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121-756: Edward, the son of George V , assumed the throne in January 1936, when his father died. But it was already clear by then that he wanted to marry the American Wallis Simpson , and, since the Church of England proscribed the marriage because she was divorced , he stunned the world by abdicating his throne less than a year later in favour of his brother Albert, the Duke of York , who became George VI . The ex-king and Mrs. Simpson were married in France and, as

242-587: A world financial crisis , George encouraged the formation of a National Government in 1931 led by MacDonald and Baldwin, and volunteered to reduce the civil list to help balance the budget. He was concerned by the rise to power in Germany of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party . In 1934, George bluntly told the German ambassador Leopold von Hoesch that Germany was now the peril of the world, and that there

363-544: A " cult of personality ", and Franco viewed Serrano Suñer as increasingly becoming a thorn in the side of his party who criticised too many of its policies. Just one week after Serrano Suñer was promoted to Minister of Foreign Affairs, on 23 October 1940, Franco and Adolf Hitler met at the Hendaye railway station in France, near the Spanish border. There, Serrano Suñer met with Ribbentrop. Paul Schmidt , head interpreter of

484-635: A "shopping list" to Ribbentrop, saying Spain wanted Gibraltar from the British; all of French Morocco and Algeria "which belonged to Spain's Lebensraum "; and about Portugal , he said: "Geographically speaking, Portugal has no right to exist". Additionally, Serrano Suñer wanted generous promises of German military and economic support before Spain entered the war. Serrano Suñer and Ribbentrop did not get along and they soon developed an intense mutual hatred of one another. Ribbentrop told Serrano Suñer that in return for military and economic aid and allowing

605-526: A "terrible father" in later years. They lived mainly at York Cottage , a relatively small house in Sandringham, Norfolk , where their way of life mirrored that of a comfortable middle-class family rather than royalty. George preferred a simple, almost quiet, life, in marked contrast to the lively social life pursued by his father. His official biographer, Harold Nicolson , later despaired of George's time as Duke of York, writing: "He may be all right as

726-740: A 1919 Order in Council under the provisions of the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 . Under pressure from his mother, George also removed the Garter flags of his German relations from St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle . When Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, George's first cousin, was overthrown in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the British government offered political asylum to the Tsar and his family, but worsening conditions for

847-551: A brief final scene. Hours of waiting just for the mechanical end when all that is really life has departed only exhausts the onlookers & keeps them so strained that they cannot avail themselves of the solace of thought, communion or prayer. I therefore decided to determine the end and injected (myself) morphia gr.3/4 [grains] and shortly afterwards cocaine gr.1 [grains] into the distended jugular vein ... In about 1/4 an hour – breathing quieter – appearance more placid – physical struggle gone. Dawson wrote that he acted to preserve

968-540: A descendant of the German Dukes of Württemberg . George had brothers-in-law and cousins who were British subjects but who bore German titles such as Duke and Duchess of Teck, Prince and Princess of Battenberg, and Prince and Princess of Schleswig-Holstein. When H. G. Wells wrote about Britain's "alien and uninspiring court", George replied: "I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien." On 17 July 1917, George appeased British nationalist feelings by issuing

1089-565: A little too far" that day. George inherited the throne at a politically turbulent time. Lloyd George 's People's Budget had been rejected the previous year by the Conservative and Unionist -dominated House of Lords , contrary to the normal convention that the Lords did not veto money bills . Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith had asked the previous king to give an undertaking that he would create sufficient Liberal peers to allow

1210-546: A mumbled "God damn you!", were addressed to his nurse, Catherine Black , when she gave him a sedative that night. Dawson, who supported the "gentle growth of euthanasia ", admitted in the diary that he ended the King's life: At about 11 o'clock it was evident that the last stage might endure for many hours, unknown to the Patient but little comporting with that dignity and serenity which he so richly merited and which demanded

1331-584: A royal proclamation that changed the name of the British royal house from the German-sounding House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor . He and all his British relatives relinquished their German titles and styles and adopted British-sounding surnames. George compensated his male relatives by giving them British peerages. His cousin Prince Louis of Battenberg , who earlier in

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1452-570: A sighting of the Flying Dutchman , a mythical ghost ship. When they returned to Britain, the Queen complained that her grandsons could not speak French or German, and so they spent six months in Lausanne in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to learn another language. After Lausanne, the brothers were separated; Albert Victor attended Trinity College, Cambridge , while George continued in

1573-593: A wide variety of public duties. On the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January 1901, George's father ascended the throne as King Edward VII . George inherited the title of Duke of Cornwall , and for much of the rest of that year, he was known as the Duke of Cornwall and York. In 1901, the Duke and Duchess toured the British Empire . Their tour included Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, Aden , Ceylon, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, South Africa, Canada, and

1694-621: A young midshipman and a wise old king, but when he was Duke of York ... he did nothing at all but kill [ i.e. shoot] animals and stick in stamps." George was an avid stamp collector , which Nicolson disparaged, but George played a large role in building the Royal Philatelic Collection into the most comprehensive collection of United Kingdom and Commonwealth stamps in the world, in some cases setting record purchase prices for items. In October 1894, George's maternal uncle-by-marriage, Alexander III of Russia , died. At

1815-528: Is the Empire?" An unusual phrase in that form, and the secretary said: "All is well, sir, with the Empire", and the King gave him a smile and relapsed once more into unconsciousness. By 20 January, George was close to death. His physicians, led by Lord Dawson of Penn , issued a bulletin with the words "The King's life is moving peacefully towards its close." Dawson's private diary, unearthed after his death and made public in 1986, reveals that George's last words,

