George V (George Frederick
Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom
and the British Dominions,
and Emperor of India, from 1910
through World War I (1914–1918) until
his death in 1936. He was the first
British monarch of the
House of Windsor, which he created from the
British branch of the German
House of Saxe-Coburg and
Gotha.
From the age of twelve George served in the
Royal Navy, but upon the unexpected death of his
elder brother,
Prince
Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, he became heir to
the throne and married his brother's fiancée,
Mary of Teck (known as "May" to her family
after her birth month). Although they occasionally toured the
British Empire, George preferred to
stay at home with his stamp collection and lived what later
biographers would consider a dull life because of its
conventionality.
George became King-Emperor in 1910 on the death of his father, King
Edward VII. George
was the only Emperor of India to be present at his own
Delhi Durbar, where he appeared before his
Indian subjects crowned with the
Imperial Crown of India, created
specially for the occasion. During World War I 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 and Gotha to Windsor. During his reign, the
Statute of Westminster separated
the crown so that George ruled the
dominions as separate kingdoms, preparing the way
for the future development of the
Commonwealth. His reign also
witnessed the rise of
socialism,
communism,
fascism,
Irish republicanism, and the
first
Labour ministry, all of
which radically changed the political spectrum.
George was plagued by illness throughout much of his later reign;
he was succeeded by his eldest son,
Edward.
Early life and education
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 and 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.
George as a young boy, 1870
He was
baptised in the private chapel of Windsor Castle
on 7 July 1865, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Thomas Longley. 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. 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 Albert Victor nor George excelled intellectually.
In
September 1877, both brothers joined the training ship HMS Britannia at
Dartmouth
. Their father thought that the navy was "the
very best possible training for any boy".
For three years from 1879 the royal brothers served as midshipmen
on
HMS Bacchante,
accompanied by Dalton.
They toured the colonies of the British Empire in the Caribbean
, South Africa and Australia, and visited Norfolk,
Virginia
, as well as
South America, the Mediterranean
, Egypt
, and the
Far East. In Japan, George had a
local artist tattoo a blue and red dragon on his arm. Dalton wrote
an account of their journey entitled
The Cruise of HMS
Bacchante. Between Melbourne and Sydney, Dalton records a
sighting of the
Flying Dutchman, a
mythical ghost ship.
When they returned to Britain, the brothers
were separated; Albert Victor attended Trinity College,
Cambridge
, while George continued in the Royal Navy. He travelled the world,
visited many areas of the British Empire, and served actively until
his last command in 1891. From then on his naval rank was largely
honorary.
Marriage
George, 1893
As a young
man destined to serve in the navy, Prince George served for many
years under the command of his uncle, Prince Alfred, Duke of
Edinburgh, 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, father and uncle all approved the
match, but the mothers, the Princess of Wales and
the Duchess of Edinburgh, both
opposed it. The Princess of Wales thought the family was too
pro-German, and the Duchess of Edinburgh disliked England. When
George proposed, Marie refused, guided by her mother. She later
became
Queen of Romania.
In 1891, Albert Victor became engaged to his
second cousin once removed,
Princess Victoria Mary of Teck (known as "May"
to her family, after her birth month), 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. This
effectively ended George's naval career, as he was now expected to
assume a more political role.
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.
The marriage of George and May took place on
6 July 1893 at the Chapel Royal,
St. James's
Palace
in London. The marriage was a success and
throughout their lives the couple exchanged notes of endearment and
loving letters.
Duke of York
On 24 May 1892, Queen Victoria created George,
Duke of York,
Earl
of Inverness and
Baron
Killarney. After George's marriage to May, she was styled
Her Royal Highness The Duchess of York.
The Duke
and Duchess of York lived mainly at York Cottage, a relatively
small house in Sandringham
, Norfolk where their way of
life mirrored that of a comfortable middle-class family rather than
royalty. George preferred the simple, almost quiet, life in
marked contrast to his parents. Even his official biographer
despaired 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 kill [
i.e.
shoot] animals and stick in stamps."
George was a well-known
stamp
collector, and played a large role in building the
Royal Philatelic Collection into
the most comprehensive collection of United Kingdom and
Commonwealth stamps in the world, in some cases setting record
purchase prices for items. His enthusiasm for stamps was denigrated
by the
intelligentsia.
Randolph Churchill claimed that
George was a strict father, to the extent that his children were
terrified of him, and that George had remarked to
Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of
Derby: "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 quotation and it is likely that George's
parenting style was little different from that adopted by most
people at the time. George and May had five sons and a
daughter.
