Royal Babylon - Edward VIII: The Plot to Topple a King TV - The Real King’s Speech TV - The King’s Speech 2011 - Reputations: George VI: The Reluctant King TV - Queen Elizabeth - Sarah Bradford - Robert Rhodes James - Bertie & Elizabeth 2002 - The Queen Mother: The Reluctant Queen TV - The Windsors: Inside the Royal Dynasty TV - The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth TV -
His [Edward VIII’s] successor, George VI, was also keen on appeasement. Royal Babylon *****
In 1937 the Queen’s father, George VI, was crowned in Westminster Abbey. George did not expect to become king. His older brother Edward inherited the crown. But within a year at the centre of a scandal that rocked the nation Edward had abdicated. Edward VIII: The Plot to Topple a King, Channel 4 2012
George VI became King to be followed by our Queen because of ... the Most Reverend Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury. ibid.
The Queen's father – King George VI – suffered from a debilitating speech impediment. Behind the scenes the King was helped by an innovative speech therapist, Lionel Logue. The Real King’s Speech, Channel 4 2013
The Duke of York was thirty and had been stammering for twenty-three years. ibid.
Some of Logue’s methods had the whiff of the West End rather than Harley Street. ibid.
For ten years the Yorks had an uncomplicated family life. ibid.
The King stood to speak to the empire. ibid.
Cigarette smoking calms the nerves and makes you confident. The King’s Speech 2011 starring Colin Firth & Geoffrey Rush & Guy Pearce & Helena Bonham Carter & Timothy Spall & Derek Jacobi & Jennifer Ehle & Anthony Andrews & Claire Bloom & Eve Best & Freya Wilson & Tim Downie & Roger Hammond & Michael Gambon et al, director Tom Hooper, Doctor
Doctor: Do you know any jokes?
King: Timing isn’t my strong suit. ibid.
I was afraid of my father and my children are damned well afraid of me. ibid. George V
Therapist: What’re friends for?
King: I wouldn’t know. ibid.
But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossibility to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love. ibid. Edward VIII
Listen to me. By divine right if you must. I am your King. Because I have a right to be heard. I have a voice. ibid. George V
King George VI made Lionel Logue a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1944. This high honour from a grateful King made Lionel part of the only order of chivalry that specifically rewards acts of personal service to the Monarch. ibid.
Lionel was with the King for every wartime speech. Through his broadcasts, George VI became a symbol of national resistance. ibid.
Lionel and Bertie remained friends for the rest of their lives. ibid. caption
He never wished to be king nor dreamed he would be. He was desperately shy, highly strung and prone to outbursts of uncontrollable rage ... Churchill called him a simpleton. Reputations: George VI: The Reluctant King, BBC 1999
When Edward gave up the throne for love and became Duke of Windsor a rift followed that was never healed. ibid.
He was bullied ... His time in the Navy was made retched by mental depression and physical pain. ibid.
The Prince of Wales, eighteen months older, was everything his brother was not: raffish, charming when he wanted to be, a follower of fashion, a man who loved the life of glamour and the adulation of the public. ibid.
In 1935 King George V and Queen Mary celebrated their silver jubilee. ibid.
Relations between the brothers and their partners were strained. There were in effect two royal courts. ibid.
The monarchy had survived its worst crisis since 1688. ibid.
The fact that the Duke of Windsor had lied about money broke the tie between the two brothers. ibid.
Palace officials were so concerned about the fits of rage that in 1947 they consulted the royal doctor. He advised that nothing could be done. ibid.
First, as they toured the bomb-damaged East End, they were not always welcomed ... ‘Now we can look the East End in the face’. ibid.
He also suffered from phobias. ibid.
The King’s relationship with his prime minister was not always harmonious. ibid.
The King was happiest when out of the limelight. ibid.
He was diagnosed as suffering from lung cancer but not told of the disease. ibid.
The King was found dead in his bed at Sandringham. ibid.
It was the very ordinariness of George VI, the reluctant king. ibid.
I’m glad we’ve been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, wife of George VI
The Princesses would never leave without me and I couldn’t leave without the King, and the King will never leave. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother
He [George VI] used to smoke and stay up late. Sarah Bradford
Someone [George VI] who did his royal duties but in a quiet, modest way. He was I think quite wrongly judged by London society as rather dull. Robert Rhodes James, author A Spirit Undaunted – The Political Role of George VI
People who walk around with their buttons undone are cads. Bertie & Elizabeth 2002 starring James Wilby & Juliet Aubrey & Alan Bates & Eileen Atkins & Dolly Wells & William Mickleburgh & Charles Edwards & Alexandra Staden et al, director Giles Foster, George V to Bertie
I’m so in love with her, you see. ibid. Bertie
I’m asking you to marry me, Elizabeth. ibid.
Monarchy is ritual, boy ... Monarchy is magical. ibid. George V at table
Don’t make an ass of yourself talking to the workers. ibid. George V to David
Oh, God, you really are turning into father, aren’t you. ibid. David to Bertie
We came to dine with the King. ibid. Elizabeth Queen Mother
To give up all that for a woman of no importance. ibid. Queen Mary
For a king he’s a remarkably pleasant kind of a person. ibid. Speech therapist
Seems you want to nationalise everything. ibid. King to Attlee
Your wife and my mother – a couple of ice-vein bitches. ibid. David to Bertie
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, known affectionately to millions as the Queen Mum, for many she is the most popular royal figure in recent history. Born a commoner, she married a prince, but she never expected or wanted to become Queen. The Queen Mother: The Reluctant Queen I, Channel 5 2020
Underneath the soft and smiley exterior there was a core of steel. ibid.
Elizabeth had become the first commoner to marry into the royal family in 250 years. When she married the King & Queen’s second son, Prince Albert, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon had become the Duchess of York. ibid.
Elizabeth believed Mrs Simpson was so damaging she might even end Edward’s reign … From the start Elizabeth had treated the arrival of Edward’s American mistress with deep suspicion. ibid.