1936-534: The 1931 Statute of Westminster recognised the Empire's Dominions as separate, independent states within the British Commonwealth of Nations . George suffered from smoking-related health problems during his later reign. On his death in January 1936, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII . Edward abdicated in December of that year and was succeeded by his younger brother Albert, who took

2057-610: The Archbishop of Canterbury , Charles Longley . As a younger son of the Prince of Wales, there was little expectation that George would become king. He was third in line to the throne, after his father and elder brother, Prince Albert Victor . George was only 17 months younger than Albert Victor, and the two princes were educated together. John Neale Dalton was appointed as their tutor in 1871. Neither Albert Victor nor George excelled intellectually. As their father thought that

2178-635: The CEDA , Serrano Suñer came to embody the most totalitarian impetus within the regime. Serrano Suñer was known for his pro- Third Reich stance during World War II , when he supported the sending of the Blue Division to fight along with the Wehrmacht on the Russian front . He was also the brother-in-law of Francisco Franco 's wife Carmen Polo , for which he was informally nicknamed Cuñadísimo or

2299-598: The Colony of Newfoundland . The tour was designed by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain with the support of Prime Minister Lord Salisbury to reward the Dominions for their participation in the South African War of 1899–1902. George presented thousands of specially designed South African War medals to colonial troops. In South Africa, the royal party met civic leaders, African leaders, and Boer prisoners, and

2420-513: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor , toured Nazi Germany in October, 1937 as personal guests of Adolf Hitler, fanning speculations that they were sympathetic to Nazism . The trip was paid for by the Nazi government, which believed that the duke was a potential ally. In Germany, "they were treated like royalty ... members of the aristocracy would bow and curtsy towards her, and she was treated with all

2541-536: The Earl of Derby : "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." In reality, there is no direct source for the quotation and it is likely that George's parenting style was little different from that adopted by most people at the time. Whether this was the case or not, his children did seem to resent his strict nature, his son Prince Henry going as far as to describe him as

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2662-549: The First World War (1914–1918), the empires of his first cousins Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany fell, while the British Empire expanded to its greatest effective extent. In 1917, George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor , which he renamed from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a result of anti-German public sentiment . He appointed the first Labour ministry in 1924, and

2783-665: The Gestapo authorities of occupied Paris to the Spanish policeman and spy Pedro Urraca Rendueles , along with the extradition of Basque Minister of the Interior Julián Zugazagoitia , who had served under Republican Prime Minister Juan Negrín . While Serrano Suñer had been Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was General Juan Luis Beigbeder y Atienza , formerly a Military Attaché at

2904-539: The Mediterranean , Egypt, and East Asia. In 1881 on a visit to Japan, George had a local artist tattoo a blue and red dragon on his arm, and was received in an audience by the Emperor Meiji ; George and his brother presented Empress Haruko with two wallabies from Australia. Dalton wrote an account of their journey entitled The Cruise of HMS Bacchante . Between Melbourne and Sydney , Dalton recorded

3025-505: The Royal Navy , until his elder brother's unexpected death in January 1892 put him directly in line for the throne. The next year George married his brother's former fiancée, Princess Victoria Mary of Teck , and they had six children. When Queen Victoria died in 1901, George's father ascended the throne as Edward VII, and George was created Prince of Wales . He became king-emperor on his father's death in 1910. George's reign saw

3146-505: The Royal Navy . He travelled the world, visiting many areas of the British Empire. During his naval career he commanded Torpedo Boat 79 in home waters, then HMS  Thrush on the North America and West Indies Station . His last active service was in command of HMS Melampus in 1891–1892. From then on, his naval rank was largely honorary. As a young man destined to serve in the navy, Prince George served for many years under

3267-551: The Silver Jubilee of his reign in 1935, he had become a well-loved king, saying in response to the crowd's adulation, "I cannot understand it, after all I am only a very ordinary sort of fellow." George's relationship with his eldest son and heir, Edward , deteriorated in these later years. George was disappointed in Edward's failure to settle down in life and appalled by his many affairs with married women. In contrast, he

3388-671: The State Lawyers Corps in 1924. Ramón Serrano Suñer and Francisco Franco were co-brothers-in-law, since the two married two sisters: Serrano Suñer married Ramona (Zita) Polo y Martínez-Valdés, in Oviedo on 6 February 1932, whom he had met shortly after moving to Zaragoza in 1931. Franco married Carmen Polo y Martínez-Valdés in October 1923. Ramón Serrano Suñer and Zita Polo had six children: Fernando, Francisco, Jaime Javier, José, María del Pilar and Ramón Serrano-Suñer y Polo. Carmen Díez de Rivera e Icaza  [ es ]

3509-594: The Valencian port of Castelló de la Plana . Although he was an excellent student, his father disapproved of his plans to become a lawyer. He enrolled at Madrid's Central University to study law, just the same. A fellow student of José Antonio Primo de Rivera (son of Spanish dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera , and founder of the Falange), he developed a taste for falangism while spending a year in Bologna . He joined

3630-502: The coronation of King Haakon VII , George's cousin and brother-in-law, and Queen Maud , George's sister. On 6 May 1910, Edward VII died , and George became king. He wrote in his diary: I have lost my best friend and the best of fathers ... I never had a [cross] word with him in my life. I am heart-broken and overwhelmed with grief but God will help me in my responsibilities and darling May will be my comfort as she has always been. May God give me strength and guidance in

