York, George and May carried out a wide variety of public duties. In 1901, they toured the British Empire, visiting Australia, where the Duke opened the first session of the Australian Parliament upon the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Their tour also included South Africa, Canada, and New Zealand, where (as they were now the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York) Cornwall Park in Auckland was named in their honour by its donor, John Logan Campbell, then Mayor of Auckland. Prince of Wales Edit On 22 January, 1901, Queen Victoria died, and George's father, Albert Edward, ascended the throne as King Edward VII. At that point George inherited the titles of Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay. For the rest of that year, George was styled His Royal Highness The Duke of Cornwall and York, until 9 November 1901 when he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. King Edward VII wished his son to have more preparation and experience prior to his future role. In contrast with Queen Victoria, who excluded Edward from state affairs, George was given wide access to state documents and papers. He often read over the papers with his wife, whose intellect was considerably broader than his. May often helped write her husband's speeches.

King Edit In 1911, the King and Queen travelled to India for the Delhi Durbar on December 12, where they were presented to an assembled audience of Indian dignitaries and princes, as the Emperor and Empress of India. George wore the newly-created Imperial Crown of India at the ceremony. Later, the Emperor and Empress travelled throughout India, visiting their new subjects. George took the opportunity to indulge in hunting tigers, shooting 36. [12] Also during one season in Sandringham he shot 1,209 pheasants. World War I Edit As King and Queen, George and Mary saw Britain through World War I, a difficult time for the Royal Family, as they had many German relatives. Although a female-line great granddaughter of King George III, Queen Mary was the daughter of the Duke of Teck, a morganatic section of the Royal House of Württemberg. King George's paternal grandfather was Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; the King and his children bore the titles Prince and Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke and Duchess of Saxony.

The German Emperor Wilhelm II, who for the British public came to symbolise all the horrors of the war, was the king's first cousin, "Willy." The King had brothers-in-law and cousins who were British subjects but who bore German titles such as Duke and Duchess of Teck, Prince and Princess of Battenberg, Prince and Princess of Hesse and by Rhine, and Prince and Princess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sønderburg-Augustenberg. Writer H G Wells wrote about Britain's "alien and uninspiring court", and George famously replied: "I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien." [13] ) On 7 July 1917, George V issued an Order in Council that changed the name of the British Royal House from the German-sounding House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the House of Windsor, to appease British nationalist feelings. He specifically adopted Windsor as the surname for all descendants of Queen Victoria then living in the United Kingdom, excluding females who married into other families and their descendants.

[14] Finally, on behalf of his various relatives who were British subjects he relinquished the use of all German titles and styles, and adopted British-sounding surnames. George compensated several of his male relatives by creating them British peers. Thus, overnight his cousin, Prince Louis of Battenberg, became Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, while his brother-in-law, the Duke of Teck, became Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge. Others, such as Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein and Princess Helena Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein , simply stopped using their territorial designations. In Letters Patent gazetted on 11 December 1917, the King restricted the style "His (or Her) Royal Highness" and the titular dignity of "Prince (or Princess) of Great Britain and Ireland" to the children of the Sovereign, the children of the sons of the Sovereign, and the eldest living son of the eldest living son of a Prince of Wales.

[15] The Letters Patent also stated that "the titles of Royal Highness, Highness or Serene Highness, and the titular dignity of Prince and Princess shall cease except those titles already granted and remaining unrevoked." Relatives of the British Royal Family who fought on the German side, such as Prince Ernst August of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale (the senior male-line great grandson of George III) and Prince Carl Eduard, Duke of Albany and the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (a male line grandson of Queen Victoria), were simply cut off; their British peerages were suspended by a 1919 Order in Council under the provisions of the Titles Deprivation Act 1917. George also removed their garter flags from St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle under pressure from his mother, Queen Alexandra.

