   #copyright

George VI of the United Kingdom

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History Post
1900; Monarchs of Great Britain

                        George VI
   King of the United Kingdom and the British
   dominions beyond the Seas; Emperor of India
   Photographic portrait
   Photographic portrait
      Reign     11 December 1936 - 6 February 1952
                India: 1936 - 1947
                Ireland: 1936 - 1949
    Coronation  12 May 1937
   Predecessor  Edward VIII
    Successor   Elizabeth II
     Consort    Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
                          Issue
   Elizabeth II
   Margaret, Countess of Snowdon
                        Full name
   Albert Frederick Arthur George Windsor
                          Titles
   HM The King
   HRH The Duke of York
   HRH The Prince Albert
   HRH Prince Albert of Wales
   HRH Prince Albert of Cornwall
   HRH Prince Albert of York
   HH Prince Albert of York
   Royal House  House of Windsor
   Royal anthem God Save the King
      Father    George V
      Mother    Mary of Teck
       Born     14 December 1895
                Sandringham House, Norfolk
     Baptised   17 February 1896
                St. Mary Magdalene's Church, Sandringham
       Died     6 February 1952
                Sandringham House, Norfolk
      Burial    15 February 1952
                St George's Chapel, Windsor
    Occupation  Military

   George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George Windsor) ( 14 December 1895 -
   6 February 1952) became the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
   and Northern Ireland and Emperor of India, upon the unexpected
   abdication of his brother, Edward VIII. He reigned from 11 December
   1936 until his death. As well as being King of the United Kingdom of
   Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the British dominions beyond the
   seas, George VI was the last Emperor of India (until 1947) and the last
   King of Ireland (until 1949, succeeding to that title by the enactment
   of the External Relations Act, 1936, until its repeal in the Republic
   of Ireland Act, 1948 when Ireland also left the Commonwealth). He was
   the third British monarch to use the name Windsor, the name his father
   had given to his branch of the German royal House of Saxe-Coburg and
   Gotha. He was king during the Second World War.

Birth and family

   George VI was born on 14 December 1895 at York Cottage, on the
   Sandringham Estate, Norfolk. His father was Prince George, Duke of York
   (later King George V), the second but eldest surviving son of The
   Prince (later Edward VII) and Princess of Wales ( Alexandra of
   Denmark). His mother was the Duchess of York (later Queen Mary), the
   eldest daughter of Prince Francis, Duke of Teck and Princess Mary
   Adelaide of Cambridge. The day was the anniversary of the death of his
   great grandfather, Prince Albert, the Prince Consort. Uncertain of how
   Albert's widow Queen Victoria would take this news, the Prince of Wales
   wrote to his son, Prince George, Duke of York, that the Queen had been
   "rather distressed". Two days later, he wrote again: "I really think it
   would gratify her if you yourself proposed the name Albert to her".
   This mollified the baby's great-grandmother, who wrote to the baby's
   mother, the Duchess of York: "I am all impatience to see the new one,
   born on such a sad day but rather more dear to me, especially as he
   will be called by that dear name which is a byword for all that is
   great and good." However, his maternal grandmother Princess Mary
   Adelaide of Cambridge did not like the first name the baby had been
   given, and she wrote prophetically that she hoped the last name "may
   supplant the less favoured one".

   He was baptised at St Mary Magdalene's Church near Sandringham three
   months later. His godparents were Queen Victoria, Empress Frederick,
   Grand Duke Friedrich Wilhelm of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, his wife the
   Grand Duchess (formerly Princess Augusta of Cambridge), the Crown
   Prince of Denmark, the Duke of Connaught, and Prince Adolphus of Teck,
   and the Duchess of Fife.

   As the second son of his parents, he was thus fourth in line for the
   throne at birth. The Duchess of York had given birth to her eldest son
   Edward, who was third in line to the throne on 23 June 1894. Although
   George VI was the son and grandson of kings of the United Kingdom, his
   accession was the result of a play of circumstances. His father, the
   future George V, was the younger of the two sons of the then Prince of
   Wales, and was not expected ever to become king. However, his elder
   brother, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, who had been expected
   to eventually ascend the throne, died unexpectedly at a young age on 14
   January 1892 of pneumonia which had developed from influenza. It was
   this that resulted in the Duke of York later becoming King George V.
   George VI himself was the second son of his parents; and his own elder
   brother became king as Edward VIII, upon the death of their father
   George V. However, Edward VIII chose to abdicate his crown to marry a
   divorcée; it was by reason of this unforeseeable abdication, unique in
   British history, that George VI came to the throne.