3751-624: The "most brother-in-law" (in comparison, the dictator himself was styled as generalísimo ). Serrano Suñer was the founder of the 67,000-strong Spanish blind people's organization ONCE on 13 December 1938, as well as of the EFE press-agency, in 1939. Serrano Suñer also founded the Radio Intercontinental radio network in 1950. He was born Ramón Serrano Suñer in Cartagena , the fifth of seven children born to an engineer working in

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3872-525: The Axis powers, Franco opted for Spain to remain a nonbelligerent during World War II . Serrano Suñer's protégé, Pedro Gamero del Castillo , consulted in January 1941 with Hans Lazar, the press secretary of the German embassy, and told him that a Serrano Suñer government would commit to the Axis powers and thus asked for him to arrange for the Nazis to back his mentor publicly. However, it is unclear whether Gamero

3993-536: The Bahamas. The next day, July 12, von Stohrer saw Ramón Serrano Súñer , Spanish Minister of the Interior, who promised to get his brother-in-law Generalissimo Francisco Franco in on the plot and carry out the following plan: the Spanish government would send a friend of the Duke, Miguel Primo de Rivera, leader of the Falange and son of Miguel Primo de Rivera , a former dictator, as an emissary. Rivera would invite

4114-674: The British military mission to the French Army High Command. He actually served as an agent for British military intelligence , which wanted information on French defences: specifically, the Maginot Line . His reports gave a very accurate assessment of French unpreparedness , but they were ignored. After the fall of France in June, 1940, the Windsors made their way to neutral Spain through Biarritz to escape capture by

4235-573: The British people, and fears that revolution might come to the British Isles, led George to think that the presence of the Romanovs would be seen as inappropriate. Despite the later claims of Lord Mountbatten of Burma that Prime Minister David Lloyd George was opposed to the rescue of the Russian imperial family, the letters of Lord Stamfordham suggest that it was George V who opposed

4356-456: The British public came to symbolise all the horrors of the war, was the King's first cousin. George's paternal grandfather was Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha ; consequently, the King and his children bore the German titles Prince and Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke and Duchess of Saxony. Queen Mary, although born in England like her mother, was the daughter of the Duke of Teck,

4477-596: The Dominions' legislative independence and established that the succession to the throne could not be changed unless all the Parliaments of the Dominions as well as the Parliament at Westminster agreed. The Statute's preamble described the monarch as "the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations", who were "united by a common allegiance". In the wake of

4598-414: The Duke to Spain for a hunting trip and also to discuss Anglo-Spanish relations. There he would also be informed of the "plot" by the British secret-service to liquidate him. If the Duke would agree to stay, he would be given financial assistance to permit him in maintaining a lifestyle befitting his station. (Reportedly 50 million Swiss francs were set aside for this.) Rivera agreed to the task, although he

4719-508: The Duke's alleged indiscreet remarks with Beigbeder, and as a result Churchill sent the Duke a telegram, ordering him back to Britain. Churchill pointed out that the Duke was under military authority, and unless he obeyed, he would be subjected to a court-martial .(The Duke had the temporary rank of major general .) Then came another telegram designating him as Governor of the Bahamas and ordering him to assume this post at once. Nevertheless,

4840-408: The Duke, had arrived, evidently charged by the British government to speed the Windsors toward the Bahamas as soon as possible. Moreover, the German ambassador reported that the Windsors would be leaving on August 1 for the small British possession. According to Schellenberg in his memoirs, when Hitler learned of this, he urged Schellenberg to take away all pretence and abduct them outright. Even while

4961-765: The European Parliament . Suñer was a member of the Cortes within the group of the right-wing CEDA although he did not formally join in the CEDA. Prior to the Spanish Civil War , he distanced himself from the CEDA and approached the Falange Española de las JONS but did not join it either. He had called the members of the youth wing JAP to flee to the Falange in the spring of 1936. After

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5082-769: The German Chancellor, reported that Franco sat between Ribbentrop and Walther von Brauchitsch , while Adolf Hitler sat between the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer and the Spanish Ambassador at Berlin, Eugenio Espinosa de los Monteros . However, neither the Spanish Ambassador at Berlin nor the German Ambassador at Madrid, Eberhard von Stohrer , were allowed at the exhaustive and inconclusive political meetings. By morning

5203-610: The Germans. On June 23, the German ambassador to Madrid , Eberhard von Stohrer , telegraphed Joachim von Ribbentrop , the Nazi Foreign Minister , that the Spanish Foreign Minister, Colonel Juan Beigbeder y Atienza , was inquiring on how to deal with the Duke, who was on his way to Lisbon , with the possibility of detaining him. Ribbentrop instructed von Stohrer the following day to forward

5324-633: The King and Queen travelled to India for the Delhi Durbar , where they were presented to an assembled audience of Indian dignitaries and princes as the Emperor and Empress of India on 12 December 1911. George wore the newly created Imperial Crown of India at the ceremony and declared the shifting of the Indian capital from Calcutta to Delhi. He was the only Emperor of India to be present at his own Delhi Durbar. As he and Mary travelled throughout

5445-619: The King's death the following day, in which he was described as "for each one of us, more than a King, a father of a great family". Ram%C3%B3n Serrano S%C3%BA%C3%B1er Ramón Serrano Suñer (12 September 1901 – 1 September 2003), was a Spanish politician during the first stages of the Francoist dictatorship , between 1938 and 1942, when he held the posts of President of the FET y de las JONS caucus (1936), and then Interior Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister. A neofalangist originally from

