This time, it's the often misunderstood or looked over George V. The man who "Anglified" the British Royal family, who carried Britain through some of its darkest days... and who secretly became an absolute monarch... the last to do so...
In the words of George V himself, "Well, carry on then, will you?"
I give you George V, last of the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, first of the House of Windsor!
- Born in 1865, the second son of Prince Albert "Bertie" Edward and Alexandra.
- Was third in line for the throne, after his father, and his older brother Albert "Eddy" Victor. Neither he nor his brother were very good in school, both being more inclined towards fantasies of being in the army or playing together. They were only a year and a half apart, so George was close to his older brother.
- With a career in University being a dim proposition, their father, who had been forced to go to Cambridge when what he really wanted was a military position, managed to get both the brothers assigned to a naval vessel. George was only 12.
- The two brothers and their tutor toured Europe's ports, learning how to manage a Naval career. When this was successful, their father sent them on a grand tour of the world, visiting all of England's colonies, and many foreign countries as well. They were well received, and spent three years abroad. When they returned, they were 18 and 17.
- Their grandmother, Victoria, was upset that neither of the princes could speak French or German. She forced Prince Bertie to send his sons to Switzerland in order to learn. The boys hated it there. When they returned, they were separated. Eddy, being the heir, was sent to learn at Cambridge. George asked to go back into the navy, and was granted his wish.
- For the next ten years, George traveled the world as a naval officer. He was a sturdy young man, and an excellent ship-man. He spent a great deal of time serving under his uncle, Alfred, who was also in the navy. From Alfred, George also learned more about being a royal... and he met his cousin, Alfred's daughter, Marie. The two fell in love. The fathers both agreed to the match, as did Victoria, but the two mothers hated each other. Alfred's wife was the only daughter of Russian Tsar Alexander II, and she thought that George's family, being descended from Albert, a minor German princeling, was inferior to her family. She thought that she had added greatly to the family, and for her daughter to marry one of her own cousins would be selling herself short. Marie was forced by her mother to refuse when George proposed to her. He was deeply disappointed and hurt.
- By now, Prince Eddy was engaged to Mary of Teck, a great-granddaugther of George III. (Her grandmother was the daughter of Adolphus, George III's 7th son.) They were scheduled to marry in 1892. However, soon after announcing the engagement, Prince Eddy suddenly grew sick. George and his family stood by his bedside, sure that he would pull through... but he didn't. Prince Eddy had died. George was devastated again... and so was Mary of Teck.
- Albert "Eddy" Victor had been a troubling young man. He was extremely handsome, dashing, and polite... but he was also prone to scandal, like his father. Eddy was implicated in a scandal of the highest order when one of his attendants was caught soliciting a male prostitute. When the police busted the brothel, the pimp and the "lads" had ratted out this man, and this man's lawyer threw several men of high standing under the bus to try to take the heat off his client. He even implied strongly that Prince Eddy had on more than one occasion ALSO visited the brothel. Homosexuality was illegal at the time, not to mention the social implications of the Victorian Age. Prince Eddy was of course never charged. The Prince of Wales swept in and shut the entire investigation down. However, rumors were now rampant that Prince Eddy was homosexual, and a deviant besides. Soon, when the Ripper murders started up, Eddy was once again blamed by popular rumor. There's no evidence that Eddy ever did a thing wrong other than being a genteel man in a strong man's world, but the rumors wouldn't stop. Now, suddenly, Prince Eddy was dead... Britain had recently changed its attitude regarding the royals due to the Typhoid fever of Prince Edward, (Eddy's dad.) Britain mourned. Dashed were their hopes of a fairytale marriage between the dashing young prince and his pretty princess...
- The Prince of Wales, still weak from his own bout with Typhoid Fever, had to act fast to secure his new heir. Prince Edward arranged for Mary to stay at the household to mourn her fiancee... and made sure that George would be staying there as well. This tactic played out well, and George fell in love with Mary of Teck. There is every indication that she fell for him as well, though she was worried that she would be seen as an opportunist.