Early life

   As a child, the future George VI was known as Prince Albert (or
   'Bertie' to his family). He often suffered from ill health and was
   described as "easily frightened and somewhat prone to tears". His
   parents, the Duke and Duchess of York, were generally removed from
   their children's upbringing, as was the norm in royal families of that
   era. Unfortunately this allowed the Royal nanny to have a dominating
   role in their young lives. The nanny doted over Albert's brother,
   Prince Edward, while neglecting Albert. Albert developed a severe
   stammer that lasted for many years as well as chronic stomach problems.
   He also suffered from knock knees, and to correct this he had to wear
   splints, which were extremely painful. He was also forced to write with
   his right hand although he was a natural left-hander.

   Growing up, he was completely outshone by his elder brother, whose
   dominance was one of the most important influences on his early life.
   Prince Edward had, according to almost everyone who ever knew him, an
   extraordinary and magnetic charm. No one felt his charms more strongly
   than the younger members of his family. In the isolation of their
   lives, he was the most attractive person they ever knew. In childhood
   they followed his leadership, while as young men they ardently admired
   him.

   As a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, Albert was styled His Highness
   Prince Albert of York from birth. In 1898, Queen Victoria issued
   Letters Patent which granted the children of the eldest son of the
   Prince of Wales the style Royal Highness. Thus Albert was then styled
   His Royal Highness Prince Albert of York.
            British Royalty
           House of Windsor
               George VI
      Elizabeth II
       Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

   Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901. The Prince of Wales succeeded
   her as King Edward VII. The Duke of York became the new Prince of
   Wales. Prince Edward was then second in line for the throne, and Prince
   Albert was now third.

Military career and education

   From 1909 Albert attended the Royal Naval College, Osborne as a naval
   cadet. Despite coming bottom of the class in the final examination,
   Albert progressed to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth in 1911. When
   Edward VII died on 6 May 1910 Albert's father became King George V.
   Prince Edward was created Prince of Wales on 2 June 1910 and Albert was
   now second in line to the throne.

   Albert was commissioned as a midshipman on 15 September 1913, one year
   later he was serving in World War I ( 1914 – 1918). He saw action
   aboard HMS Collingwood in the Battle of Jutland ( 31 May – 1 June
   1916). The battle was a tactical victory for the German Empire but a
   strategic victory for the United Kingdom. In 1918 Albert transferred to
   the newly-created Royal Air Force but did not see any further action in
   the war, largely through ill health caused by a duodenal ulcer. After
   the war, Albert studied history, economics and civics for a year at
   Trinity College, Cambridge, from October 1919.

   In 1920 Prince Albert was created Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and
   Baron Killarney. He then began to take on royal duties, representing
   his father, King George V. Upon taking the throne, he became an Admiral
   of the Fleet in the Royal Navy.

Marriage

   It was unusual, in a time when royals were expected to marry fellow
   royals, that Albert had a great deal of freedom in choosing a
   prospective wife. In 1920 he met Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the
   youngest daughter of Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and
   Kinghorne and set his sights on marrying her. Although Lady Elizabeth
   was a direct descendent of King Robert I of Scotland and King Henry VII
   of England, she was in British law a commoner. She rejected his
   proposal twice and hesitated for nearly two years reportedly because
   she was reluctant to make the sacrifices necessary to become a member
   of the royal family. However, it has been alleged that she had intended
   to marry Edward, an engagement between them was even gossiped about in
   the papers, but historians assume that this is simply a case of
   misreporting. In the words of the Countess of Strathmore, Albert would
   be "made or marred" by his choice of wife and after a protracted
   courtship Elizabeth agreed to marry him. However, in an interview just
   before her marriage Lady Elizabeth denied having turned down Albert:
   "Do you think I am the sort of person Bertie would have to ask twice?"
   They were married on 26 April 1923 in Westminster Abbey. The
   newly-formed BBC wished to record and broadcast the event on radio, but
   the Chapter vetoed the idea (although the Dean, Herbert Edward Ryle was
   in favour). Lady Elizabeth was styled Her Royal Highness The Duchess of
   York after their marriage. At that time, Albert's marriage to a British
   commoner was considered a modernising gesture.