5566-556: The King's dignity, to prevent further strain on the family, and so that George's death at 11:55 pm could be announced in the morning edition of The Times newspaper rather than "less appropriate ... evening journals". Neither Queen Mary, who was intensely religious and might not have sanctioned euthanasia, nor the Prince of Wales were consulted. The royal family did not want the King to endure pain and suffering and did not want his life prolonged artificially but neither did they approve Dawson's actions. British Pathé announced

5687-428: The Ministry of Public Order ("Ministerio de Orden Público" in Spanish), a new name was created, the "Ministerio de la Gobernación", but the new name is now usually translated as "Ministry of the Interior". The merger was made by Franco on 9 August 1939, when Serrano Suñer became "Ministro de la Gobernación". Suñer also managed to re-elaborate the statutes of the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS , decreasing

5808-409: The Nazis were drawing up the plan to kidnap the Windsors. Hitler personally assigned Walter Schellenberg to handle the operation. Schellenberg, who was awarded the Iron Cross for his role in the Venlo Incident the year before, flew from Berlin to Madrid, conferred with von Stohrer, then went on to Portugal to begin work. The final plan would be to entice the Windsors over the border to Spain (with

5929-484: The Parliament Act, relations between the elderly Knollys and the Conservatives became poor, and he was pushed into retirement. Desperate to avoid the prospect of civil war in Ireland between Unionists and Nationalists, George called a meeting of all parties at Buckingham Palace in July 1914 in an attempt to negotiate a settlement. After four days the conference ended without an agreement. Political developments in Britain and Ireland were overtaken by events in Europe, and

6050-412: The Republicans. He was appointed the 263rd Minister of Foreign Affairs (18 October 1940 – 3 September 1942) because of his skill at building a relationship with Mussolini. Even though he was working with Franco, he objected to the increasing role of the Catholic Church in Falangist politics. The two brothers-in-law had some intraparty conflicts of their own, as Serrano Suñer accused Franco of riding on

6171-405: The Spanish Embassy Berlin as an Army Commandant in 1926. Already as a colonel, he was the predecessor of Serrano Suñer as a Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs. In September 1940, the strongly pro-Axis Serrano Suñer visited Berlin to meet the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to discuss how Spain might best enter the war on the Axis side. During the meeting, Serrano Suñer presented

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6292-457: The Spanish ambassador to Lisbon was prevailed upon to make a last-minute appeal to the Windsors, the automobile carrying the ducal baggage was "sabotaged", according to Schellenberg, so the luggage arrived at the port late. A bomb threat on the liner Excalibur was also spread by the Germans, which further delayed its departure while Portuguese officials searched the ship. Nevertheless, the Windsors departed that evening. While Schellenberg blamed

6413-413: The United Kingdom (as a puppet king) if the Operation succeeded and Edward reached Spain. Another telegram indicates that the plan to reinstate the Duke as king had been discussed with the Duke and Duchess: "Both seem to be completely bound up in formalistic ways of thought since they replied that according to the British constitution this was not possible after abdication ... When [an] agent then remarked

6534-420: The Upper House. A constitutional conference on the reforms broke down in November 1910 after 21 meetings. Asquith and Lord Crewe , Liberal leader in the Lords, asked George to grant a dissolution, leading to a second general election, and to promise to create sufficient Liberal peers if the Lords blocked the legislation again. If George refused, the Liberal government would otherwise resign, which would have given

6655-412: The Windsors stayed a month in the villa of Ricardo do Espirito Santo Silva, a banker ( Banco Espírito Santo ) said to have pro-Nazi sympathies. The German minister to Lisbon, Baron Oswald von Hoyningen-Huene , reported this to Ribbentrop on July 11 and added that the Duke "intends to postpone his departure as long as possible... in hope of a turn of events favourable to him," and basically reiterated what

6776-399: The ages of twelve and thirteen, and receiving the same education, whatever their class and eventual assignments. The reforms were implemented by the then Second (later First) Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher . From November 1905 to March 1906, George and May toured British India , where he was disgusted by racial discrimination and campaigned for greater involvement of Indians in the government of

6897-405: The appearance that the monarch was taking sides – with "the peers against the people" – in party politics. The King's two private secretaries, the Liberal Lord Knollys and the Unionist Lord Stamfordham , gave George conflicting advice. Knollys advised George to accept the Cabinet's demands, while Stamfordham advised George to accept the resignation. Like his father, George reluctantly agreed to

7018-551: The children of the Sovereign, the children of the sons of the Sovereign and the eldest living son of the eldest son of a Prince of Wales. The letters patent also stated that "the titles of Royal Highness, Highness or Serene Highness, and the titular dignity of Prince and Princess shall cease except those titles already granted and remaining unrevoked". George's relatives who fought on the German side, such as Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover , and Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , had their British peerages suspended by

7139-427: The civil war. In 1938, Serrano Suñer went to Nuremberg with Nicolás Franco , Franco's brother, probably to the 10th Nuremberg Rally ( Reichsparteitag Grossdeutschland in German) of the Nazi Party , to celebrate the Anschluss , the union of Austria with Germany, in March. Serrano Suñer served as Nationalist Minister of the Interior (1 February 1938 – 9 August 1939). When Franco amalgamated that ministry with

7260-399: The collusion of cooperative border officials, since they did not have passports) and keep them there to "protect them from plotters against their lives, specifically the British Intelligence Service". He carried out scare tactics to induce the Duke's willingness to leave the villa while trying to pin the blame on the British. Schellenberg arranged for some stone-throwing against the windows of

