George VI
Buckingham Palace was bombed during the Blitz while the King and Queen were there, and his younger brother the Duke of Kent was killed on active service.He was beset by smoking-related health problems in the later years of his reign and died at Sandringham House, aged 56, of a coronary thrombosis.[19] In February 1918 Albert was appointed Officer in Charge of Boys at the Royal Naval Air Service's training establishment at Cranwell.[20] He served as Officer Commanding Number 4 Squadron of the Boys' Wing at Cranwell until August 1918,[21] before reporting for duty on the staff of the RAF's Cadet Brigade at St Leonards-on-Sea and then at Shorncliffe.[26] Following the disbanding of the Independent Air Force in November 1918, he remained on the Continent for two months as an RAF staff officer until posted back to Britain.[28] In October 1919, Albert attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied history, economics and civics for a year,[29] with the historian R. V. Laurence as his "official mentor".An infatuation with the already-married Australian socialite Lady Loughborough came to an end in April 1920 when the King, with the promise of the dukedom of York, persuaded Albert to stop seeing her.[35] That year, he met for the first time since childhood Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the youngest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore.[46] Their journey by sea to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji took them via Jamaica, where Albert played doubles tennis partnered with a black man, Bertrand Clark, which was unusual at the time and taken locally as a display of equality between races.[48][49] In 1931, the Canadian prime minister, R. B. Bennett, considered Albert for Governor General of Canada—a proposal that King George V rejected on the advice of the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, J. H.[50] King George V had severe reservations about Prince Edward, saying "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months" and "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne.Edward had been advised by British prime minister Stanley Baldwin that he could not remain king and marry a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands.The next day, it passed the External Relations Act, which gave the monarch limited authority (strictly on the advice of the government) to appoint diplomatic representatives for Ireland and to be involved in the making of foreign treaties.George VI was forced to buy from Edward the royal residences of Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House, as these were private properties and did not pass to him automatically.[63] Rising Indian nationalism made the welcome that the royal party would have received likely to be muted at best,[64] and a prolonged absence from Britain would have been undesirable in the tense period before the Second World War.[13][66] When the King and Queen greeted Chamberlain on his return from negotiating the Munich Agreement in 1938, they invited him to appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace with them.[69][70] Both Mackenzie King and the Canadian governor general, Lord Tweedsmuir, hoped that George's presence in Canada would demonstrate the principles of the Statute of Westminster 1931, which gave full sovereignty to the British Dominions.The official royal tour historian, Gustave Lanctot, wrote "the Statute of Westminster had assumed full reality" and George gave a speech emphasising "the free and equal association of the nations of the Commonwealth".[71] The trip was intended to soften the strong isolationist tendencies among the North American public with regard to the developing tensions in Europe.Although the aim of the tour was mainly political, to shore up Atlantic support for the United Kingdom in any future war, the King and Queen were enthusiastically received by the public.[75][76] Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the United Kingdom and the self-governing Dominions other than Ireland declared war on Nazi Germany.[83] In 1940, Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister, though personally George would have preferred to appoint Lord Halifax.Other countries left the Commonwealth, such as Burma in January 1948, Palestine (divided between Israel and the Arab states) in May 1948 and the Republic of Ireland in 1949.[100] The prime minister of the Union of South Africa, Jan Smuts, was facing an election and hoped to make political capital out of the visit.The stress of the war had taken its toll on George's health,[104][105] made worse by his heavy smoking,[106] and subsequent development of lung cancer among other ailments, including arteriosclerosis and Buerger's disease.The delayed tour was re-organised, with Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, taking the place of the King and Queen.George was well enough to open the Festival of Britain in May 1951, but on 4 June it was announced that he would need immediate and complete rest for the next four weeks, despite the arrival of Haakon VII of Norway the following afternoon for an official visit.[108] On 23 September 1951, his left lung was removed in a surgical operation performed by Clement Price Thomas after a malignant tumour was found.[120] In the words of Labour Member of Parliament (MP) George Hardie, the abdication crisis of 1936 did "more for republicanism than fifty years of propaganda".[121] George VI wrote to his brother Edward that in the aftermath of the abdication he had reluctantly assumed "a rocking throne" and tried "to make it steady again".
George VI (disambiguation)Head of the CommonwealthKing of the United KingdomBritish DominionsCoronationEdward VIIIElizabeth IIEmperor of IndiaYork CottageSandringham HouseSt George's ChapelKing George VI Memorial ChapelElizabeth Bowes-LyonPrincess Margaret, Countess of SnowdonWindsorSaxe-Coburg and GothaGeorge VMary of TeckProtestantRoyal Naval College, OsborneBritannia Royal Naval CollegeRoyal NavyRoyal Air ForceWorld War IBattle of JutlandVictory in Europe DayDominionsBritish Commonwealthhis deathBritish RajLondon DeclarationQueen VictoriaPrince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and GothaEdwardheir apparentFirst World WarDuke of YorkmarriedLady Elizabeth Bowes-LyonElizabethMargaretLionel Loguestuttertheir father diedEdward abdicatedWallis Simpsonheir presumptiveregnal nameBritish Empirebut not Irelanddeclared warNazi Germanyinvasion of PolandKingdom of ItalyEmpire of JapanBuckingham Palacethe Blitzthe Duke of KentBritain and its allieslargely broken awayindependence of India and Pakistancoronary thrombosisEdward VIISandringham EstateKing George VKing Edward VIIQueen AlexandraQueen MaryFrancis, Duke of TeckPrincess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of TeckAlbert, Prince ConsortbaptisedSt Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringhamroyal familyleft-handedknock kneesQueen Victoria diedRoyal Naval College, DartmouthEdward VII diedHMS CumberlandWest IndiesmidshipmanHMS CollingwoodJohn Marnochmentioned in dispatchesduodenal ulcerRoyal Naval Air ServiceCranwellRAF's Cadet BrigadeSt Leonards-on-SeaShorncliffeGeneral TrenchardAutignyIndependent Air ForceNancy, FranceKing Albert I of Belgiumsquadron leaderTrinity College, CambridgeR. V. LaurenceEarl of InvernessBaron KillarneyWimbledonMen's DoublesLouis GreigIndustrial Welfare SocietyWedding of Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-LyonEagle Farm RacecourseLady LoughboroughCountess of StrathmoreWestminster AbbeyBritish Broadcasting CompanyChapterHerbert Edward Rylecover of TimeUgandaSuez Canalbig-game huntingBritish Empire ExhibitionWembleyParliament HouseCanberraBertrand ClarkWhite Lodge, Richmond ParkPiccadillyCanadian prime ministerR. B. Bennett