Читать книгу The Queen: History in an Hour - Sinead Fitzgibbon - Страница 7

The final weeks of 1935 had not been a happy period for the British Royal Family. From mid November, it had become obvious that George V’s health was in serious decline, to the extent that when the King’s physician released a notice to the Press on the evening of 20 January 1936, stating that ‘the King’s life is drawing peacefully to a close’, no one was much surprised. The doctor’s predictions proved to be correct. At 11.55 p.m. on the same evening, King George V, whom Princess Elizabeth had lovingly dubbed ‘Grandpa England’, breathed his last. He was succeeded by his eldest son, David, the erstwhile Prince of Wales, who chose to take the regnal name of King Edward VIII.

Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII (1919)

However, contrary to his doctor’s communiqué, George V’s passing was anything but peaceful. In his final years, the ailing King had been increasingly troubled by doubts regarding David’s suitability to take on the highest position in the land – and his misgivings were far from unfounded. As Prince of Wales, David had lived the life of a pleasure-seeking playboy prince. Weak-willed, petulant, yet endlessly charming, David was bored senseless by royal protocol and showed little interest in affairs of State, preferring instead to absorb himself in a number of adulterous liaisons with married women.

When George V voiced his concerns to the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, saying, ‘After I’m dead, the boy will ruin himself in a year,’ even he could not have known how prophetic his words would prove to be. In the event, it would take just eleven months for George’s wayward son to bring about his own spectacular fall from grace.