- George, though very much a military man who hid his feelings deep, sent a series of letters to Mary that convinced her of his true love for her. Victoria reminded Mary that other kings such as Henry VIII had married their older brother's betrothed when the brother died. It wasn't unprecedented, and popular opinion seemed to be that George was indeed a smarter match for Mary. After a year of courting Mary and mourning his brother, George proposed to Mary. She accepted, and the two were married in a quiet ceremony. They were very much in love.
- Now a family man and heir to the throne, George was forced to end his naval career. He didn't like it, but did his duty. This would be a common theme in his life. He moved with his wife to Sandringham House in Norfolk, and were by all accounts quite happy. But to the frustration of many, George was exceedingly boring. His father was a party animal, larger than life. His brother had been a walking headline. George, on the other hand, loved two things in life. His wife, and stamps.
- George was England's foremost stamp collector. He truly dedicated his life to it. George's collection was one of the best in the world, and he spent hours and hours at his desk, quietly cataloging and affixing his stamps. A biographer who was sent to write about the new Duke of York lamented that there was simply NOTHING to write about. "The Duke only did two things... shot at animals, and stuck in stamps," the writer complained. Today, the stamp collection is STILL one of the best in the world, and is a point of pride for the British.
- George wasn't always a stick in the mud, though. He was known as something of a practical joker who loved pranking his cabinet. At royal meetings with the Russian royal family, it was remarked that he and his cousin, Nicholas II, were so similar as to be twins. They both thought it would be a laugh if they secretly switched clothes and tried to pass off as each other. This scheme worked, and their own advisers were vexed to find that they didn't realize it until hours later!
- George and Mary had six children... five sons and a daughter. The old Hanover curse was still around, though... George was a terrifying father. He even wore that as a sign of pride, once saying, "My father was frightened of his mother, I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me!" He was never known to be cruel, like his grandmother, but he was very strict, and was not above meting out a paddling or a slap if his kids were acting in a way he didn't approve of. Still, this was fairly normal for the time, and it doesn't seem that George was particularly abusive for a father of the Edwardian Age.
- In 1894, George's uncle-by-marriage, Tsar Alexander III, died. George's cousin, Nicholas, became Nicholas II of Russia. George represented England at the funeral, and helped see to it that "Cousin Nicky" was married to another cousin, Princess Alix, who had once been entertained as a match for both Eddy and George.
- When Victoria died in 1901, George became the Prince of Wales. He and his wife toured the empire in an effort to solidify their image. This went over well in some places, but badly in South Africa, where the Boers resented the British heavily, even moreso because of the great expense doled out for royal celebrations so soon after the starvation of their people by the British.
- George oversaw the independence of New Zealand, and was well received there.
- When he returned, he began his role as the heir to the throne. Edward VII, long resentful that he had been excluded from his mother's royal cabinet, made sure to include George as much as possible. George was simply not very good at it. He dreaded giving speeches, and was not comfortable in front of people. His father was so natural in front of a crowd.... but George simply didn't know what to say. He was a stamp collector, for God's sake!
- Luckily, his wife was gregarious. She wrote his speeches with him, helped him make tough decisions regarding policy, and generally became George's best friend and team-mate. He never forgot his friends in the Navy, and devoted his life to making sure the navy was top of the line, as well as fair and kind to the sailors. This would prove important later.
- While travelling in India, George was disgusted by the racism there. He openly and sternly chastised British officials who had punished the local people, and called for more Indian Nationals to be allowed into the Raj government. This made him wildly popular both at home and in India, but it bred resentment in the upper class, who saw prince George as a "bleeding heart," and a "naive young man."
- 9 years later, his own father passed away. It was one of the very few times in his life that George cried. He said, "Today I have lost my best friend and the best of fathers... I have never had a cross word with him in my life." He solemnly took the throne as George V. His wife, who was named Victoria Mary, became Queen Mary. (George didn't particularly like the 'uppity' connotations of his grandmother's name, and Mary was much more down to earth as a name.)
- George V immediately proved a totally boring king. He had no scandal to speak of, he had no mistresses, and he loved his wife. By all accounts, he was a good, if firm, father, and a capable statesman. This moral goodness just wouldn't DO for some people, and a local writer fabricated a story that George V had been secretly married in Malta as a youth. This whole thing was preposterous, and George laughed it off. However, the man wouldn't back down, and George, in true George style, had the man imprisoned... but only for a year. The rumors were dropped.