   The Duke and Duchess of York had two children:
     * Elizabeth II (born 21 April 1926)
     * Princess Margaret ( 21 August 1930 — 9 February 2002).

   The Duke and Duchess lived a relatively sheltered life at their London
   residence, 145 Piccadilly; one of the few stirs was when the Canadian
   Prime Minister, R. B. Bennett considered the Duke for Governor General
   of Canada in 1931 — a proposal which the King rejected on the advice of
   his ministers.

Reluctant king

           Monarchical Styles of
   King George VI of the United Kingdom
   Reference style:   His Majesty
   Spoken style:      Your Majesty
   Alternative style: Sir

   On January 20, 1936, King George V died and Prince Edward ascended the
   throne as Edward VIII. As he had no children, Albert was now the heir
   presumptive to the throne until the unmarried Edward VIII had any
   legitimate children, or died. George V had had severe reservations
   about Edward, saying, "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry
   and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne."
   Less than a year later on December 11, 1936, Edward VIII abdicated the
   throne in order to marry his love, Wallis Warfield Simpson. Thus Prince
   Albert, Duke of York, was now king, a position he was reluctant to
   accept. The day before the abdication, he went to London to see his
   mother, Queen Mary. He wrote in his diary, "When I told her what had
   happened, I broke down and sobbed like a child."

   It is alleged that there was brief speculation as to the desirability
   of bypassing him and his brother, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in
   favour of the younger brother Prince George, Duke of Kent. This seems
   to have been suggested on the grounds that Prince George was the only
   brother with, at that time, a son.

   Albert assumed the style and title King George VI to emphasise
   continuity with his father and restore confidence in the monarchy. His
   first act was to confer upon his brother the title HRH The Duke of
   Windsor. Three days after his accession, on his forty-first birthday,
   he invested the Queen with the Order of the Garter.

Reign

   The beginning of George VI's reign was taken up by questions
   surrounding his predecessor and brother, whose titles, style and
   position were uncertain. He had been introduced as "His Royal Highness
   Prince Edward" for the Abdication broadcast but George VI felt that by
   abdicating and renouncing the succession Edward had lost the right to
   bear Royal titles, including "Royal Highness". In settling the issue,
   George VI created Edward the Duke of Windsor, and the Letters Patent
   creating the dukedom entitled Edward to be styled His Royal Highness,
   but prevented any wife and children from being similarly styled. George
   VI was also forced to buy the royal houses of Balmoral Castle and
   Sandringham House from Prince Edward, as these were private properties
   and did not pass to George VI on his accession.

   George VI's coronation took place on 12 May 1937—the intended date of
   Edward's coronation. In a break with tradition, Queen Mary attended the
   coronation as a show of support for her son. There was no durbar held
   in Delhi for George VI, as had occurred for his father, as the cost
   would have been a burden to the government of India in the depths of
   the Depression. Rising Indian nationalism made the welcome which the
   royal couple would have received likely to be muted at best, and a
   prolonged absence from Britain would have been undesirable in the tense
   period before World War II without the strategic advantages of the
   North American tour which in the event was undertaken in 1939.

   The growing likelihood of war erupting in Europe would dominate the
   reign of King George VI. Initially the King and Queen took an
   appeasement stance against Adolf Hitler, supporting the policy of
   Neville Chamberlain. The King and Queen greeted Chamberlain on his
   return from negotiating the Munich Agreement in 1938, and invited him
   to appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace with them, sparking anger
   among anti-appeasement MPs including Winston Churchill.

   In 1939, the King and Queen undertook an extensive tour of Canada ,from
   which they made a shorter visit to the United States of America. George
   was the first reigning monarch to visit either of these countries. The
   royal couple were accompanied throughout the trip to the United States
   by Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, and not a
   British minister, meaning they were present as King and Queen of
   Canada, a measure intended to placate the strong isolationist
   tendencies among the North American public vis-à-vis the developing
   tensions in Europe. Although the aim of the tour was nevertheless
   mainly political, to shore up Atlantic support for Britain in any
   upcoming war, the King and Queen were extremely enthusiastically
   received by the Canadian public and the spectre of Edward VIII's
   charisma was comprehensively dispelled. They were also warmly received
   by the American people, visiting the 1939 New York World's Fair and
   staying at the White House with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and at
   his private estate at Hyde Park, New York.

   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 often escaped to 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.

