Much of the life of Albert Frederick Arthur George, called Bertie by family and friends, can be summed up in one word: unexpected. At the time of his birth, his father held the title Duke of York, later to ascend to the throne of the United Kingdom and Great Britain as King George V. Bertie was his second son, and thus was not expected to ascend to the throne; the heir apparent under George V was Bertie’s brother, who became King Edward VIII in 1936. Thus, it was his brother who was groomed as the man who would be king; Bertie was prepared for other duties as expected of the Royal Family in the first half of the 20th century.
Bertie was born on December 14, 1895, the second of eventually five sons. As a child, his health was not strong. His natural inclination was to use his left as his dominant hand, a quirk not tolerated by his family and tutors. He was frequently ill and developed a stutter as a child, another trait which his family considered intolerable. Forced to write with his right hand, ashamed of his stutter, and prone to tears when frightened, which was often as he was terrified of loud noises, Bertie became shy and withdrawn. Leg braces intended to correct his knock-kneed legs added to his childhood troubles. Though he saw his parents twice a day when they were in residence, they had little to do with rearing their children. Those duties were performed by nannies, tutors, and other servants in the employ of the Royal Family.
The Seasick Sailor
In 1909, in accordance with family tradition, Bertie entered the Royal Navy as a cadet at the Royal Naval Academy in Osborne, on the Isle of Wight. He struggled there as well, finishing last in his class in 1911 before moving on to the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. By then, he was the son of the King, his father having ascended to the throne in 1910. Naval cadets trained both in the classroom and at sea, where Bertie quickly demonstrated a tendency toward seasickness, an unfortunate malady for one considering a Naval career. Bertie never fully overcame it. His health continued to be problematic; he dealt with ulcers, and in the early months of World War I, with appendicitis.
Despite the problems, which persisted along with his stutter, Bertie continued to serve and was aboard HMS Collingwood during the Battle of Jutland in 1916. His service as a turret officer was sufficient for him to be “mentioned in dispatches”, an award for gallantry, during the battle. Such performance was certainly unexpected, given his persistent ill health, his poor performance in training, and his nervous nature. By 1917, he was ashore, recovering from surgery for his ulcers. He later returned to service with the Royal Navy Flying Service, learning to fly himself in 1918. He transferred from the Royal Navy to the newly formed Royal Air Force later that same year.
Despite his poor health, Bertie somewhat unexpectedly excelled at sports, particularly tennis. He played well enough to enter the Men’s Doubles at Wimbledon in 1926, though he and his partner, Louis Greig, were eliminated in the first round. By then, he had completed courses in economics and history at Trinity College and frequently represented the Royal Family in official appearances. Still, he appeared less confident in public than his brother Edward, Prince of Wales. He appeared as Albert, Prince of York in his official capacity. Hampered by his stutter, he spoke infrequently in public, which contributed further to his image of being reserved and shy.
A Love Match
During the Edwardian era, members of all of Europe’s Royal Houses were expected to intermarry. In part because he was not expected to ascend to the throne, his brother being heir-apparent, Bertie was given considerable leeway when it came to the choice of his bride. In 1920, Bertie began courting Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the daughter of the Earl of Strathmore and his wife Cecilia, Countess of Strathmore. Bertie proposed marriage twice, in 1921 and 1922. Both times his intended refused him, dissuaded by her mother, who warned Elizabeth of the duties required of the Royal Family. In 1923, the persistent Bertie, then Duke of York, won her hand and they were married that year. The fact that he had married someone not of a royal family was noted in the press, in a welcoming manner for the most part. It was considered to be a step of modernization.
The couple spent a full sixteen months touring His Majesty’s dominions in Africa, during which they went on safari in search of big game. Their marriage was, by all accounts, a happy one and produced two daughters. Elizabeth, called Lilibet, was born in 1926. Their second daughter, Margaret, was born in 1930. Unlike the events of his own childhood, Bertie remained close to his children and involved himself in their daily lives. Though they could have used one of several different Royal Palaces and homes as their main residence, they chose instead to reside in London, at 145 Piccadilly, a five-story house by Green Park. It remained their home until Bertie ascended to the throne, though he sometimes resided at Royal Lodge after 1932.