- The Protestant Parliament tried to get George to read a very anti-catholic speech at his coronation. George, once again in George style, told them he wouldn't read such a ludicrous document, and wouldn't become king if he had to read that at his coronation. Flummoxed, Parliament let the king read his own speech... thank-you-very-much-and-goodnight. The old wording of the accession act was rewritten and reworded according to George's command.
- So, in 1911, George was crowned King of Great Britain and Emperor of India. He then set about doing what kings did, travelling and shooting as much of the natural wildlife as he could. Hunting can be said to be George's one bad point. In one trip alone, he killed over a dozen tigers. In another instance, he shot over 1000 pheasants in only a few hours... when asked about it he said, "Perhaps I DID go a bit too far that day."
- In 1914, George faced his first crisis. Ireland was demanding home rule. George didn't favor it, and Parliament was in all out chaos over it. George was forced to step in to try to stop the deadlock. He invited all parties to his home to talk it out, but the talks went nowhere. It was clear that civil war may very well be in the future. However, a bigger problem soon came up... World War I.
- England was now at war with Germany. This was a real problem for George, as his own cousin, Wilhelm II, was Kaiser of Germany. George himself was also the liege lord of Saxe-Coburg and Gothe. His siblings were liege lords and ladies of many other German principalities. Germany was now the cause of horror and deadly, pointless war. Very quickly, public sentiment turned against the royal family. Ugly rumors of German collaboration were circulated. Since the time of George I, the royal family had been seen as German, not English. Hell, George V's own grandfather, Albert, had been a full blooded German! H.G. Wells, a famous writer, referred to England as a place with an "alien and uninspiring court." George commented, in pure George style, "Yes, I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien!"
- Still, something had to be done. George came to a solution that most would have called astounding. He and his entire family, even distant cousins, immediately gave up all their titles and lands from Germany, and immediately changed their surnames to British ones. George Frederick Saxe-Coburg Gothe became "King George Windsor." Word was sent to Germany, basically stating "We don't want your cruddy land, anyway!" Instantly, George had taken a PR nightmare and turned it on its head. The British people adored him for this, especially since he and his family had put their money where their mouths were and given up great German lands and fortunes. The Royal family was again saved.
- However, this came at a price. The German side of the family was disowned. Some of George's own cousins were declared traitors, and all their symbols of station and peerages were stricken from the record. A line had been drawn in the sand by George. You were either on the British side of it, or the German side. There was no going in between.
- Another huge problem soon reared its head. The Navy was nearly in full mutiny! Sailors who hadn't been paid were refusing to do their job.... there was even talk of the British Army going to war with the British Navy. Parliament was unable to stop this growing unrest, as some favored punishing the sailors, some wanted to come to terms with them, and neither side could actually PAY them at the time. George, faced with his greatest crisis, saved the day... in a very unusual way.
- George told Parliament that he could defuse the situation. He was a sailor, after all... and the men loved him. The problem was, the King couldn't actually make policy or promise anything to the military... at least... not if he had no power. Parliament and the king secretly brokered a shady deal that most never knew about... they quietly voted to give the king absolute power. For the first time since the times of the early Stuarts, the king of England was ACTUALLY the ruler of his kingdom. This gave George the power over the royal prerogative. He defused the situation by giving a rather rousing speech to the Navy. The ringleaders were punished, but the men got paid, and the crisis was averted. George quietly returned power to Parliament, and the whole thing was swept under the rug, until the documents became public only a few years ago.
- George then had to contend with the fact that his cousin Nicky had abdicated the Russian throne in the face of insurmountable rebellion. Nicholas II had appealed to his cousin for asylum, and Parliament had advised that George take in the Tsar's family. George, however, saw the sickening truth. If he protected his cousin, England would likely be dragged into a war with the Bolsheviks, who were now in control of all of Russia. Though it supposedly broke his heart, he refused to take in the royal family of Russia. Nicholas, his wife, and their five children were quietly murdered by the communists the next year.
- To his credit, George V did approve the rescue and settling of the extended Russian family such as his aunt, Nicholas II's mother, and various cousins. The Russian Communists let these peripheral royals go without complaint.