When Tsar Nicholas II of Russia , a first cousin of George through his mother, Queen Alexandra (Nicholas II's mother was Queen Alexandra's sister) was overthrown in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the British Government offered asylum to the Tsar and his family but worsening conditions for the British people, and fears that revolution might come to the British Isles, led George to think that the presence of the Romanovs might seem inappropriate under the circumstances. [16] Despite the later claims of Lord Mountbatten of Burma that Lloyd George, the great Liberal, was opposed to the rescue of the Romanovs, records of the King's private secretary, Lord Stamfordham , suggest that George V opposed the rescue against the advice of Lloyd George. Advanced planning for a rescue was undertaken by MI1, a branch of the British secret service, [17] but possibly because of a strengthening of the Bolshevik guard, the plan was never put into operation. The Tsar and his immediate family thus remained in Russia and were murdered by Bolshevik revolutionaries in Yekaterinburg in 1918. Later life Edit During and after World War I, many of the monarchies which had ruled most European countries fell.

In addition to Russia, the monarchies of Austria, Germany, Greece, and Spain also fell to revolution and war, although the Greek monarchy was restored again shortly before George's death. Most of these countries were ruled by relatives of George. In 1922, a Royal Navy ship was sent to Greece to rescue his cousins, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg and their children, including Prince Philip , who would later marry George's granddaughter, Elizabeth II . George also took an interest in the political turmoil in Ireland, expressing his horror at government-sanctioned killings and reprisals to Prime Minister Lloyd George. [18] During the General Strike of 1926 the King took exception to suggestions that the strikers were 'revolutionaries' saying, "Try living on their wages before you judge them." [19] He also advised the Government against taking inflammatory action. [20] In 1932 George agreed to deliver a Royal Christmas speech on the radio, an event which was to become an annual event. He wasn't in favour of the innovation originally but was persuaded by the argument that it was what his people wanted.

[21] By the silver jubilee of his reign in 1935, he had become a well-loved king, saying in response to the crowd's adulation, "I cannot understand it, after all I am only a very ordinary sort of fellow." [22] But George's relationship with his heir, Prince Edward deteriorated in these later years. George was disappointed in Edward's failure to settle down in life and disgusted by his many affairs with married women. He was reluctant to see Edward inherit the crown. In contrast, he was fond of his second eldest son, Prince Albert (later George VI) and doted on his eldest granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth ; he nicknamed her "Lilibet", and she affectionately called him "Grandpa England". George was quoted as saying about his son Edward: "After I am dead the boy will ruin himself in 12 months," and later about Albert and Lilibet: "I pray to God that my eldest son Edward will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne." [23] Death Edit World War I took its toll on George's health, which began to deteriorate.

He had always had a weak chest, a weakness exacerbated by heavy smoking. A bout of illness saw him retire to the sea, by Bognor Regis in West Sussex. [24] A myth later grew that the King's last words, upon being told that he would soon be well enough to revisit Bognor Regis, were "bugger Bognor!" [25] [26] George never fully recovered his health. In the evening of 15 January 1936, the King took to his bedroom at Sandringham House complaining of a cold, he would never leave the room alive. [27] The King became gradually weaker, drifting in and out of consciousness. The diary of his physician, Lord Dawson of Penn , reveals that the King’s last words, a mumbled "God damn you!", were addressed to his nurse when she gave him a sedative on the night of the 20 January. When the King was already comatose and close to death, Dawson hastened the King’s end by giving him a lethal injection of cocaine and morphine, both to prevent further strain on the family and so that the news of his death could be announced in the morning edition of The Times newspaper.

[28] [29] He died between 11.45 p.m. and 12.10 a.m., and is buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. At the King's lying in state in Westminster Hall, his four surviving sons, King Edward VIII , the Duke of York , the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent , mounted the guard at the catafalque on the night of 28 January, the day before the funeral as a mark of respect to their father. At the procession to George’s Lying in State, as the cortege turned into New Palace Yard, the Maltese Cross had fallen from the Imperial Crown and landed in the gutter. The new King, Edward VIII , saw it fall and wondered whether this was a bad omen. [30] [31] He would abdicate before the year was out. Titles, styles, honours and arms King George V - IMDb IMDb View rank on IMDbPro » King George V (1865–1936) King George V was born on June 3, 1865 in London, England as George Frederick Ernest Albert Wettin. He was married to Queen Mary .