Overcoming his Stutter
Bertie found the requirements of his role as a member of the Royal Family and his stutter incompatible during the 1920s. His speaking engagements became agonizing for him and embarrassing for those forced to endure sitting through his remarks. After his return to Britain in 1925, Bertie engaged the services of Lionel Logue, a self-taught elocutionist and speech therapist, who had been for the most part dismissed as a fraud by the mainstream medical community. Speech therapy wasn’t considered a discipline at the time. Logue diagnosed the Duke’s problem as being one of poor coordination between his diaphragm and larynx, which could be corrected through breathing exercises.
The exact exercises Logue prescribed for the future King are unknown. The Duke and his mentor worked on his problem each day, for about an hour, and Bertie continued his exercises on his own prior to speaking to anyone. Gradually, he learned to release the tensions that led to his stutter and speak slowly and clearly. His progress was rapid. By 1927, he was able to address the Parliament of Australia, delivering prepared remarks smoothly without stuttering. Despite his success, Bertie continued to work with Logue for many years. In 1952, after George VI’s sudden death, his widow wrote to Logue, “I think that I know perhaps better than anyone just how much you helped the King, not only with his speech, but through that his whole life and outlook on life”.
Overcoming his stutter corresponded with growing self-confidence and assurance. The Duke often flew himself to appearances as he went about his Royal duties. He developed an interest in industry and the contributions of labor to production. Bertie took such a deep interest in the working class and job conditions that the press began to call him the “Industrial Prince,” a nickname which took hold when he served as the President of the Industrial Welfare Society. Still, his elder brother remained destined to become the next King. Bertie remained third in line to the throne, after his father, who occupied it, and his elder brother, whose unmarried and childless status meant the Duke of York was his heir.
Scandalous Royals
George V had five sons, though the last of his children, Prince John, died from complications of epilepsy in 1919 at the age of 13. He also had a daughter, Mary, Princess Royal. The line of succession ran through the sons Edward, Albert, Prince Henry, and Prince George. Henry exhibited tendencies toward affairs shocking to the morals of the day, similar to those of his elder brother, Edward. Prince George also enjoyed several scandalous affairs, yet by the mid-1930s, all of the brothers were married except Edward, heir to the throne, who exhibited little in the way of urgency regarding marriage.
Edward enjoyed his bachelorhood, as well as his racehorses and other forms of gambling. His father, the King eyed his sons with thinly veiled disdain, and grew closer to Bertie during the 1930s, as well as his granddaughter Lilibet, who called His Majesty “Grandpa England”. Of Edward, he wrote to a friend, “After I am dead the boy will ruin himself within 12 months.” He also expressed a hope that Edward would neither marry nor have children, which would leave Bertie as his heir apparent. Edward was aware of his father’s opinion; their relationship grew strained as Europe lurched toward fascism and war in the turbulent 1930s.
In 1934, Edward began a relationship with Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee remarried to a shipping magnate. The married Simpson and the heir to the throne did little to conceal their relationship, scandalous though it was. When his father, George V, demanded an explanation, Edward insisted the relationship was merely a platonic friendship. Members of Parliament and the press expressed concern over the relationship, partly due to moral outrage at Simpson’s marital status, and partly over her status as an American and its potential influence over the British throne. Edward was already suspected of sympathy for the German Nazi Party, which also drew considerable support from the German-American Bund and other similar groups in the United States
In January 1936, George V died and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. Bertie was elevated to heir apparent, since the unmarried King had no issue. Then Edward shocked the nation by announcing, despite being warned not to, his intention to marry Wallis Simpson as soon as she could be divorced from her husband. His government informed him he could not marry his intended and retain the throne. Bertie, still residing with his family in the house on Piccadilly, was suddenly thrust into the limelight as the heir. The public was divided; the upper classes, for the most part, were unwilling to accept Edward’s choice of a bride. The working classes were more supportive. The German Nazi propaganda machine chortled over the class divide within the British nation.