- After the war, nearly every royal in Europe no longer had a throne. George, strangely one of the few royal monarchs still left in power, saw to it that many of the royal families of Europe had somewhere to settle. This earned him the gratitude of many foreign dignitaries, such as the royals of Austria and Greece.
- Now the Irish nationalist movement began in earnest. George was sickened and shocked at the behavior of Parliament, and made this known to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. George believed that the cost of keeping Ireland in the UK was too high, and sanctioned government murder was simply that... murder.
- George V, along with David Lloyd George and General Smuts of South Africa, proposed a partitioning of Ireland. This idea would come to pass, and Ireland still sits, partitioned, to this day. The Irish Free State was born.
- George was king when the Labour movement swept England. He personally approved of their work to see to it that returning soldiers were cared for, and George openly supported Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour PM in England. Though the Labour government only ruled for a year, George did what he could to help the poor for the rest of his life. When Parliament called the striking workers "Revolutionaries," George, in true George style, said, "Try living on their wages before you judge them."
- Now growing old, George's next challenge was overseeing the dissolution of the British empire. He had a large hand in setting up the Commonwealth of Nations, and supported the idea that all members were equal, none above the other. This made him a hero in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, among other places. Those places still generally respect the royal family even today.
- The depression hit England hard. Faced with no real way to solve it, George publicly stated that the only way through it was through extra work, and more sacrifices. This policy would be repeated, famously, by Churchill during WWII.
- By 1930, George was becoming ever more aware of the threat of Adolf Hitler and the 3rd Reich. He spoke out against the Nazi regime, even as the British Parliament scrambled to play nice with Hitler, bowing to his ever increasing demands in the disastrous "appeasement" tactic. George, in true George style, told the German ambassador that Germany was once again the peril of all of Europe, and that there would be war within 10 years, mark his words. Though he wouldn't live to see it, George's words would ring true.
- In 1932, George V became the first English Monarch to have his voice played on the radio. He gave a short speech to the children of England during Christmas, wishing them a happy Christmas, and giving a few words of joy and encouragement to all people in the world. This tradition is still being upheld today, and the Monarch addresses the world every Christmas.
- In 1935, at his silver jubilee, king George was again moved to tears. The people flooded out by the millions to see him, cheer him, and show their true love for a man who had become something of a father and grandfather to everyone. Fighting back tears, George said, (again in true George style,) "I cannot understand it, after all I am only a very ordinary sort of fellow."
- Sadly, the Hanoverian curse was still alive... George did not get along with his eldest son Edward. Just like his father before him, George had a rather foppish older son, and a quiet, serious second son. George got on famously with his second son, Albert, but had trepidation about leaving the kingdom in the hands of the man who would become Edward VIII. As his health failed him, George V said, "My oldest son will ruin himself within 12 months of my death." Again... the old king was a prophet.
- His health had been failing for years. He was told to rest and relax in mainland Europe after a bout of septicemia, but of course, George had cursed out his doctors, telling them, literally, to "Piss off." He had become a rather cantankerous old man, prone to cursing and making his discontent loudly known. Instead, he retired to a British town, Bognor, to recuperate.
- Not long after his silver jubilee in 1935, George again fell ill. He retired to his beloved home in Sandringham. Soon, he found out that his beloved sister, Victoria, had passed away. This blow seemed to take the fight out of George, and he began dying in earnest. He was bedridden. The doctors attending him gave conflicting accounts of his last hours. One said he repeatedly asked "How is the Empire?" But this would be fairly uncharacteristic, and is not believed by most. Another story, more believable, were that his last words were that, when told he would soon be better, and relaxing in Bognor, he replied, "Bugger Bognor!" (this also is likely not true, but it is entertaining.
- In reality, a doctor who was worried that the king's death would be reported in one of the less acceptable evening magazines decided to send the king off with a "Whizbang," (a deadly overdose of sedatives and other drugs.) The doctor recorded in his journal the king's ACTUAL last words. He said as he was being given the deadly dose, in true George style...
"God damn you!"
- And so, George V, a quiet, boring, rather plain fellow, died... one of England's most beloved kings. He would be succeeded by his dandy son, Edward VIII, who he disliked intensely... and so would begin one of the strangest monarchies in British history.