7381-409: The command of his uncle Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh , who was stationed in Malta . There, he grew close to and fell in love with his cousin Princess Marie of Edinburgh . His grandmother, father and uncle all approved the match, but his own mother and Marie's mother opposed it. The Princess of Wales thought the family was too pro-German, and the Duchess of Edinburgh disliked England. The Duchess,

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7502-425: The country. The tour was almost immediately followed by a trip to Spain for the wedding of King Alfonso XIII to George's cousin Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg , at which the bride and groom narrowly avoided assassination when the driver of their coach and more than a dozen spectators were killed by a bomb thrown by an anarchist, Mateu Morral . A week after returning to Britain, George and May travelled to Norway for

7623-431: The course of war may produce changes even in the British constitution, the Duchess in particular became very thoughtful." The Duke was appointed to the Bahamas post in 1940 as a means of removing him from Europe, as his ties with the Nazis "made him a liability", according to royal historian Carolyn Harris. George V of the United Kingdom George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936)

7744-430: The dignity and status that the duke always wanted," according to royal biographer Andrew Morton , quoted by BBC News . The Duke admired the economic achievements of the fascist regime, such as the reduction in unemployment. Much of Nazi brutality had been revealed already, but he "closed his eyes to much of what he did not want to see". When World War II broke out in September, 1939, the Duke became liaison officer with

7865-460: The dissolution and creation of peers, although he felt his ministers had taken advantage of his inexperience to browbeat him. After the December 1910 general election , the Lords let the bill pass on hearing of the threat to swamp the house with new peers. The subsequent Parliament Act 1911 permanently removed – with a few exceptions – the power of the Lords to veto bills. George later came to feel that Knollys had withheld information from him about

7986-456: The evening of 15 January 1936, George took to his bedroom at Sandringham House complaining of a cold; he remained in the room until his death. He became gradually weaker, drifting in and out of consciousness. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin later said: ... each time he became conscious it was some kind inquiry or kind observation of someone, some words of gratitude for kindness shown. But he did say to his secretary when he sent for him: "How

8107-421: The failure of the plot on Monckton, the collapse of the Spanish plan and the alleged "English mentality" of the Duke, it was also probable that Schellenberg deliberately refused to carry out the plan, which seemed doomed from the start. Even he admitted in his memoirs that his role in the affair was a ridiculous one. Many historians have suggested that Hitler was prepared to reinstate the Duke of Windsor as king in

8228-416: The family. Her parents were Francis, Duke of Teck (a member of a morganatic , cadet branch of the House of Württemberg ), and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge , a male-line granddaughter of George III and a first cousin of Queen Victoria. On 14 January 1892, six weeks after the formal engagement, Albert Victor died of pneumonia during an influenza pandemic , leaving George second in line to

8349-489: The first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald , in the absence of a clear majority for any one of the three major parties. George's tact in appointing the first Labour government (which lasted less than a year) allayed the suspicions of the party's sympathisers that he would work against their interests. During the General Strike of 1926 , George advised the government of Conservative Stanley Baldwin against taking inflammatory action, and took exception to suggestions that

8470-399: The first session of the Australian Parliament on the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia . In New Zealand, he praised the military values, bravery, loyalty, and obedience to duty of New Zealanders, and the tour gave New Zealand a chance to show off its progress, especially in its adoption of up-to-date British standards in communications and the processing industries. The implicit goal

8591-454: The heavy task which has fallen on me. George had never liked his wife's habit of signing official documents and letters as "Victoria Mary" and insisted she drop one of those names. They both thought she should not be called Queen Victoria, and so she became Queen Mary. Later that year, a radical propagandist, Edward Mylius , published a lie that George had secretly married in Malta as a young man, and that consequently his marriage to Queen Mary

8712-466: The hope of establishing a fascist Britain, had Edward agreed to do so after reaching Spain. Documents recovered from the Germans in 1945 near Marburg , later called the Marburg Files as well as The Windsor Files, included relevant correspondence about the planned outcome of Operation Willi. A telegram from Joachim von Ribbentrop indicated that the Duke of Windsor would be offered the throne of

8833-617: The idea against the advice of the government. Advance planning for a rescue was undertaken by MI1 , a branch of the British secret service, but because of the strengthening position of the Bolshevik revolutionaries and wider difficulties with the conduct of the war, the plan was never put into operation. Nicholas and his immediate family remained in Russia, where they were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 . George wrote in his diary: "It

8954-552: The issue of Irish Home Rule was suspended for the duration of the war. On 4 August 1914, George wrote in his diary, "I held a council at 10:45 to declare war with Germany. It is a terrible catastrophe but it is not our fault. ... Please to God it may soon be over." From 1914 to 1918, Britain and its allies were at war with the Central Powers , led by the German Empire . German Kaiser Wilhelm II , who for

9075-651: The meeting ended with no compromise. Serrano Suñer was later to say of the Hendaye summit that because of General Franco's obsession with Morocco, that if only Hitler had offered him French Morocco, then Spain would have entered the war in October 1940. Although Serrano Suñer had played a major role in establishing the Spanish state under Franco, being so influential as to be nicknamed the Cuñadísimo , which translates as supreme brother-in-law (a joke on " Generalísimo "), and despite Serrano Suñer's advocating Spain's joining