On December 10, 1936, Edward and his three surviving brothers gathered at Fort Belvedere, a country house in the hands of the Royal Family. There Edward signed his letter of abdication, after months of legal and religious maneuvering. At the time of Edward’s abdication, Bertie ascended to the throne. It was a position he had not wanted, not prepared for, and according to much of the press and gossip of the time, was ill-equipped physically and emotionally to fulfill. His daughter, Lilibet, became heir apparent as the firstborn of the monarch.
The Reluctant King Prepared for War
Edward had not held the throne long enough for a formal coronation ceremony. As May 12, 1937 had been selected for that event, Bertie and the government agreed to let it stand. By the time of his coronation, Bertie had already bestowed Edward and Wallis Simpson with the titles of Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He allowed his brother to adopt the title of His Royal Highness, but denied it to Simpson, and he further enhanced Edward’s finances by purchasing Balmoral and Sandringham, which George V’s estate had left to Edward personally.
Bertie had also dealt with his first major crisis. Ireland had responded to the turmoil in the British government over Edward’s relationship by abolishing the office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State, an appointee of the Crown. It was a major step toward Ireland becoming a republic. Yet Ireland was little more than a distraction for the government at the time. British politics and foreign policy in 1937 were dominated by appeasement of the expansion of Germany on the European continent. George VI had no choice but to support the policies of his Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, despite the growing protests against them led by Winston Churchill.
When Chamberlain returned to Britain having obtained the Munich Agreement, promising “peace in our time”, the King and his family asked the Prime Minister to appear with them on a balcony at Buckingham Palace. The appearance of a politician alongside the King was a nearly unprecedented alignment of the monarchy with politics. It was also a clear sign that the King intended to modernize the monarchy to meet the new demands of the times. In 1939, George took his intentions a step further, undertaking a tour of North America, which included the United States. It was the first visit of a reigning British Monarch to America.
Planning for war
President Roosevelt personally planned much of George VI’s and his wife Elizabeth’s brief six-day visit to the United States in June 1939. He calculated it to ensure the King and Queen received maximum exposure to cheering crowds as the monarch toured Washington DC and New York City. During the Washington phase of the trip, the King visited Mount Vernon, including the tomb of George Washington. A formal State Dinner marked his Washington visit. In New York, the Royals attended the World’s Fair, after which they made a less formal visit to FDR’s home in Hyde Park, on the Hudson River in New York State. There, FDR held an informal cookout, serving the King the American delicacy of hot dogs on the porch of his mother’s house. The King’s comments regarding hot dogs were unrecorded.
The FDR Library contains a transcript of George VI’s handwritten notes made at the time of his trip. The King reported “two good conversations” as well as “many opportunities of informal talks” between His Majesty and the President. These talks included discussions of the Neutrality Act, including the possibility of the Americans finding “…something could be done to make it less difficult for the USA to help us.” His Majesty recorded several of FDR’s complex plans for Naval patrols in the Atlantic in the event of war between Britain and Germany, including the observation, “If he saw a U-boat he would sink her at once & wait for the consequences”.
When Britain declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939, in response to the German invasion of Poland, it did so with its monarch assured of aid from the United States, as far as was possible. FDR’s carefully orchestrated tour, and the King and Queen’s gracious acceptance of American hospitality and policies, gave birth to the “special relationship” which has existed between the countries ever since. The American public had been charmed by the Royal Family. After the war began and London was being bombed, George’s decision to remain in Buckingham Palace rather than be relocated to a safer area resonated with the American people as it did with the British.
Enduring Wartime Dangers
During the Blitz on London, US newsmen, especially Edward R. Murrow, kept the Americans informed of British determination not to give in. The Royal Family demonstrated that resolve by remaining in London with their standard flying over Buckingham Palace. In 1940, as France collapsed, Winston Churchill replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister. The King preferred his longtime friend Lord Halifax, but he learned to work with Churchill, and they met weekly over lunch at the palace whenever possible throughout the war. The King and Queen remained at Buckingham Palace throughout the Blitz and the later V-1 and V-2 attacks, sharing the danger with their subjects. The boy once frightened by loud noises refused to turn to safety from German bombs.