In the words of George V himself, "Well, carry on then, will you?"
I give you George V, last of the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, first of the House of Windsor!
- Born in 1865, the second son of Prince Albert "Bertie" Edward and Alexandra.
- Was third in line for the throne, after his father, and his older brother Albert "Eddy" Victor. Neither he nor his brother were very good in school, both being more inclined towards fantasies of being in the army or playing together. They were only a year and a half apart, so George was close to his older brother.
- With a career in University being a dim proposition, their father, who had been forced to go to Cambridge when what he really wanted was a military position, managed to get both the brothers assigned to a naval vessel. George was only 12.
- The two brothers and their tutor toured Europe's ports, learning how to manage a Naval career. When this was successful, their father sent them on a grand tour of the world, visiting all of England's colonies, and many foreign countries as well. They were well received, and spent three years abroad. When they returned, they were 18 and 17.
- Their grandmother, Victoria, was upset that neither of the princes could speak French or German. She forced Prince Bertie to send his sons to Switzerland in order to learn. The boys hated it there. When they returned, they were separated. Eddy, being the heir, was sent to learn at Cambridge. George asked to go back into the navy, and was granted his wish.
- For the next ten years, George traveled the world as a naval officer. He was a sturdy young man, and an excellent ship-man. He spent a great deal of time serving under his uncle, Alfred, who was also in the navy. From Alfred, George also learned more about being a royal... and he met his cousin, Alfred's daughter, Marie. The two fell in love. The fathers both agreed to the match, as did Victoria, but the two mothers hated each other. Alfred's wife was the only daughter of Russian Tsar Alexander II, and she thought that George's family, being descended from Albert, a minor German princeling, was inferior to her family. She thought that she had added greatly to the family, and for her daughter to marry one of her own cousins would be selling herself short. Marie was forced by her mother to refuse when George proposed to her. He was deeply disappointed and hurt.
- By now, Prince Eddy was engaged to Mary of Teck, a great-granddaugther of George III. (Her grandmother was the daughter of Adolphus, George III's 7th son.) They were scheduled to marry in 1892. However, soon after announcing the engagement, Prince Eddy suddenly grew sick. George and his family stood by his bedside, sure that he would pull through... but he didn't. Prince Eddy had died. George was devastated again... and so was Mary of Teck.
- Albert "Eddy" Victor had been a troubling young man. He was extremely handsome, dashing, and polite... but he was also prone to scandal, like his father. Eddy was implicated in a scandal of the highest order when one of his attendants was caught soliciting a male prostitute. When the police busted the brothel, the pimp and the "lads" had ratted out this man, and this man's lawyer threw several men of high standing under the bus to try to take the heat off his client. He even implied strongly that Prince Eddy had on more than one occasion ALSO visited the brothel. Homosexuality was illegal at the time, not to mention the social implications of the Victorian Age. Prince Eddy was of course never charged. The Prince of Wales swept in and shut the entire investigation down. However, rumors were now rampant that Prince Eddy was homosexual, and a deviant besides. Soon, when the Ripper murders started up, Eddy was once again blamed by popular rumor. There's no evidence that Eddy ever did a thing wrong other than being a genteel man in a strong man's world, but the rumors wouldn't stop. Now, suddenly, Prince Eddy was dead... Britain had recently changed its attitude regarding the royals due to the Typhoid fever of Prince Edward, (Eddy's dad.) Britain mourned. Dashed were their hopes of a fairytale marriage between the dashing young prince and his pretty princess...
- The Prince of Wales, still weak from his own bout with Typhoid Fever, had to act fast to secure his new heir. Prince Edward arranged for Mary to stay at the household to mourn her fiancee... and made sure that George would be staying there as well. This tactic played out well, and George fell in love with Mary of Teck. There is every indication that she fell for him as well, though she was worried that she would be seen as an opportunist.
- George, though very much a military man who hid his feelings deep, sent a series of letters to Mary that convinced her of his true love for her. Victoria reminded Mary that other kings such as Henry VIII had married their older brother's betrothed when the brother died. It wasn't unprecedented, and popular opinion seemed to be that George was indeed a smarter match for Mary. After a year of courting Mary and mourning his brother, George proposed to Mary. She accepted, and the two were married in a quiet ceremony. They were very much in love.
