How many years did George rule 5. Save the royal family: why did George V refuse to help his cousin Nicholas II? The last major dynasty of Europe

George 5 rules in difficult times for the UK: economic crisis, World War I, problems with Ireland. Under him, the British Commonwealth was created, which included all the dominions of Great Britain.

Very often, kings are constrained by rules and responsibilities. They are not free in their choice. So it was with George 5. His fate was such that all important life questions were taken for him by others. So, after the death of his older brother, he got the opportunity to succeed to the throne, complete with a bride, with whom the late brother had previously been engaged. The monarch could not even accept his death on his own.

early years

The future King George 5 was born on 06/03/1865 in London. He was the grandson of Queen Victoria, the son of Edward 7 and Alexandra of Denmark. The boy was the second son, so he underwent naval training.

From the age of twelve he served as a cadet on a service ship for two years. After that, he served as midshipman on a corvette for three years. In military affairs, he rose to the rank of admiral of the fleet. He had many other military titles and awards.

In 1892, George's elder brother fell ill with the flu and died. In the same year he was given the title of Duke of York. A year later, he married his late elder brother's fiancee, Victoria Mary of Teck.

Queen Victoria died in 1901. Edward 7 became king, and George received the title of Prince of Wales. My father ruled the state until his death in 1910.

As king and emperor

George 5 became king in 1911. On the day of his coronation, the famous British tower clock was launched. They work to this day.

The new king had to immediately solve two political problems. The first was that the House of Lords refused to pass the budget. In response, the House of Commons put forward a bill that limited the power of the lords. The king contributed to the adoption of the bill.

The second problem was the situation in Ireland. In 1914 there was a real threat of an uprising. They tried to solve it by convening representatives of all parties. However, the treaty was signed only in 1921.

During the First World War, England opposed Germany, despite the close family relationship between the rulers. Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany was cousin king of England. George 5 renounced all his Germanic titles.

In the twenties of the last century, Great Britain experienced a serious economic crisis. Because of this, cabinets of ministers often succeeded each other. Thus, in 1924 none of the three ruling parties had a majority. To remedy the situation, the King intervened in the affairs of Parliament, replacing Prime Minister Baldwin (Conservative) with Macdonald (Labor). The king used his influence during the miners' strike of 1926, the economic crisis of 1932, and the adoption of the Westminster Statute.

Family

George 5 (family photo above) lived with his wife all his life. She was born a Baden-Württemberg princess. During the coronation of the spouses, she was given the name Queen Mary, although her first name was Victoria. She was not given her first name because of Queen Victoria. After the death of the latter, it was decided that there would be no more queens with this name in England.

The couple had six children:

• Edward 8 is the eldest son who renounced his right to the throne because he entered into a morganatic marriage.
• George 6 - ruled the state from 1936 to 1952.
• Maria.
• Henry.
• George.
• John - died at the age of fourteen from epilepsy.

Nicholas 2

Who was George 5 (photo above) on the maternal side? George's mother was from the Danish royal family. Her parents Christian 9 and Louise had six children. Alexandra married Edward 7, becoming the mother of George 5. Dagmara became the wife of Alexander 3 under the name Maria Feodorovna, gave birth to Nicholas 2.

Christian and Louise became grandfather and grandmother not only for George 5 and Nicholas 2, but also for Constantine 1 (Greece), Haakon 7 (Norway).

The Russian autocrat and the British monarch were cousins. They maintained friendly relations, in correspondence they called each other "Cousin Nicky", "Cousin Georgie". Anyone who saw the cousins ​​together was struck by their resemblance. This is confirmed by numerous photographs of monarchs.

last years of life

In 1932, the people of Great Britain were able to hear the voice of their king on the radio. On December 25, the ruler wished everyone a Merry Christmas. His New Year's address was written by Rudyard Kipling, author of the famous Jungle Book.

In recent years, the king often suffered from pulmonary diseases. Several times he was in critical condition. In 1936, he suffered from severe bronchitis, as a result of which he fell into a coma. Died 01/20/1936.

Fifty years after this date, it became known that the king did not die of natural causes. He was euthanized. Baron Bertrand Dawson injected the ruler with morphine and cocaine. The life doctor did this on his own initiative.

After the king's death, the German composer wrote Funeral Music. Paul Hindemith wrote it in memory of the monarch.

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George V- King of Great Britain and Ireland / Great Britain and Northern Ireland from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty, since 1917 from Windsor dynasty. George V, unlike her grandmother the queen Victoria and her father, played a more modest role in government.

Born during the reign of his grandmother, the Queen Victoria , George was third in line after his father the Prince Albert Edward and his older brother the prince Albert Victor . From 1877 to 1891 George served in the Royal Navy until the unexpected death of his older brother in early 1892 placed him directly on the throne. After the death of my grandmother in 1901, my father George ascended the throne as Edward VII , and George became Prince of Wales. After his father's death in 1910, he became king-emperor.