9196-457: The military coup of July 1936 and the outbreak of the civil war, he was locked in a Republican prison. He escaped in October 1936, dressed as a woman, and was then helped by the Argentine navy in getting to France , from where he was able to reach Salamanca on 20 February 1937, where Franco was in office at the time. It was there that he could work with Franco to participate for the rebels in

9317-536: The monarchy closer to the public and the working class—a dramatic change for the King, who was most comfortable with naval officers and landed gentry. He cultivated friendly relations with moderate Labour Party politicians and trade union officials. His abandonment of social aloofness conditioned the royal family's behaviour and enhanced its popularity during the economic crises of the 1920s and for over two generations thereafter. The years between 1922 and 1929 saw frequent changes in government. In 1924, George appointed

9438-568: The navy was "the very best possible training for any boy", in September 1877, when George was 12 years old, both brothers joined the cadet training ship HMS Britannia at Dartmouth, Devon . For three years from 1879, the princes served on HMS  Bacchante , accompanied by Dalton. They toured the colonies of the British Empire in the Caribbean , South Africa and Australia, and visited Norfolk, Virginia , as well as South America,

9559-610: The news, he met with Franco in El Pardo, and the Council of Ministers passed a resolution thereafter concerning the sending of a division of Spanish volunteers to the front. A day after, on 24 June, he declaimed his famous invective ¡Rusia es culpable! ( transl.  Russia is guilty! ) rallying a revanchist mood during a speech delivered from the balcony of the FET-JONS headquarters. On 25 November 1941 he signed in Berlin

9680-562: The only daughter of Alexander II of Russia , resented the fact that, as the wife of a younger son of the British sovereign, she had to yield precedence to George's mother, whose father had been a minor German prince before being called unexpectedly to the throne of Denmark. Guided by her mother, Marie refused George when he proposed to her. She married Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Romania , in 1893. In November 1891, George's brother, Albert Victor, became engaged to his second cousin once removed Princess Victoria Mary of Teck , known as "May" within

9801-649: The opening session of the Parliament of Northern Ireland on 22 June 1921, the King appealed for conciliation in a speech part drafted by General Jan Smuts and approved by Lloyd George. A few weeks later, a truce was agreed. Negotiations between Britain and the Irish secessionists led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty . By the end of 1922, Ireland was partitioned , the Irish Free State

9922-540: The passage of Liberal legislation. Edward had reluctantly agreed, provided the Lords rejected the budget after two successive general elections. After the January 1910 general election , the Conservative peers allowed the budget, for which the government now had an electoral mandate, to pass without a vote. Asquith attempted to curtail the power of the Lords through constitutional reforms, which were again blocked by

10043-561: The political council of the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS. After World War II, he wrote a persuasive letter to Franco, calling for a transitional government that would have room for intellectuals in exile. When Franco received the letter, he wrote a derisive "Ho-ho." in its margin. Serrano Suñer ultimately retired from public life in 1947. In 1949, Serrano Suñer sponsored the visit to Spain of British Fascist leader Oswald Mosley , taking him to

10164-739: The political power of the Secretary General in favour of a newly created office, the President of the Political Council, to which he was appointed on 9 August 1936. He felt the office of Gobernación on 16 October 1940. Just the day before, 15 October 1940, the former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia , Lluis Companys , had been executed by firing squad in Barcelona . On 13 August, Companys had been handed over by

10285-417: The pro-Axis Serrano Suñer, who had been expecting the Germans to treat Spain as an ally and an equal, to learn that the Germans viewed Spain as little more than a satellite state was a great shock. During his visits to Berlin, Serrano Suñer, who had started to rethink the wisdom of Spain entering the war, was overruled by Franco, who was keen to enter the war as soon as possible on the Axis side before Britain

10406-475: The rebellious Franco and, from March 1939, represented Francisco Franco until March 1945. He had been formerly a Minister of Public Instruction, later Minister of State, 1930–1931, under the dictatorship of General Dámaso Berenguer . In June 1939, Serrano Suñer had been back to Italy to present Benito Mussolini with the thousands of repatriated Italian soldiers who had fought by the side of Franco in Spain against

10527-474: The regnal name George VI . George was born on 3 June 1865, in Marlborough House , London. He was the second son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales , and Alexandra, Princess of Wales . His father was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert , and his mother was the eldest daughter of King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark . He was baptised at Windsor Castle on 7 July 1865 by

10648-606: The request of his father, "out of respect for poor dear Uncle Sasha's memory", George joined his parents in Saint Petersburg for the funeral. He and his parents remained in Russia for the wedding a week later of the new Russian emperor, his maternal first cousin Nicholas II , to one of George's paternal first cousins, Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine , who had once been considered as a potential bride for George's elder brother. As Duke of York, George carried out

10769-680: The return of Gibraltar, Germany wanted to annex at least one of the Canary Islands (Ribbentrop stated that he preferred Germany to have all of the Canaries but was prepared to be magnanimous by taking only one); that Germany be allowed air and naval bases in Spanish Morocco with extraterritorial rights; German companies to be given control of the mines in Spanish Morocco; and finally Ribbentrop wanted an economic treaty that would have turned Spain into an economic colony of Germany. For

10890-559: The revision of the pact of 25 November 1936 Germany – Japan Anti-Comintern Pact , an anticommunist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan (later to be joined by other countries) directed against the Communist International (Comintern) or Komintern . In September 1942, following the Basilica of Begoña incident of August 1942 , Serrano Suñer was forced to resign as foreign minister and president of