- Now a family man and heir to the throne, George was forced to end his naval career. He didn't like it, but did his duty. This would be a common theme in his life. He moved with his wife to Sandringham House in Norfolk, and were by all accounts quite happy. But to the frustration of many, George was exceedingly boring. His father was a party animal, larger than life. His brother had been a walking headline. George, on the other hand, loved two things in life. His wife, and stamps.
- George was England's foremost stamp collector. He truly dedicated his life to it. George's collection was one of the best in the world, and he spent hours and hours at his desk, quietly cataloging and affixing his stamps. A biographer who was sent to write about the new Duke of York lamented that there was simply NOTHING to write about. "The Duke only did two things... shot at animals, and stuck in stamps," the writer complained. Today, the stamp collection is STILL one of the best in the world, and is a point of pride for the British.
- George wasn't always a stick in the mud, though. He was known as something of a practical joker who loved pranking his cabinet. At royal meetings with the Russian royal family, it was remarked that he and his cousin, Nicholas II, were so similar as to be twins. They both thought it would be a laugh if they secretly switched clothes and tried to pass off as each other. This scheme worked, and their own advisers were vexed to find that they didn't realize it until hours later!
- George and Mary had six children... five sons and a daughter. The old Hanover curse was still around, though... George was a terrifying father. He even wore that as a sign of pride, once saying, "My father was frightened of his mother, I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me!" He was never known to be cruel, like his grandmother, but he was very strict, and was not above meting out a paddling or a slap if his kids were acting in a way he didn't approve of. Still, this was fairly normal for the time, and it doesn't seem that George was particularly abusive for a father of the Edwardian Age.
- In 1894, George's uncle-by-marriage, Tsar Alexander III, died. George's cousin, Nicholas, became Nicholas II of Russia. George represented England at the funeral, and helped see to it that "Cousin Nicky" was married to another cousin, Princess Alix, who had once been entertained as a match for both Eddy and George.
- When Victoria died in 1901, George became the Prince of Wales. He and his wife toured the empire in an effort to solidify their image. This went over well in some places, but badly in South Africa, where the Boers resented the British heavily, even moreso because of the great expense doled out for royal celebrations so soon after the starvation of their people by the British.
- George oversaw the independence of New Zealand, and was well received there.
- When he returned, he began his role as the heir to the throne. Edward VII, long resentful that he had been excluded from his mother's royal cabinet, made sure to include George as much as possible. George was simply not very good at it. He dreaded giving speeches, and was not comfortable in front of people. His father was so natural in front of a crowd.... but George simply didn't know what to say. He was a stamp collector, for God's sake!
- Luckily, his wife was gregarious. She wrote his speeches with him, helped him make tough decisions regarding policy, and generally became George's best friend and team-mate. He never forgot his friends in the Navy, and devoted his life to making sure the navy was top of the line, as well as fair and kind to the sailors. This would prove important later.
- While travelling in India, George was disgusted by the racism there. He openly and sternly chastised British officials who had punished the local people, and called for more Indian Nationals to be allowed into the Raj government. This made him wildly popular both at home and in India, but it bred resentment in the upper class, who saw prince George as a "bleeding heart," and a "naive young man."
- 9 years later, his own father passed away. It was one of the very few times in his life that George cried. He said, "Today I have lost my best friend and the best of fathers... I have never had a cross word with him in my life." He solemnly took the throne as George V. His wife, who was named Victoria Mary, became Queen Mary. (George didn't particularly like the 'uppity' connotations of his grandmother's name, and Mary was much more down to earth as a name.)
- George V immediately proved a totally boring king. He had no scandal to speak of, he had no mistresses, and he loved his wife. By all accounts, he was a good, if firm, father, and a capable statesman. This moral goodness just wouldn't DO for some people, and a local writer fabricated a story that George V had been secretly married in Malta as a youth. This whole thing was preposterous, and George laughed it off. However, the man wouldn't back down, and George, in true George style, had the man imprisoned... but only for a year. The rumors were dropped.
