Queen Victoria’s grandchildren
George V of Britain
Born 1865, died 1936
Ruled from 1910
HRH Prince George of Wales was born in London on 3 June 1865, the second son of Edward, the prince of Wales, and grandson of Queen Victoria. He was fourth in line to the British throne, after his grandmother, father and brother Albert Victor, who was 17 months older and known as ‘Eddy’. The queen, no doubt influenced by the scandals in which her son had become embroiled, ensured that both boys were brought up strictly by their tutor, the Reverend John Neale Dalton. Then, in 1877, still accompanied by Dalton, they became naval cadets and spent the next five years at sea, returning home in 1883.
The duke’s tastes ran to the spartan, and perhaps influenced by his own upbringing, he was a notoriously strict father
While Eddy went to Cambridge University, George remained in the Royal Navy, serving under his uncle, Victoria’s second son Prince Alfred. It was a career he enjoyed and one that he envisaged pursuing for the rest of his life. Then, in 1891, Eddy died of influenza and immediately George became heir to the throne.
Marriage and family
Eddy had only recently become engaged to Princess Mary (‘May’) of Teck, a marriage that had Victoria’s full backing. When he died, the queen didn’t see any reason to dispense with such a suitable marriage candidate, and in due course, George – now duke of York – proposed to Mary, she accepted and they were married in July 1893. Although hardly a marriage made in heaven, it is generally thought to have been a happy union. One indication of this may be the fact that, unlike his pleasure-loving father, George never took a mistress.
George and Mary lived on the royal estate at Sandringham in Norfolk, taking up residence in a relatively small house (at least for members of the royal family). The duke’s tastes ran to the spartan, and perhaps influenced by his own upbringing, he was a notoriously strict father to five of his six children (the youngest, John, had epilepsy and lived apart from the rest of the family, dying in 1919, aged 13).
Coming to the throne
In 1901, Queen Victoria died and her eldest son ascended the throne as Edward VII. Unlike his mother, he very much wanted his heir to take as much part as possible in the affairs of state, so George was given a great deal of access to state documents and consultations. Princess Mary, who was much cleverer than her husband, helped him get to grips with the job that would one day be his, even frequently writing his speeches.
George was devastated by the death of King Edward on 6 May 1910. His father had, in many ways, been his mentor, and they had worked closely together. A few weeks later, George would write to his first cousin Nicholas II of Russia:
My dearest Nicky
… These last three weeks have been terrible, my heart has been nearly breaking … At the same time I have had to … entertain William [his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany], 7 Kings and numerous Princes and representatives from practically all the countries of the world …
Georgie
In front of the world’s press, George led a funeral procession that was to go down in history as the ‘Parade of Kings’. In a monumental show of pomp and pageantry, elected heads of state were relegated to the rear of the procession while the monarchs led.
George V’s coronation took place at Westminster Abby more than a year later, on 22 June 1911. Six months after this, he and Queen Mary travelled to India for the Delhi Durbar, a huge, extravagant assembly where the couple were fêted as the new emperor and empress of that vast country. During the visit, the king shot 36 tigers in preference to visiting various dignitaries.
A change of name
With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, controversy about the royal family’s German origins erupted. In addition to their Hanoverian background, beginning with George I, George’s paternal grandfather had been Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Mary’s father was the duke of Teck, part of the royal house of Württemberg. And, worst of all, the great enemy ‘Kaiser Bill’ was George’s first cousin.
Matters came to a head at a private dinner party at Buckingham Palace, when Lady Maud Warrender, a notorious chatterbox, said to the king, ‘Oh, I believe, sir, that rumours are going about that, because of your name, you're pro-German.’ The king went quite white and left soon afterwards.
After three years of German shops being smashed and people with German names being attacked, the royals’ undeniably very German surname ‘Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’ was a PR nightmare for them. There were suggestions that they might want to readopt one of the old dynastic names – Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart – and other names, such as ‘Fitzroy’ and even ‘England’, were mentioned. But the king opted for ‘Windsor’ – his favourite residence – and it was made official on 17 July 1917.
When he heard of the name change, the kaiser was fuming. He said, ‘I should go to England to see a performance of the play The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha!’
