About Me
Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George
- great-grandson of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
-he had difficulty keeping up with his confident older brother David, who later became King Edward VIII
-his father, the future King George V, was a remote and controlling figure, less an encouraging parent than a sharp-tongued naval commander, committed to maintaining the dignity of the Crown and ensuring that his children adhere to its protocols and traditions.
King George V
-he inherited his fathers devotion to duty and, more than his brothers, was all too prone to subjugate himself to his sovereign fathers will, despite the cost to his health.
-he also inherited a disposition toward broad-mindedness from his mother that would ultimately serve him well.
-Naval academy at 13; following his brother David's path to the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth; September 1913 trained as an ordinary midshipman on the battleship HMS Collingwood.
-Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914, and World War I began.
-He admired his brothers phenomenal charm and international successes, but felt diminished by them.
-His father bucked him up by bestowing on him the oldest dukedom in England, the ancient title of Duke of York. King George V thought his younger son, the Duke of York, who shared his sense of responsibility and a sturdy integrity, would make a superb king.
-In June, 1920, twenty-four-year-old Prince Albert noticed Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at a dinner dance in London. He had fallen in love with Elizabeth that evening, although it had taken him time to realize it. She turned down several marriage proposals from him before he succeeded in convincing her to marry him, join the royal family, and endure the scrutiny of the press.
-Through the consistent love, understanding, and support of Elizabeth he felt more secure while his natural common sense ripened into wisdom and sound judgment.
--he became known as the "Industrial Prince."
In the mid 1930s he led a deeply satisfying home life with his wife and two daughters Elizabeth and Margaret.
-When his father King George V died in January 1936, he watched with increasing dread as his brother, the new King Edward VIII, flouted convention and came into collision with the political and religious hierarchy over his desire to marry Wallis Simpson.
~*~
Now the Duke of Windsor & Wallis Simpson
~*~-unprepared for the throne, his brother abdicated in December 1936 and the Duke of York took over as king.
-He was crowned King George VI in May 1937
-Britain declared war on Germany September 1939
-During the Blitz he refused to leave London expanding his wartime role as monarch
-he forged a partnership with Winston Churchill and another with Franklin Roosevelt. (Both of them valued his wise counsel.)
-he was worn out by the stress of the war and the new set of post-war problems, the last seven years of his life, he reigned over a country that faced continuing economic hardships stemming from the inordinate costs of the war.
-His physicians diagnosed cancer in 1951. He died in his sleep on February 6, 1952 at the young age of fifty-six.
During his reign he had restored the popularity and respectability of the monarchy and had played a big role in renewed British-American relations.
- He came to be seen as a symbol of the courage and continuity of Britain.