- The Protestant Parliament tried to get George to read a very anti-catholic speech at his coronation. George, once again in George style, told them he wouldn't read such a ludicrous document, and wouldn't become king if he had to read that at his coronation. Flummoxed, Parliament let the king read his own speech... thank-you-very-much-and-goodnight. The old wording of the accession act was rewritten and reworded according to George's command.
- So, in 1911, George was crowned King of Great Britain and Emperor of India. He then set about doing what kings did, travelling and shooting as much of the natural wildlife as he could. Hunting can be said to be George's one bad point. In one trip alone, he killed over a dozen tigers. In another instance, he shot over 1000 pheasants in only a few hours... when asked about it he said, "Perhaps I DID go a bit too far that day."
- In 1914, George faced his first crisis. Ireland was demanding home rule. George didn't favor it, and Parliament was in all out chaos over it. George was forced to step in to try to stop the deadlock. He invited all parties to his home to talk it out, but the talks went nowhere. It was clear that civil war may very well be in the future. However, a bigger problem soon came up... World War I.
- England was now at war with Germany. This was a real problem for George, as his own cousin, Wilhelm II, was Kaiser of Germany. George himself was also the liege lord of Saxe-Coburg and Gothe. His siblings were liege lords and ladies of many other German principalities. Germany was now the cause of horror and deadly, pointless war. Very quickly, public sentiment turned against the royal family. Ugly rumors of German collaboration were circulated. Since the time of George I, the royal family had been seen as German, not English. Hell, George V's own grandfather, Albert, had been a full blooded German! H.G. Wells, a famous writer, referred to England as a place with an "alien and uninspiring court." George commented, in pure George style, "Yes, I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien!"
- Still, something had to be done. George came to a solution that most would have called astounding. He and his entire family, even distant cousins, immediately gave up all their titles and lands from Germany, and immediately changed their surnames to British ones. George Frederick Saxe-Coburg Gothe became "King George Windsor." Word was sent to Germany, basically stating "We don't want your cruddy land, anyway!" Instantly, George had taken a PR nightmare and turned it on its head. The British people adored him for this, especially since he and his family had put their money where their mouths were and given up great German lands and fortunes. The Royal family was again saved.
- However, this came at a price. The German side of the family was disowned. Some of George's own cousins were declared traitors, and all their symbols of station and peerages were stricken from the record. A line had been drawn in the sand by George. You were either on the British side of it, or the German side. There was no going in between.
- Another huge problem soon reared its head. The Navy was nearly in full mutiny! Sailors who hadn't been paid were refusing to do their job.... there was even talk of the British Army going to war with the British Navy. Parliament was unable to stop this growing unrest, as some favored punishing the sailors, some wanted to come to terms with them, and neither side could actually PAY them at the time. George, faced with his greatest crisis, saved the day... in a very unusual way.
- George told Parliament that he could defuse the situation. He was a sailor, after all... and the men loved him. The problem was, the King couldn't actually make policy or promise anything to the military... at least... not if he had no power. Parliament and the king secretly brokered a shady deal that most never knew about... they quietly voted to give the king absolute power. For the first time since the times of the early Stuarts, the king of England was ACTUALLY the ruler of his kingdom. This gave George the power over the royal prerogative. He defused the situation by giving a rather rousing speech to the Navy. The ringleaders were punished, but the men got paid, and the crisis was averted. George quietly returned power to Parliament, and the whole thing was swept under the rug, until the documents became public only a few years ago.
- George then had to contend with the fact that his cousin Nicky had abdicated the Russian throne in the face of insurmountable rebellion. Nicholas II had appealed to his cousin for asylum, and Parliament had advised that George take in the Tsar's family. George, however, saw the sickening truth. If he protected his cousin, England would likely be dragged into a war with the Bolsheviks, who were now in control of all of Russia. Though it supposedly broke his heart, he refused to take in the royal family of Russia. Nicholas, his wife, and their five children were quietly murdered by the communists the next year.
- To his credit, George V did approve the rescue and settling of the extended Russian family such as his aunt, Nicholas II's mother, and various cousins. The Russian Communists let these peripheral royals go without complaint.