The fate of the tsar
While the new surname was being considered, a far more serious crisis was developing. In March 1917, his cousin Nicholas, the tsar of Russia, who looked enough like George to be taken for his twin, had been forced to abdicate. The provisional Russian government placed him and the rest of the Russian imperial family under house arrest at a palace near St Petersburg.
Initially all the indications were that George would ask that his Russian relatives be allowed to take refuge in Britain. Then, on 30 March, George dictated a letter to Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour:
… As you are doubtless aware, the King has a strong personal friendship for the Emperor, and therefore would be glad to do anything to help him in this crisis … But His Majesty cannot help doubting … whether it is advisable that the Imperial Family should take up residence in this country.
The king was becoming increasingly concerned about the possibility of revolution being exported to Britain. There was some reason for this. When Karl Marx had written Das Kapital in the late 19th century, he had been expecting that the first anti-capitalist revolution would take place in an industrial power like Britain. Perhaps George V was worried that allowing the Russian imperial family to come there would light the tinderbox of revolution?
On behalf of the king, his private secretary Lord Stamfordham made many excuses for not wanting the Russians to come, ranging from the dangers of the voyage to other less likely reasons such as his Scottish estate Balmoral being too cold in the winter. Balfour and the prime minister David Lloyd George were surprised by this list of rather embarrassing justifications. They had already agreed to invite the tsar to Britain, and they trusted the king to leave the matter at that.
An ignominious U-turn
On 6 April, George was at Windsor, pouring over his stamp collection. He was more than usually agitated. At 10.55am he sent for Stamfordham, telling him to write to Balfour once again:
Every day the King is becoming more concerned. The matter is being discussed, not only in clubs, but by working men … From the first the King has thought the presence of the Imperial Family ... in this country would raise all sorts of difficulties, and I feel sure that you appreciate how awkward it will be ...
It was now apparent to the foreign secretary that the king had major issues with the offer of asylum. As he read and reread the letter, little did he know that, back at Windsor Castle, George was already pacing his study dictating a second tirade. This letter pulled no punches:
The King must beg you to represent to the Prime Minister that ... the opposition to the Emperor and Empress coming here is so strong that we must be allowed to withdraw ...
After a cabinet meeting on 13 April, the asylum offer was officially withdrawn.
George V's U-turn is now regarded as one of the most ignominious chapters in the history of the British monarchy. Britain had always been a traditional home for deposed monarchs of whatever political hue. In that context, refusing or, indeed, going back on the original promise to grant Nicholas II asylum in Britain was astonishing.
The failed rescue
However, as news of the imperial family’s worsening conditions reached the king, he tried to put a plan together to rescue his cousin. He contacted Sir Mansfield Cumming, a friend from his naval college days, who was then head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services where he was known simply as ‘C’.
By the first week of July 1918, the SIS had a team of agents in Russia, a specially built house for the tsar in Murmansk and its top agent – Stephen Alley – scouting escape routes for a daring rescue. But the Russians tightened security around the imperial family and, on 17 July, they were all executed.
Lord Stamfordham broke the terrible news to the king. He was shattered. To this day, the British royal family refuses to discuss his actions over the fate of the Russian imperial family.
The middle-class monarch
After the war, most of the monarchies of Europe were swept away. George survived because he was a constitutional monarch. Absolute monarchs are often vulnerable to absolute defeat. George lasted, not just because Britain was on the winning side and Germany and Russia lost, but because a constitutional monarch is insulated by a constitutional government.
At the same time, he was a good figurehead and did his job as king well. In 1932, he gave the first royal Christmas message on the radio, persuaded to do so because that was what his subjects wanted. Unlike his cousins Nicholas and Wilhelm, he was never a threat to the democratic process. He busied himself with his estates and stamp albums, and was safe and respectable, very much a middle-class monarch.
A heavy smoker, George had had frequent chest problems. In January 1936 at Sandringham, he went to bed complaining of a cold and, five days later, on 20 January, he died. His end was probably hastened by a lethal injection of morphine and cocaine given by his doctor Lord Dawson of Penn, who wanted to help the royal family and ensure that the news of the death would be announced in the morning edition of The Times.