He died on January 20, 1936 in Sandringham, Norfolk, England. See full bio » Born: a list of 72 people created 09 Dec 2010 a list of 729 people created 13 Jun 2014 a list of 92 people created 30 Jan 2015 a list of 152 people created 1 month ago Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of King George V's work have you seen? Known For Views in Calcutta, India Himself - King of England (1912) 1962 Biography (TV Series documentary) Himself 1922 Bezoek van de koning en de koningin van Engeland (Documentary) Himself 1914 Cambridgeshire Race Meet (Documentary short) Himself 1912 Delhi Durbar (Documentary short) Himself 1910 The Opening of Parliament (Documentary short) Himself 1908 H.R.H.

The Prince of Wales Decorating the Monument of Champlain and Receiving Addresses of Welcome from the Mayor of Quebec, the Governor General of Canada and Vice President Fairbanks, Representative of the United States (Documentary short) Himself - Prince of Wales 1901 Duke and Duchess of York Marching Through the Streets of Montreal (Documentary short) Himself Himself (as Duke of York) Hide 2014 Commonwealth Games (TV Series) Himself 2014 Apocalypse: World War I (TV Mini-Series documentary) Himself - Délivrance (2014) ... Himself (as George V) - Rage (2014) ... Himself (as George V) - Enfer (2014) ... Himself (as George V) - Peur (2014) ... Himself (as George V) - Furie (2014) ...

Himself (as George V) 2013 Doomsday (TV Mini-Series documentary) Himself 2012 The Diamond Queen (TV Series documentary) Himself 2009 Revealed (TV Series documentary) Himself 2007 Monarchy with David Starkey (TV Series documentary) Himself 2007 Hitler's Favourite Royal (TV Movie documentary) Himself 2007 Infamous Assassinations (TV Series) Himself 2005 Edouard VIII d'Angleterre (TV Movie documentary) Himself 2005 Churchill's Bodyguard (TV Series documentary) Himself 2003 World War 1 in Colour (TV Mini-Series documentary) Himself 2003 A Royal Family (TV Mini-Series documentary) Himself 2002 The Real ....

(TV Series documentary) Himself 2002 The Real George V (TV Movie documentary) Himself 1999 The Century: America's Time (TV Mini-Series documentary) Himself 1995 Kicking & Screaming (TV Series documentary) Himself 1994 American Experience (TV Series documentary) Himself 1991 The Shadow of Béalnabláth (TV Movie documentary) Himself - in Belfast (uncredited) 1989 The Road to War (TV Mini-Series documentary) Himself 1985 End of Empire (TV Series documentary) Himself 1976 Mussolini (TV Mini-Series documentary) Himself 1964 Men of Our Time (TV Series documentary) Himself 1956 Project XX (TV Series documentary) Himself - British Monarch 1953 Nostradamus Says So!

(Documentary short) Himself (uncredited) 1952 The Hoaxters (Short documentary) Himself 1 Biographical Movie | 10 Portrayals | 1 Magazine Cover Photo | See more » Official Sites: Duke of Cornwall | George V | Prince of Wales | Duke of Cornwall and York | Duke of York Height: Did You Know? Personal Quote: I pray to God my eldest son will never marry and have children and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne. (1935) See more » Trivia: Grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II , Princess Margaret , Edward Windsor , and Duke of Gloucester . George nicknamed Elizabeth "Lillibet"; she affectionately called him "Grandpa England".

See more » Trademark: King Edward VIII abdication | Lisa's History Room Posted in King George V , King George VI , PEOPLE , Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mum , ROYALTY/NOBILITY , tagged Adolf Hitler , biographies of royalty , British Royal Family/Nobles , Charles Bedaux , King Edward VIII abdication , King George V , Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mum , the Duke and Duchess of Windsor , Wallis Warfield Simpson on October 2, 2009 | 7 Comments » 1936 The Year of Three British Kings: dad George V and his 2 sons - George VI & Edward VIII The year 1936 brought many changes within the British monarchy. In January of that year, the first monarch of the House of Windsor, King George V, died and his son, Edward VIII ascended the throne. King Edward VIII though was not destined to rule long. He had a married American mistress – Wallis Warfield Simpson – who was in the process of divorcing her second husband. The King’s choice of sweetheart would soon bring him tumbling down. Wallis Warfield Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (1896-1986).