Governing body George V led to the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism and the Indian independence movement, which radically changed the political landscape. The Parliament Act 1911 established the primacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords. As a result of World War I (1914–1918) the empires of his cousins Nicholas II in Russia Wilhelm II in Germany fell, and the British Empire expanded to the greatest extent. In 1917 George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, which he renamed from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a result of anti-German public sentiment. In 1924 he appointed the first Department of Labor, and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognized the Empire's holdings as separate independent states in the Commonwealth of Nations. For most of his late period he had smoking-related health problems and was succeeded by his eldest son after his death Edward VIII .

George V

(Georg Friedrich Ernst Albert)

June 3, 1865 – January 20, 1936

English George V, George Frederick Ernest Albert

King of Great Britain and Ireland/Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Coronation	June 22, 1911
Predecessor	Edward VII
Successor	Edward VIII

Emperor of India
May 6, 1910 – January 20, 1936
Coronation	December 12, 1911
Predecessor	Edward VII
Successor	Edward VIII
prime ministers Herbert Henry Asquith(1908 - 1916) David Lloyd George(1916 - 1922) Andrew Bonar Low(1922 - 1923) Stanley Baldwin(1923 - 1924) Stanley Baldwin(1924 - 1929) Ramsey McDonald(1929 - 1935) Stanley Baldwin(1935 - 1937)
Place of Birth	Marlborough House, Westminster, Greater London, England, Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Place of death	Sandringham Palace, Sandringham, King's Lynn and West Norfolk, Norfolk, England, Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Religion	Protestantism and the Church of England
Baptism	July 7, 1865
Burial place	St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
Education	Trinity College
Rank	field marshal
Type of army	British Army and British Royal Navy
Father	Edward VII
Mother	Alexandra Danish
Genus	Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty, from July 17, 1917 Windsors
Wife	Mary of Teck
Children	Edward VIII
	George VI
	Mary of Great Britain
	Henry
	George
	John of Great Britain
Military ranks Russian admiral (1910), Swedish admiral Spanish captain general Honorary Siamese General
Titles and styles Full king style George V, by the grace of God, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the British dominions overseas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India Full king style after the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 George V, by the grace of God, Great Britain, Ireland and the British dominions beyond the seas, king, defender of the faith, emperor of India

Georg as a child, 1870

Prince George (1885)

Wedding photo

Coronation ceremony of His Majesty King George V at Westminster Abbey. June 22, 1911, engraving by John Henry Frederick

George and Mary at the Delhi Durbar (1911)

King George V of England in coronation robes by Luke Fields

Emperor Nicholas II, King George V of England and King Albert I of Belgium.1914

King George V

George and Maria

King George V

Statue of King George V in King George Square near Brisbane City Hall

Year of the Three Kings

George born 3 June 1865 at Marlborough House in London; received a name at baptism Georg Friedrich Ernst Albert. He was the second son Albert Edward , Prince of Wales, and Alexandra of Denmark . His father was the Queen's eldest son Victoria and prince Alberta , and his mother was the eldest daughter of the king of Denmark Christian IX and queens Louisa Hesse-Kassel . Alexandra Danish was a sister Maria Feodorovna - wife Russian emperor Alexander III and mother of the last Russian emperor Nicholas II . George V externally very similar to Nicholas II , his maternal cousin. German Emperor Wilhelm II also happened to be his cousin William was the son of his father's sister George V- English princess and German empress Victoria , the eldest daughter of the British Queen Victoria ).

George was baptized at Windsor Castle on 7 July 1865 by the Archbishop of Canterbury Charles Longley .

No one expected that the second son of the Prince of Wales George will become king. He was third in line to the throne after his father and older brother, Prince Albert Victor. George was only 17 months younger Albert Victor and the two princes were educated together. John Neil Dalton was appointed their tutor in 1871. Neither Albert Victor , nor George did not succeed intellectually. Since their father thought that the Navy was "the best possible training for any boy", in September 1877 the 12-year-old George along with his brother, he was enrolled as a cadet on the training ship HMS Britannia at Dartmouth, Devon. After 1879, the brothers served for three years as midshipman on the corvette HMS Bacchante under the supervision of Dalton .

They toured the colonies british empire in the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia, and also visited Norfolk, Virginia, and South America, Mediterranean, Egypt and East Asia. In 1881, during a visit to Japan, George got a blue-and-red dragon tattooed on his arm by a local artist and was received at an audience by the emperor Meiji ; George and his brother gave the Empress Haruko two wallabies from Australia. Dalton wrote an account of his journey called Cruise HMS Bacchante. Between Melbourne and Sydney Dalton recorded the discovery of the Flying Dutchman, a mythical ghost ship.

When they returned to Britain, the Queen Victoria complained that her grandchildren could not speak French or German and so they spent six months in Lausanne trying to learn another language. After Lausanne, the brothers were separated; Albert Victor studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and George continued his studies in the Royal Navy. He traveled the world, visiting many parts of the British Empire. During his naval career he commanded Torpedo Boat 79 in home waters, then HMS Thrush based in North America, until his last duty station on HMS Melampus in 1891-92. Since then, his naval rank has been largely honorary.