Bertie and Elizabeth made several trips to the front during the war, talking strategy with generals and foreign leaders and meeting with the troops to boost morale. While other governments and Royal Families of Europe went into exile, several in Canada, George and Elizabeth maintained a high public profile, a symbol of British resistance and resolve. The once reluctant monarch used the throne to strengthen his people, and the British public responded with adulation. When the Germans surrendered in May 1945, huge crowds gathered outside Buckingham Palace, demanding to see their King. George shared the limelight and accolades with Churchill, as he had with Chamberlain years earlier.
Throughout the war, the Royal Family, Bertie, Elizabeth, and their two young daughters, toured the frontlines and the home front to boost morale, often at considerable danger to themselves. The Princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, moved about several of the houses and palaces of the Royal Family between appearances, spending much of the war at Windsor Castle. Both served in the auxiliary (Elizabeth, the future Queen, as a driver and automobile mechanic), and both made morale-boosting visits and radio broadcasts throughout the war. On VE Day, with the permission of the King and Queen, they left the Palace balcony to mingle with the crowds. “I remember we were terrified of being recognized”, Elizabeth said many years later.
The Decline of the Empire
In the post-war years, it quickly became evident that Britain could no longer afford to maintain its global empire. At the same time, independence movements erupted around the globe. In 1947, British India split into two independent Dominions, Pakistan and India. Emperor of India was removed from George VI’s many titles that year. India became a republic in 1950, and King of India was removed from his titles, though he remained King of Pakistan. In 1948, the British Mandate of Palestine separated, creating Israel and smaller Arab states as well as conflict, which has continued to rage for nearly 75 years as of this writing.
As the British Empire became the British Commonwealth, George and Elizabeth traveled extensively. The end of the empire did not sit well with some, nor did the policies of some of the emerging Dominions. Racial segregation quickly came to dominate in South Africa. When the King toured that country in 1947, to boost the political fortunes of Jan Smuts, the Prime Minister, he was told by local leaders to shake hands only with those presented to him who were White.
In 1947, Lilibet, despite some reservations on the part of her mother, announced her engagement to Philip Mountbatten (Prince Philip of Greece). Their wedding, on November 20, 1947, was held in Westminster Abbey. Before the wedding, George VI granted his son-in-law title as Duke of Edinburgh. None of the new Duke’s German relatives were invited, nor was the former King, and Elizabeth’s uncle the Duke of Windsor. The wedding was to have been a symbol of British resurgence and recovery from the war years. In truth, Elizabeth needed ration coupons to obtain her wedding dress, a sign that demonstrated Britain’s recovery was far from complete.
The Decline of the King
George VI had seldom enjoyed robust health, and throughout his adult life, he was a heavy smoker of cigarettes. He was seldom without one, even when dining. By the late 1940s, the effects of a lifetime of smoking and the stresses of the war began to overtake him. He developed circulatory problems, lung cancer, and other related ailments. In May, 1951, he attended the opening of the Festival of Britain, a World’s Fair type of event which focused solely on the achievements of Britain and ran throughout the summer. He then retired for complete rest. That September his left lung was removed and his health from that point declined quickly.
Elizabeth was representing the King in Kenya in February 1952 (the King had seen her and Philip off at the airport in January) when she received word of her father’s death on February 6. He died of a coronary at the age of 56.
His funeral was held in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, on February 15. On March 26, 1969, his remains were transferred to the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor. His wife, the Queen Mother, and his daughter Margaret lie beside him, and in 2022, Queen Elizabeth II, as well as Prince Philip, were interred with them.
Undying legacy of George VI
George VI ascended to the throne when it was rocked by scandal, with public faith in the institution of the monarchy at its nadir. In a letter to his brother Edward, whose behavior and decisions led to George reluctantly accepting the throne, he wrote that he had wanted “to make it steady again”. Through the war and in the tumultuous events which followed, he served as far more than just a figurehead. He kept informed of events and circumstances with politicians, field commanders, and the troops. He also kept in touch with his people. By the time his daughter became Queen Elizabeth II, British faith in the monarchy had returned.
He restored faith in the monarchy through the display of personal courage and devotion to his family and his people. His daughter took up his mantle, serving through seven decades frequently fraught with scandal and indiscretions on the part of other members of the Royal Family, maintaining a quiet dignity and clear personal courage. Today, his grandson sits on the throne as King Charles III, facing an imposing legacy left him by his mother and grandfather.