Wallis' second husband Ernest Simpson couldn't keep her happy. She was accustomed to a grander style of living than he was capable of providing. They were living well beyond their means and having to fire servants when, in 1931, she was introduced to the playboy Prince of Wales, who ascended to the British throne in 1936 as King Edward VIII. The King - called "David" by his friends and family - dropped all his other married girlfriends and became obsessed with Wallis, showering her with jewels and clothes and taking her on expensive ocean cruises - while she was still Mrs. Married Simpson. The King shocked the nation – already reeling from the King’s scandalous behavior of appearing in the society pages with Mrs. Simpson – by announcing that he planned to marry Mrs. Simpson. The British people and the government would never have accepted Mrs. Simpson as their queen. Divorced people were not accepted at court, especially ones with two living ex-husbands. Although the King was not forbidden to marry Mrs. Simpson, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin advised him, on religious and political grounds, that he must make a choice between the throne and marrying Mrs.

Simpson – or the government would resign. By December 1936, King Edward had made his decision. He used his power to expedite Wallis’ divorce from Ernest Simpson [divorces took years back then] then, declared to his kingdom – the United Kingdom, Canada, and India – that it was impossible to carry out his duties “without the help and support of the woman I love,” and gave up the throne. Edward became the only monarch in the history of Great Britain to voluntarily abdicate. Edward’s younger brother, King George VI, then ascended the throne. Edward did marry Wallis and they became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, settling in France until World War II began. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon [pictured] was Wallis’ sister-in-law. She was married to King George VI, the Duke of Windsor’s younger brother who ascended the throne following his 1936 abdication. Elizabeth was known as “The Queen Mum” in later years, after King George VI died in 1952 and their daughter, “Lilibet,” became Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Elizabeth II’s mother – also called Queen Elizabeth when she was queen – died in 2002 at the age of 101. The Queen Mum hated Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor, and was determined that Wallis would never reenter British society after causing the abdication crisis. She also blamed the Duke and Wallis for the premature death of her husband George VI in 1952 upon the stress of his reign as king – again, because of her brother-in-law’s abdication to marry Wallis. Wallis wasn’t so happy with the Queen herself and returned her hostile sentiments, ridiculing the Queen’s fussy style of confectionary dress by nicknaming her “Cake.” Wallis had never forgotten the snub that King George VI gave her – at his wife Queen Elizabeth’s insistence – of refusing to allow Wallis to be referred to as “Her Royal Highness.” The abdication and the subsequent exile to France of the newly titled Duke and Duchess of Windsor turned out to be a gigantic blessing for the UK, because, by September of 1939, Great Britain would declare war on Nazi Germany.

It was a good thing King Edward VIII had been replaced with the level-headed King George VI and his queen, Queen Elizabeth (known later as the Queen Mum). They had the good sense to see the threat a Nazi Germany presented and the courage to lead the British people through the terrible bombings of Great Britain by the Nazis. King George VI began his reign as a reluctant king. He was a nervous man with a pronounced stutter who never wanted to rule. But, with Queen Elizabeth by his side, they were able to summon the strength from God and selves to help the British people endure the war and oppose the Nazi regime. “When war broke out in 1939, George VI and his wife resolved to stay in London and not flee to Canada, as had been suggested. The King and Queen officially stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the war, although they usually spent nights at Windsor Castle to avoid bombing raids. George VI and Queen Elizabeth narrowly avoided death when two German bombs exploded in a courtyard at Buckingham Palace while they were there.” So, as history would have it, Great Britain owes an enormous debt to Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor, for spiriting the Duke away before he could do any real harm.

At the time, it seemed a great sadness for the Duke to have to give up the throne because convention wouldn’t allow for him to be married to the Duchess. But now we know that it would have been a disaster for him to be King during World War II. Because, as it turned out, both he and the Duchess were Nazi sympathizers. They held their wedding ceremony at the Chateau de Cande in Mont, France, the home of Nazi collaborator Charles Bedaux. Within months, Bedaux had arranged for them to travel to Germany to dine with Adolf Hitler. It was widely believed that Hitler planned to install the Duke back on the British throne after the Germans had conquered England. The Duke was desperate for a kingdom and made no secret of his fondness for fascism. Fortunately,the Duke’s brother, the King, got wind of his brother’s nefarious activities and schemes and, at the start of the War, whisked him and the Duchess off to a British island [the Bahamas] far out in the Caribbean. Had Edward been the British monarch during WWII, not George VI, we might today to looking at a frighteningly different world order. King George V, the Duke of Windsor’s father, never thought much of his son David.