11011-462: The rise of socialism , communism , fascism , Irish republicanism , and the Indian independence movement , all of which radically changed the political landscape of the British Empire , which itself reached its territorial peak by the beginning of the 1920s. The Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords . As a result of

11132-446: The seaside resort of Bognor , Sussex. As a result of his stay, the town acquired the suffix Regis – Latin for "of the King". A myth later grew that his last words, on being told that he would soon be well enough to revisit the town, were " Bugger Bognor!" George never fully recovered. In his final year, he was occasionally administered oxygen. The death of his favourite sister, Victoria , in December 1935 depressed him deeply. On

11253-599: The strikers were "revolutionaries" saying, "Try living on their wages before you judge them." In 1926, George hosted an Imperial Conference in London at which the Balfour Declaration accepted the growth of the British Dominions into self-governing "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another". The Statute of Westminster 1931 formalised

11374-475: The subcontinent, George took the opportunity to indulge in big game hunting in Nepal , shooting 21 tigers, 8 rhinoceroses and a bear over 10 days. He was a keen and expert marksman. On a later occasion, on 18 December 1913, he shot over a thousand pheasants in six hours (about one bird every 20 seconds) while visiting the home of Lord Burnham . Even George had to acknowledge that "we went

11495-616: The suggestion that the Duke and Duchess be detained for two weeks, but not let it appear that the suggestion came from him. Stohrer replied that Beigbeder would do as Ribbentrop asked. The Spanish Foreign Minister then wired Ribbentrop on July 2 that he met with the Duke and reported the Duke's alleged antagonism against the Royal Family due to the treatment meted to his wife, as well as criticising Winston Churchill and his wartime policies. The Windsors then proceeded to Lisbon, where they arrived on July 3. The British government got wind of

11616-470: The throne and likely to succeed after his father. George had only just recovered from a serious illness himself, having been confined to bed for six weeks with typhoid fever , the disease that was thought to have killed his grandfather Prince Albert. Queen Victoria still regarded Princess May as a suitable match for her grandson, and George and May grew close during their shared period of mourning. A year after Albert Victor's death, George proposed to May and

11737-491: The throne". The First World War took a toll on George's health: he was seriously injured on 28 October 1915 when thrown by his horse at a troop review in France, and his heavy smoking exacerbated recurring breathing problems. He suffered from chronic bronchitis . In 1925, on the instruction of his doctors, he was reluctantly sent on a recuperative private cruise in the Mediterranean; it was his third trip abroad since

11858-424: The throne, after his father. George was created Duke of York , Earl of Inverness , and Baron Killarney by Queen Victoria on 24 May 1892, and received lessons in constitutional history from J. R. Tanner . The Duke and Duchess of York had five sons and a daughter . Randolph Churchill claimed that George was a strict father, to the extent that his children were terrified of him, and that George had remarked to

11979-542: The villa while circulating rumours among the servants that the British were responsible. A bouquet of flowers was also sent to the Duchess warning her of "the machinations of the British intelligence service". Another scare tactic, the firing of shots resulting in the harmless breaking of the windows, scheduled for July 30, was not carried out due to possible psychological effects on the Duchess. On that same day, Schellenberg reported that Sir Walter Monckton , an old friend of

12100-456: The war had been forced to resign as First Sea Lord through anti-German feeling, became Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, while Queen Mary's brothers became Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge , and Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone . In letters patent gazetted on 11 December 1917, the King restricted the style of "Royal Highness" and the titular dignity of "Prince (or Princess) of Great Britain and Ireland" to

12221-452: The war, and his last. In November 1928, he fell seriously ill with septicaemia , which localised between the base of his right lung and diaphragm in the form of an empyema that required drainage . For the next two years his son Edward took over many of his duties. In 1929, the suggestion of a further rest abroad was rejected by the King "in rather strong language". Instead, he retired for three months to Craigweil House , Aldwick, in

12342-777: The willingness of the opposition to form a government if the Liberals had resigned. The 1910 general elections had left the Liberals as a minority government dependent upon the support of the Irish Nationalist Party . As desired by the Nationalists, Asquith introduced legislation that would give Ireland Home Rule , but the Conservatives and Unionists opposed it. As tempers rose over the Home Rule Bill, which would never have been possible without

12463-541: Was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions , and Emperor of India , from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. George was born during the reign of his paternal grandmother, Queen Victoria , as the second son of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra ). He was third in the line of succession to the British throne behind his father and his elder brother, Prince Albert Victor . From 1877 to 1892, George served in

12584-513: Was Ramón Serrano Suñer's illegitimate daughter by the Marquis of Llanzol's wife but he never recognized her. Not knowing they were half-siblings, Carmen and Ramón Serrano Suñer y Polo fell in love and were only prevented from marrying at the last minute. She later became the Chief of Cabinet, ranking as Secretary of State, under Adolfo Suarez 's right wing coalition and later as a socialist member of

12705-421: Was a foul murder. I was devoted to Nicky, who was the kindest of men and thorough gentleman: loved his country and people." The following year, Nicholas's mother, Marie Feodorovna , and other members of the extended Russian imperial family were rescued from Crimea by a British warship. Two months after the end of the war, the King's youngest son, John , died aged 13 after a lifetime of ill health. George

12826-526: Was accepted. They married on 6 July 1893 at the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace , London. Throughout their lives, they remained devoted to each other. George was, on his own admission, unable to express his feelings easily in speech, but they often exchanged loving letters and notes of endearment. The death of his elder brother effectively ended George's naval career, as he was now second in line to