- After the war, nearly every royal in Europe no longer had a throne. George, strangely one of the few royal monarchs still left in power, saw to it that many of the royal families of Europe had somewhere to settle. This earned him the gratitude of many foreign dignitaries, such as the royals of Austria and Greece.
- Now the Irish nationalist movement began in earnest. George was sickened and shocked at the behavior of Parliament, and made this known to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. George believed that the cost of keeping Ireland in the UK was too high, and sanctioned government murder was simply that... murder.
- George V, along with David Lloyd George and General Smuts of South Africa, proposed a partitioning of Ireland. This idea would come to pass, and Ireland still sits, partitioned, to this day. The Irish Free State was born.
- George was king when the Labour movement swept England. He personally approved of their work to see to it that returning soldiers were cared for, and George openly supported Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour PM in England. Though the Labour government only ruled for a year, George did what he could to help the poor for the rest of his life. When Parliament called the striking workers "Revolutionaries," George, in true George style, said, "Try living on their wages before you judge them."
- Now growing old, George's next challenge was overseeing the dissolution of the British empire. He had a large hand in setting up the Commonwealth of Nations, and supported the idea that all members were equal, none above the other. This made him a hero in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, among other places. Those places still generally respect the royal family even today.
- The depression hit England hard. Faced with no real way to solve it, George publicly stated that the only way through it was through extra work, and more sacrifices. This policy would be repeated, famously, by Churchill during WWII.
- By 1930, George was becoming ever more aware of the threat of Adolf Hitler and the 3rd Reich. He spoke out against the Nazi regime, even as the British Parliament scrambled to play nice with Hitler, bowing to his ever increasing demands in the disastrous "appeasement" tactic. George, in true George style, told the German ambassador that Germany was once again the peril of all of Europe, and that there would be war within 10 years, mark his words. Though he wouldn't live to see it, George's words would ring true.
- In 1932, George V became the first English Monarch to have his voice played on the radio. He gave a short speech to the children of England during Christmas, wishing them a happy Christmas, and giving a few words of joy and encouragement to all people in the world. This tradition is still being upheld today, and the Monarch addresses the world every Christmas.
- In 1935, at his silver jubilee, king George was again moved to tears. The people flooded out by the millions to see him, cheer him, and show their true love for a man who had become something of a father and grandfather to everyone. Fighting back tears, George said, (again in true George style,) "I cannot understand it, after all I am only a very ordinary sort of fellow."
- Sadly, the Hanoverian curse was still alive... George did not get along with his eldest son Edward. Just like his father before him, George had a rather foppish older son, and a quiet, serious second son. George got on famously with his second son, Albert, but had trepidation about leaving the kingdom in the hands of the man who would become Edward VIII. As his health failed him, George V said, "My oldest son will ruin himself within 12 months of my death." Again... the old king was a prophet.
- His health had been failing for years. He was told to rest and relax in mainland Europe after a bout of septicemia, but of course, George had cursed out his doctors, telling them, literally, to "Piss off." He had become a rather cantankerous old man, prone to cursing and making his discontent loudly known. Instead, he retired to a British town, Bognor, to recuperate.
- Not long after his silver jubilee in 1935, George again fell ill. He retired to his beloved home in Sandringham. Soon, he found out that his beloved sister, Victoria, had passed away. This blow seemed to take the fight out of George, and he began dying in earnest. He was bedridden. The doctors attending him gave conflicting accounts of his last hours. One said he repeatedly asked "How is the Empire?" But this would be fairly uncharacteristic, and is not believed by most. Another story, more believable, were that his last words were that, when told he would soon be better, and relaxing in Bognor, he replied, "Bugger Bognor!" (this also is likely not true, but it is entertaining.
- In reality, a doctor who was worried that the king's death would be reported in one of the less acceptable evening magazines decided to send the king off with a "Whizbang," (a deadly overdose of sedatives and other drugs.) The doctor recorded in his journal the king's ACTUAL last words. He said as he was being given the deadly dose, in true George style...
"God damn you!"
- And so, George V, a quiet, boring, rather plain fellow, died... one of England's most beloved kings. He would be succeeded by his dandy son, Edward VIII, who he disliked intensely... and so would begin one of the strangest monarchies in British history.