He was disgusted by his son’s playboy ways and inability to grow up and settle down. The King [George V] was reluctant to see Edward inherit the Crown, and was quoted as saying of Edward [the Duke of Windsor]:”After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in 12 months.” George V knew his son well. King Edward VIII…or “David,” the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Windsor, – he had so many names, it can be so confusing – was self-indulgent to the point of self-destruction. King Edward VIII’s reign as monarch was one of the shortest in British history, lasting only 325 days, or about 11 months, one month less than his father had so sagely predicted. Edward never did have a coronation ceremony. He was never crowned king.

Readers, for more on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor on this blog: King George V | Britroyals Full Name: George Frederick Ernest Albert Born: June 3, 1865 at Marlborough House, London Parents: Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark Relation to Elizabeth II: grandfather House of: Windsor Ascended to the throne: May 6, 1910 aged 44 years Crowned: June 22, 1911 at Westminster Abbey Married: Mary, the daughter of the Duke of Teck Children: Five sons including Edward VIII and George VI, and one daughter Died: January 20, 1936 at Sandringham, Norfolk, aged 70 years, 7 months, and 16 days Buried at: Windsor Reigned for: 25 years, 8 months, and 15 days Succeeded by: his son Edward VIII George V was the second son of Edward VII. His mother was Alexandra of Denmark, sister of Empress Marie of Russia.

He joined the Royal Navy aged 12 and served until 1892 when he became heir to the throne on the death of his elder brother Albert, Duke of Clarence, who died of pneumonia. In 1893, he married Princess Victoria Mary of Teck (known as �May� to her family) who had previously been engaged to his brother. They became Duke and Duchess of York and lived on the Sandringham Estate, in Norfolk. The marriage was a success and George unlike his father never took a mistress. They had 6 children Edward, Albert, Mary, Henry, George and John. The youngest Prince John suffered from epilepsy and died aged 13. He became King George V on the death of his father Edward VII in 1910, and Mary became Queen consort. They toured India in 1911 as Emperor and Empress of India. During World War I he made several visits to the front, and Mary visited wounded serviceman in hospital.

She was staunch supporter of her husband during difficult times that included not only the war with Germany, but also the Russian revolution and murder of George�s cousin Princess Alix who was Tsarina Alexandra wife of Tsar Nicholas II, civil unrest including the General Strike in England, the rise of socialism, and Irish and Indian nationalism. George V has been criticised for not rescuing the Russian Royal family but at the time there was serious concern that it would incite a similar revolution in the UK. He sent a ship in 1922 to rescue the Greek Royal family including 1 year old Prince Philip now the Duke of Edinburgh. In 1917 with anti-German sentiment running high, he changed the family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (popularly known as Brunswick or Hanover) to Windsor, and he relinquished all German titles and family connections. George V enjoyed stamp collecting and although considered dull by biographers he became by his Silver Jubilee in 1935 a much loved King. In 1932 he started the tradition of the Royal Christmas broadcast which has continued ever since.

His relationship deteriorated with this eldest son Edward (later Edward VIII) when he failed to settle down and had affairs with married women, but he was fond of his second son Albert (�Bertie� later George VI) and his granddaughter Elizabeth (later Elizabeth II) whom he called �Lilibet�. She called him �Grandpa England�. He died of pleurisy in January 1936. King George V's Signature Quotes: �After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months� � George V (about his son Edward who became Edward VIII) �Try living on their wages before you judge them� � George V (taking exception to the suggestion that workers involved in the General Strike were revolutionaries) �I cannot understand it, after all I am only a very ordinary sort of fellow� � George V (on adulation from cheering crowds at his Silver Jubilee) Timeline for King George V Year

Question: Which British monarch said of his son ‘After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in 12 months’?
Answer: King George V