Prince of Wales
Duke of York at Montreal and Quebec,
1901
As Duke and Duchess of York, George and May carried out a wide
variety of public duties. On the death of
Queen Victoria on 22 January
1901, George's father, Albert Edward, ascended the throne as King
Edward VII. George inherited the titles of
Duke of Cornwall and
Duke of Rothesay, and for much of the rest
of that year, George was styled
His Royal Highness The Duke of
Cornwall and York. In 1901, George and May toured the
British Empire.
Their tour included
South Africa, Canada
, the
Colony of Newfoundland and
New
Zealand
, where Cornwall Park
in Auckland
was named in their honour by its donor, John Logan Campbell, then Mayor of
Auckland. In
Australia the Duke
opened the first session of the
Australian Parliament upon the
creation of the Commonwealth of Australia.
On 9 November 1901, George 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 to Edward himself, whom
Queen Victoria had excluded
from state affairs, George was given wide access to state documents
and papers by his father. George in turn allowed his wife access to
his papers, as he valued her counsel and May often helped write her
husband's speeches.
In 1906, he toured
British India,
where he was disgusted by racial discrimination and campaigned for
greater involvement of Indians in the government of the
country.
King and Emperor
On 6 May 1910,
King
Edward VII died, and the Prince of Wales ascended to the
throne, becoming King George V. George had never liked his wife's
habit of signing official documents and letters as "Victoria Mary"
and insisted she drop one of those names. Neither thought she
should be called Queen Victoria, and so she became Queen Mary.
Their
coronation took place at Westminster
Abbey
on 22 June 1911. The coronation was
celebrated by the
Festival of
Empire in London.
Later in 1911, the King and Queen travelled to India for the
Delhi Durbar, 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. Then the Emperor and Empress travelled throughout India,
visiting their new subjects. George took the opportunity to indulge
in hunting
tigers, shooting 21. He was a keen
marksman. On 18 December 1913, he shot over a thousand
pheasants in six hours at the home of
Lord Burnham, although even he had to
acknowledge that "we went a little too far" that day.
World War I
From 1914
to 1918 Britain was at war with Germany
. The German Kaiser
Wilhelm II, who for the British
public came to symbolise all the horrors of the war, was the King's
first cousin. Queen Mary, although British like her mother, was the
daughter of the
Duke of Teck, a
descendant of the German
Royal House of Württemberg.
The King's paternal grandfather was
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and
Gotha; the King and his children bore the titles Prince and
Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke and Duchess of Saxony.
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-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. When
H. G. Wells wrote about Britain's "alien and
uninspiring court", George famously replied: "I may be uninspiring,
but I'll be damned if I'm alien."
On 17 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 and 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 women
who married into other families and their descendants.
Finally, he and his various relatives who were British subjects
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.
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 and
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, George's first cousin (their mothers were sisters), 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. Despite the later claims of
Lord
Mountbatten of Burma that
David
Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, 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, but
because of the strengthening Bolshevik position and wider
difficulties with the conduct of the war, the plan was never put
into operation. The Tsar and his immediate family thus remained in
Russia and were murdered by
Bolshevik
revolutionaries in 1918. The following year, Nicholas's mother
(George's aunt)
Maria Feodorovna and
other members of the extended Russian imperial family were rescued
from the Crimea by British ships.
Two months after the end of the war, the King's youngest son,
John, died aged 13
after a short lifetime of ill-health. George was informed of the
death by the Queen who wrote, "[John] had been a great anxiety to
us for many years…The first break in the family circle is hard to
bear but people have been so kind & sympathetic & this has
helped us much."
Later life
King George V in 1923
During and after World War I, many of the monarchies which had
ruled most of Europe 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 (a nephew of
Queen
Alexandra through her brother King
George I of Greece) and
Princess Alice of Battenberg (a
daughter of
Prince Louis of
Battenberg, one of the German princes granted a British peerage
in 1917). Their children included
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. 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." He also advised the Government against
taking inflammatory action.
In 1932, George agreed to deliver a
Royal Christmas speech on the radio,
an event which became annual thereafter. He was not in favour of
the innovation originally but was persuaded by the argument that it
was what his people wanted. He was concerned by the rise of the
Nazi Party in
Germany, and warned the British ambassador in
Berlin to be suspicious of the
fascists. 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."
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 appalled 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 said of his son Edward: "After I am dead, the boy
will ruin himself within 12 months," and of Albert and Lilibet: "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."
Death
World War I took a toll on George's health, and his heavy smoking
exacerbated recurring breathing problems. He long suffered from
emphysema,
bronchitis,
chronic obstructive lung
disease and
pleurisy. In 1928, he fell
seriously ill, and for the next two years his son Edward took over
many of his duties.