12947-531: Was bigamous. The lie had first surfaced in print in 1893, but George had shrugged it off as a joke. In an effort to kill off rumours, Mylius was arrested, tried and found guilty of criminal libel , and was sentenced to a year in prison. George objected to the anti-Catholic wording of the Accession Declaration that he would be required to make at the opening of his first parliament. He made it known that he would refuse to open parliament unless it

13068-410: Was bound to be a war within ten years if Germany went on at the present rate; he warned the British ambassador in Berlin, Eric Phipps , to be suspicious of the Nazis. In 1932, George agreed to deliver a Royal Christmas speech on the radio, an event that became annual thereafter. He was not in favour of the innovation originally but was persuaded by the argument that it was what his people wanted. By

13189-588: Was changed. As a result, the Accession Declaration Act 1910 shortened the declaration and removed the most offensive phrases. George and Mary's coronation took place at Westminster Abbey on 22 June 1911, and was celebrated by the Festival of Empire in London. In July, the King and Queen visited Ireland for five days; they received a warm welcome, with thousands of people lining the route of their procession to cheer. Later in 1911,

13310-500: Was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester . George's father wished to prepare him for his future role as king. In contrast to Edward himself, whom Queen Victoria had deliberately excluded from state affairs, George was given wide access to state documents by his father. George in turn allowed his wife access to his papers, as he valued her counsel and she often helped write his speeches. As Prince of Wales, he supported reforms in naval training, including cadets being enrolled at

13431-424: Was defeated. Franco, in his letters to Serrano Suñer, praised Hitler as a wise statesman and dismissed Ribbentrop's demands as the product of a man who failed to appreciate properly what Spain had to offer the Axis. Meanwhile, even on becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs, Serrano Suñer had to accept Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart y Falcó , 17th Duke of Alba, as ambassador to London , who, since November 1937 represented

13552-500: Was described in a poem, " The King's Pilgrimage " by Rudyard Kipling . The tour, and one short visit to Italy in 1923, were the only times George agreed to leave the United Kingdom on official business after the end of the war. Before the First World War , most of Europe was ruled by monarchs related to George, but during and after the war, the monarchies of Austria, Germany, Greece, and Spain, like Russia, fell to revolution and war. In March 1919, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Lisle Strutt

13673-566: Was dispatched on the personal authority of the King to escort the former Emperor Charles I of Austria and his family to safety in Switzerland. In 1922, a Royal Navy ship was sent to Greece to rescue his cousins Prince and Princess Andrew . Political turmoil in Ireland continued as the Nationalists fought for independence ; George expressed his horror at government-sanctioned killings and reprisals to Prime Minister Lloyd George . At

13794-441: Was established, and Lloyd George was out of office. George and his advisers were concerned about the rise of socialism and the growing labour movement, which they mistakenly associated with republicanism. The socialists no longer believed in their anti-monarchical slogans and were ready to come to terms with the monarchy if it took the first step. George adopted a more democratic, inclusive stance that crossed class lines and brought

13915-470: Was fond of his second son, Prince Albert (later George VI ), and doted on his eldest granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth ; he nicknamed her "Lilibet", and she affectionately called him "Grandpa England". In 1935, George said of his son Edward: "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself within 12 months", and of Albert and Elizabeth: "I pray to God my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and

14036-537: Was greeted by elaborate decorations, expensive gifts, and fireworks displays. Despite this, not all residents responded favourably to the tour. Many white Cape Afrikaners resented the display and expense, the war having weakened their capacity to reconcile their Afrikaner-Dutch culture with their status as British subjects. Critics in the English-language press decried the enormous cost at a time when families faced severe hardship. In Australia, George opened

14157-577: Was informed of his death by Queen Mary, who wrote, "[John] had been a great anxiety to us for many years ... The first break in the family circle is hard to bear but people have been so kind & sympathetic & this has helped us much." In May 1922, George toured Belgium and northern France, visiting the First World War cemeteries and memorials being constructed by the Imperial War Graves Commission . The event

14278-418: Was not told of German involvement in this. He visited the Windsors on July 16 and presented the offer to the Duke; while he was receptive to the offer, the Duke also expressed reservations for several reasons, not least of which were the telegrams from the British government urging him to leave for the Bahamas. Another visit on July 22 gave similar results. It was during the time of the last visit by Rivera that

14399-480: Was reported by Minister Beigbeder. Ribbentrop took this as an encouraging sign, and cabled the German embassy in Madrid to try to prevent the Duke from going to the Bahamas by being brought back to Spain — preferably by his Spanish friends — and be persuaded, even compelled, to remain in Spanish territory. He further intimated that the "British Secret Service" was going "to do away" with the Duke as soon as he arrived in

14520-598: Was to advertise New Zealand's attractiveness to tourists and potential immigrants, while avoiding news of growing social tensions, by focusing the attention of the British press on a land few knew about. On his return to Britain, in a speech at Guildhall, London , George warned of "the impression which seemed to prevail among [our] brethren across the seas, that the Old Country must wake up if she intends to maintain her old position of pre-eminence in her colonial trade against foreign competitors." On 9 November 1901, George

14641-466: Was working on his own initiative and Hitler was disappointed that Serrano Suñer had not tried harder to help Germany and called him the "gravedigger of the new Spain". To make up for that failure, Serrano Suñer proposed the Blue Division of Spanish volunteers to fight with the Germans against the Soviet Union after Operation Barbarossa , which started on 22 June 1941. On 23 June, upon receiving

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