   Throughout the war, the King and Queen provided morale-boosting visits
   throughout the UK, visiting bomb sites and munition factories. The
   Royal Family adhered to rationing restrictions in the country at the
   time, indeed, Eleanor Roosevelt during her stay at Buckingham Palace
   during the war reported expressly on the rationed food served in the
   Palace and the limited bathwater that was permitted.

   It has been suggested that a strong bond of friendship was forged
   between the King and Queen and President and Mrs Roosevelt during the
   1939 Royal Tour, which had major significance in the relations between
   the United States and Great Britain through the war years. But there
   have never been credible suggestions that the King took any strategic
   role in the War; his frequent letters to the President were mostly
   unanswered and it was, of course Roosevelt's relationship with
   Churchill that was critical. Eleanor Roosevelt took a wry view of the
   utility of kings and queens and the substance of George and Elizabeth
   ("a little self-consciously regal," was her verdict on Elizabeth).

Illness and death

   A plaque on the Manchester Town Hall records George VI's titles before
   giving up the title Emperor of India.
   Enlarge
   A plaque on the Manchester Town Hall records George VI's titles before
   giving up the title Emperor of India.

   The war had taken its toll on the King's health. This was exacerbated
   by his heavy smoking and subsequent development of lung cancer.
   Increasingly his daughter Princess Elizabeth, the heiress presumptive
   to the throne, would take on more of the royal duties as her father's
   health deteriorated. In the autumn of 1951 a cancerous lung was
   removed.

   On 6 February 1952, George VI died in his sleep at Sandringham House in
   Norfolk, at the age of 56. He was the only British monarch of modern
   times whose death was not observed and whose precise moment of death
   was not recorded. His funeral took place on February 15, and he was
   buried in St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. In 2002, the body of
   his wife Elizabeth and the ashes of his daughter Princess Margaret were
   interred in a tomb alongside him.

Empire to Commonwealth

   George VI's reign saw the acceleration of the dissolution of the
   British Empire, which had begun with the Balfour Declaration at the
   Imperial Conference of 1926, when the Commonwealth came into being and
   the Dominions were acknowledged to have evolved into sovereign states
   over a period of years previous — the declaration was formalised in the
   Statute of Westminster, 1931 (Imp.). Britain's brief League of Nations
   Mandate over Iraq ended in 1932 with Iraqi independence without
   membership in the as-yet ill-defined Commonwealth even being
   considered. This process gathered pace after World War II. Transjordan
   became independent as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1946, Burma in
   January 1948 and Palestine (although divided between Israel and the
   Arab states) that May; all three opted out of the Commonwealth. After
   declaring itself a Republic, southern Ireland left the Commonwealth the
   following year. India became the two independent dominions of India and
   Pakistan, with George VI relinquishing the title of Emperor of India
   and

          (a) briefly remaining as King of India until that country
          enacted a Constitution which declared it to be a republic in
          1950 (though India did elect to remain in the Commonwealth as a
          republic and to recognise George VI as Head of the Commonwealth,
          a title now incorporated into the regal style, although it is
          not clear whether the title is hereditary) and
          (b) as King of Pakistan, succeeded by his daughter Elizabeth II
          as Queen of Pakistan, until 1956 when Pakistan similarly enacted
          a Constitution declaring it to be a republic.

   Statue of George VI at Carlton House Terrace, London
   Enlarge
   Statue of George VI at Carlton House Terrace, London

Portrayal

   George VI was played by Andrew Ray in the 1976 Thames Television drama
   about his brother, Edward and Mrs Simpson. A biographical television
   series, Bertie and Elizabeth, was broadcast on BBC in 2003. The series
   was also broadcast on PBS as a part of the Masterpiece Theatre series
   in March 2005.

Titles from birth to death

          1895-1898: His Highness Prince Albert of York
          1898-1901: His Royal Highness Prince Albert of York
          1901: His Royal Highness Prince Albert of Cornwall and York
          1901-1910: His Royal Highness Prince Albert of Wales
          1910-1920: His Royal Highness The Prince Albert
          1920-1936: His Royal Highness The Duke of York
          1936-1952: His Majesty The King (also Emperor of India until
          1947: the title was formally dissolved by Order-in-Council in
          1948 but the King ceased to use it immediately upon Indian and
          Pakistani Independence 14/15 August 1947)

   Retrieved from "
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_VI_of_the_United_Kingdom"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