The King retired for a brief period to the
seaside resort of Bognor
Regis
in Sussex
. A
myth later grew that his last words, upon being told that he would
soon be well enough to revisit the town, were "Bugger Bognor!"
George never fully recovered. In his final year, he was
occasionally administered oxygen.
On the evening of 15 January 1936, the
King took to his bedroom at Sandringham House
complaining of a cold; he would never again leave
the room alive. He became gradually weaker, drifting in and
out of consciousness. By 20 January, he was close to death. His
physician,
Lord Dawson of
Penn, issued a bulletin with words that have become famous:
"The King's life is drawing peacefully to a close." Dawson's
private diary, unearthed after his death, 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 20 January.
Dawson wrote that he 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 King's death could be announced in the
morning edition of
The Times
newspaper. King George V died at 11:55 p.m. on 20 January,
1936.
At the procession to George's
Lying in
State in
Westminster Hall, as
the cortège turned into New Palace Yard, part of the
Imperial State Crown fell from on top
of the coffin and landed in the gutter. The new king,
Edward VIII, saw it fall
and wondered whether this was a bad omen for his new reign. He
would abdicate before the year was out, leaving Albert, Duke of
York, to ascend to the throne.
As a mark of respect to their father, George's four surviving sons,
Edward,
Albert,
Henry and
George, mounted the guard, known
as the
Vigil of the Princes, at
the
catafalque on the night of 28
January, the day before the funeral.
He is buried at
St George's
Chapel, Windsor
Castle.
Tributes
The German composer
Paul Hindemith,
who was in London preparing to perform the British premiere of his
work
Der Schwanendreher,
went to a BBC studio on the morning after the king's death and in
six hours wrote
Trauermusik
(Mourning Music). It was performed that same evening in a live
broadcast by the BBC, with
Adrian Boult
conducting the
BBC Symphony
Orchestra and the composer as soloist. The scheduled premiere
was cancelled.
An
equestrian statue of King George V was unveiled outside Brisbane
City Hall in 1938 as a tribute to the King from the citizens of
Brisbane
, Australia. The square in which the statue
stands was originally called Albert Square, but was later renamed
King George Square in honour of the King.
In London, a statue
by William Reid Dick stands
outside the east end of Westminster Abbey.
The
King George's Fields in
London were created as a memorial by a committee in 1936 chaired by
the then
Lord Mayor of
the City of London. Today, they are each registered charities
and are under the guidance of the
National Playing Fields
Association.
The national
stadium of Newfoundland
in St.
John's
was named King George V Park
in 1925. Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv
both have major thoroughfares named for King George
V. Both date back to the period of the
British Mandate for Palestine.
In
Paris
, a large avenue from the top of the Champs-Elysées
down to the Seine
river and an
underground
station
were named for George V; as are Avenue Georges,
Shawinigan
, Quebec
, Canada;
King George V Avenue, Sale, Victoria
, Australia; King
George V Secondary School, Malaysia
; and King George V School
and King
George V Memorial Park in Hong Kong
.
The
World War I Royal Navy battleship
HMS King George V
and the
World War II Royal Navy
battleship
HMS King George
V were named in his honour. George V gave both his name
and donations to many charities, including King George's Fund for
Sailors (later known as
Seafarers
UK).
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
- 3 June 1865 – 24 May 1892: His Royal
Highness Prince George of Wales
- 24 May 1892 – 22 January 1901: His Royal
Highness The Duke of York
- 22 January 1901 – 9 November 1901: His
Royal Highness The Duke of Cornwall and York
- 9 November 1901 – 6 May 1910: His Royal
Highness The Prince of Wales
- in Scotland: His Royal Highness The Duke of
Rothesay
- 6 May 1910 – 20 January 1936: His
Majesty The King
- and, occasionally, outside of the United Kingdom, and with
regard to India: His Majesty The King-Emperor
His full style as king was "
His Majesty George V, by the
Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the
Faith, Emperor of India", until 1927, when it was changed to
"
His Majesty George V, by the Grace of God, of Great
Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King,
Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India"
Honours
- KG: Knight of
the Garter, 4 August 1884
- KT: Knight of
