Monarchy

George V

George Frederick Albert was born on 3 June 1865, the second son of Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark. From the age of 12, he trained with the Royal Navy, with the intention of making it his career. These plans were scuppered when his elder brother Albert Victor (known as Eddy) died unexpectedly of influenza in January 1892 and George suddenly became heir to the throne.

After his father's death in 1910, the new king George V wrote in his diary: 'I have lost my best friend and the best of fathers.' For the first time in the two centuries of the House of Hanover, a father had been succeeded by a son who had loved and respected him.

Despite his closeness to his father, George was his opposite in almost everything: slim, abstemious, rather shy and devoted to his wife, weather gauge, stamp collection and his unchanging daily routines as a country gentleman. Above all, he was driven by a strong sense of duty.

George had nothing of the celebrity in his temperament and was far from relaxed about the ceremonies in which, of necessity, he as king was the star. 'The most terrible ordeal I have ever gone through.' he confided to his diary about his first state opening of Parliament. This devotion to duty would transform the monarchy as it faced the challenge of ever-more rapid – and more radical – social change.

In 1906, the Liberals had won the general election on a platform of social reform and state welfare benefits. Following Edward's death and in the run-up to the coronation, a truce was called on the ongoing political struggle between the Conservative Lords and the Liberal Commons. But in November 1910 the government decided to go to the country on a proposal – known as the Parliament Act – to curb the power of the Lords permanently. But first, they wanted George's agreement to a mass creation of peers if the Lords continued to resist.

The confrontation took place at Buckingham Palace, where the prime minister Herbert Asquith browbeat the inexperienced king mercilessly. He was also double-crossed by his private secretary, who concealed from him the Tories' willingness to form an alternative government.

Six weeks after the coronation, the Parliament Act passed the Lords by a whisker, when the bishops decided to vote with the government to save the monarchy from embarrassment and the Lords from themselves. George never forgave those who had taken advantage of him, but it was probably for the best.

Soon the crown confronted a far more dangerous threat, when the system of Continental alliances that Britain had rejoined under Edward VII, sucked it into World War I. Despite the royal family doing its bit, word reached the palace that they were being criticised for their German connections.

George embarked on a series of radical measures. With the Proclamation of 1917, he signalled a clean break with the past by changing his family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. But even more significant was an alteration to the rules governing royal marriages.

For the previous two centuries, the Hanoverians had continued the practice of marrying only into fellow-German princely families, which meant that they were almost as foreign and German in 1901 as they had been in 1714. George was the exception. Speaking only English (probably the first king to do so since the Conquest), he identified himself solely with Britain and the empire. And he took advantage of the crisis of 1917 to decree that his children could now marry Englishmen and women.

'This was an historic day,' he wrote in his diary. It was. A German dynasty had become a British family – even, perhaps, the representative Great British Family.

For this deeply conventional king, the role of patriarch of the national family fitted like a glove – and much more comfortably than his crown. In contrast to his father, he had led the most blameless personal life of any monarch since George III. But the establishment of a family monarchy also depended on the next generation. Here the prospects were mixed. George V had two older sons: David Edward, prince of Wales, and Albert George, duke of York. Despite being only a year apart, they would turn out to be very different.

In May 1935, George V celebrated his Silver Jubilee, processing to St Paul's for a service of thanksgiving with his queen and their children. But only six months later, on 20 January 1936, he died at Sandringham, the royal estate in Norfolk. George had been the first British monarch to deliver the Christmas broadcast, in 1932. Now the BBC, in the shape of its director-general John Reith, told the nation: 'Death came peacefully to the king at 11.55pm.'

In this painting by Charles Sims, the slight figure of George V is almost swallowed up by his ceremonial robes. The imperial state crown can be seen on the right
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh/Bridgeman Art Library

King of England
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,917
1,847634,00.html
Obituary of George V from Time magazine dated 27 January 1936.

George V, King of England
www.gslis.utexas.edu/~landc/bookplates/2
3_2_GeorgeV.htm
Short article about the monarch's book-collecting habits (he read approximately one book a week), from the 'Bookplate Archive'.

Sandringham Estate
Sandringham
Norfolk PE35 6EN
Tel: 01553 612 908
Fax: 01485 541 571
E-mail: visits@sandringhamestate.co.uk
Website: www.sandringham-estate.co.uk/
6 miles north-east of King's Lynn, signposted from the A149 Hunstanton road.
Built in 1870 by the prince and princess of Wales (later Edward VII and Queen Alexandra), this has been the private home of four generations of British monarchs. George V, who died there, wrote of it: 'Dear old Sandringham, the place I love better than anywhere else in the world.' The main ground-floor rooms and the grounds can be visited.

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