the Thistle, 5 July 1893
- KP: Knight of
St Patrick, 20 August 1897
- GCSI: Knight Grand Commander of the Star of
India, 28 September 1905
- GCMG: Knight Grand Cross of St
Michael and St George, 9 March 1901
- GCIE: Knight Grand Commander of the Indian
Empire, 28 September 1905
- GCVO: Knight
Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, 30 June
1897
- ISO: Imperial Service Order, 31 March
1903
- Royal Victorian Chain,
1902
- PC: Privy
Counsellor, 18 July 1894
- Privy Counsellor (Ireland), 20 August 1897
- FRS: Royal Fellow of
the Royal Society, 8 June 1893
- Lord Warden of the
Cinque Ports & Constable of Dover Castle,
1905–1907
- President of the Royal
Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland,
1893–1895
- President of the Royal Agricultural Society
of England,1897–1903
Military
- Cdt, September 1877: Cadet, HMS Britannia
- Mid, 8 January 1880: Midshipman,
HMS Bacchante and the
corvette Canada
- SLt, 3 June 1884: Sub-Lieutenant,
Royal Navy
- Lt, 8 October 1885: Lieutenant,
HMS Thunderer;
HMS Dreadnought;
HMS Alexandra;
HMS
Northumberland
- I/C Torpedo Boat 79; the gunboat HMS Thrush
- Cdr, 24 August 1891: Commander, I/C
the Melampus
- Capt, 2 January 1893: Captain, Royal Navy
- RAdm, 1 January 1901: Rear-Admiral,
Royal Navy
- VAdm, 26 June 1903: Vice-Admiral,
Royal Navy
- Adm, 1907: Admiral, Royal Navy
- 1910: Admiral of the Fleet,
Royal Navy
- MRAF, Marshal of the Royal Air
Force
- 1918: Field Marshal,
IJA
Arms
As Duke of York, George's arms were the royal arms, with an
inescutcheon for Saxony, all differenced with a label argent of
three points, the centre bearing an anchor azure. As Prince of
Wales the centre label lost its anchor. As King, George V's arms
were
those of
the Kingdom. In 1917, he removed, by warrant, the Saxony
inescutcheon from the arms of all descendants of the Prince Consort
(although the royal arms themselves had never borne the
shield).Image:George V Arms-york.svg|
Coat
of arms as Duke of YorkImage:George V Arms-wales.svg|Coat of
arms as Prince of WalesImage:UK Arms 1837.svg|Coat of arms as
George V (NB: There was and is a different version of the
arms for Scotland)
In popular culture
On screen, George has been portrayed by:
Ancestors
Issue
Notes and sources
- His godparents were the King of Hanover (Queen Victoria's
cousin, for whom Prince Edward of
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach stood proxy); the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and
Gotha (Prince Albert's brother, for whom the Lord President of the Council,
Earl Granville,
stood proxy); the Prince of Leiningen
(the Prince of Wales's half-cousin); the Crown
Prince of Denmark (the Princess of Wales's brother, for whom
the Lord
Chamberlain, Viscount Sydney, stood
proxy); the Queen of Denmark (George's maternal
grandmother, for whom Queen Victoria stood proxy); the
Duke of Cambridge (Queen
Victoria's cousin); the Duchess of Cambridge (Queen
Victoria's aunt, for whom George's aunt Princess Helena stood
proxy); and Princess Louis of
Hesse and by Rhine (George's aunt, for whom her sister
Princess Louise stood
proxy) (The Times (London), Saturday, 8 July 1865, p.
12).
- Sinclair, pp. 49–50
- Sinclair, p. 55
- Sinclair, p. 69
- Sinclair, p. 178
- Renamed from Bachelor's Cottage
- Harold
Nicolson's diary quoted in Sinclair, p. 107
- Rose, p. 42
- See Sinclair, pp. 93 ff for a full discussion
- Rose, p. 289
- Sinclair, p. 107
- Rose, pp. 65–66
- George Frederick Abbott's
Through India with the Prince (1906) describes the
tour.
- Pope-Hennessy, p. 421
- Rose, p. 136
- About one bird every 20 seconds.
- Nicolson, p. 310
- At George's wedding in 1893, The Times claimed that the crowd may have
confused Nicholas with George, because their beards and dress made
them look alike superficially (The Times (London) Friday,
7 July 1893, p. 5). Their facial features were only different up
close.
- Sinclair, p. 148 and Nicolson, p. 301
- Rose, p. 210
- Sinclair, p. 149
- Pope-Hennessy, p. 511
- Sinclair, p. 114 and Nicolson, p. 347
- Sinclair, p. 105
- Nicolson, p. 419
- Sinclair p. 154
- Nicolson, pp. 521–522
- Sinclair, p. 1
- Ziegler, pp. 192–196
- Pope-Hennessy, p. 546
- Pope-Hennessy, p. 558
- The Duke of Windsor, p. 267
- The cross surmounting the crown, composed of a sapphire and 200
diamonds, was retrieved by a military man following later in the
procession.
- The Times (London), Tuesday, 28 January 1936, p. 10
col. F
- Velde, François (19 April 2008), "Marks of Cadency in the British Royal Family",
Heraldica, retrieved on 8 May 2009.
References
External links
TV drama
The Treaty (1991)
Wikis
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