As a young man destined for service in the navy, Prince George served for many years under the command of his uncle the prince Alfred , Duke of Edinburgh, who was in Malta. There he became close and fell in love with his cousin, the princess Mary . His grandmother, father and uncle approved of the choice, but his mothers - the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Edinburgh - opposed. The Princess of Wales considered the family too pro-German, and the Duchess of Edinburgh did not like England. Mother Mary was only daughter king Alexander II in Russia, She resented the fact that, as the wife of the youngest son of a British sovereign, she had to give preference to her mother George, Princess of Wales, whose father was a minor German prince before being unexpectedly called to the throne of Denmark. Guided by the wishes of his mother, Maria refused George when he proposed to her. In 1893 she married Ferdinand , the future King of Romania.

In November 1891, the elder brother George, Albert Victor , got engaged to his second cousin, Princess Victoria Maria Tech . Mary's father, Prince Franz , Duke of Teck, belonged to the morganatic, junior branch of the house Württemberg . Her mother, princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge , was a male-line granddaughter of the king George III and the queen's cousin Victoria .

On January 14, 1892, during a flu epidemic, his elder brother died suddenly. Albert Victor . The death of a brother did George second in the line of succession. George just recovered from a serious illness himself, after lying in bed for six weeks with typhoid fever, the disease thought to have killed his grandfather the prince Alberta . In May 1892, Queen Victoria conferred on her grandson the title of Duke of York.

Queen Victoria still considered a princess Mary a suitable match for his grandson, and George and Maria bonded during their shared period of mourning. One year after death Albert Victor George He proposed to Mary and she 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. By his own admission George, he was not able to easily express his feelings in speech, but they often exchanged loving letters and notes of tenderness.

The death of his older brother effectively ended his naval career. George as he was now second in line to the throne after his father. 24 May 1892 Queen Victoria granted George Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney, and he received lessons in constitutional history from J. R. Tanner .

The Duke and Duchess of York lived primarily at York Cottage, a relatively small house in Sandringham, Norfolk, where their lifestyle reflected that of a comfortable middle-class family rather than royalty. George preferred a simple, almost quiet life, in contrast to the lively social life his father led. His official biographer Harold Nicholson later despaired of time George as the Duke of York, writing: “He may be all right, like a young midshipman and a wise old king, but when he was Duke of York ... he did nothing at all, but killed (that is, hunted) animals and collected stamps ". George was an avid philatelist, he played a large role in turning the Royal Philatelic Collections of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth into the most comprehensive collection of stamps in the world, in some cases setting record prices for the purchase of some specimens.

At George and Mary had five sons and a daughter. Randolph Churchill claimed that George was a strict father because his children were terrified of him, and that George remarked to the Earl of Derby: "My father was afraid of his mother, I was afraid of my father, and I will take damned good care of my children being afraid of me." In fact, the parenting style George slightly different from the style adopted by most people at the time. Children George seemed to resent his strict nature, Prince Henry later described him as a "terrible father".

Died October 1894 Alexander III , Russian uncle George. At the request of the father "out of respect for the memory of the poor dear uncle Sasha » George joined his parents in St. Petersburg for the funeral. George stayed in Russia for the wedding of the new Russian emperor, his cousin Nicholas II , with princess Alice Hessian and Rhine who was once considered a potential bride of her older brother George.

Like the Duke and Duchess of York George and Maria performed a variety of public duties. After the death of Queen Victoria on January 22, 1901, father George ascended the throne as king Edward VII . George, as heir to the throne, received the duchies of Cornwall in England and Rothesay in Scotland, and on November 9, 1901, after the coronation of his father Edward VII became Prince of Wales.

In 1901 George and Maria toured the British Empire. Their tour included Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, South Africa, Canada and Newfoundland. The tour was designed by the colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain supported by Prime Minister Lord Salisbury to reward the Dominions for their participation in the South African War 1899-1902. George presented colonial troops with thousands of specially designed South African war medals. In South Africa, the royal party met with civic leaders, African leaders, and Boer prisoners, and were greeted with elaborate decorations, expensive gifts, and fireworks. Despite this, not all residents reacted positively to the tour. Many white Afrikaners resented the display and the expense, as the war had weakened their ability to reconcile their African-Dutch culture with their status as British subjects. Critics in the English-language press denounced the massive expense at a time when families were facing severe hardship.

In Australia, the Duke opened the first meeting of the Australian Parliament since the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia. In New Zealand he praised New Zealanders' military values, bravery, loyalty and obedience to duty, and the tour gave New Zealand an opportunity to show its progress, especially in its adoption of modern British standards in communications and manufacturing. The implicit intent was to advertise New Zealand's attractiveness to tourists and would-be immigrants while avoiding news of rising social tensions by focusing the attention of the British press on a land few knew about. Upon his return to the UK in a speech at London City Hall George warned that “our brethren across the sea seem to have the impression that old light must wake up if he intends to maintain his former superiority in his colonial trade against foreign competitors."

November 9, 1901 George became Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. King Edward wanted to prepare his son for his future role as king. In contrast to the Edward , whose queen Victoria deliberately removed from public affairs, George gained wide access to government documents my father. George, in turn, allowed his wife access to his papers, as he appreciated her advice, and she often helped write her husband's speeches. Like the Prince of Wales George supported reforms in naval training, including cadets studying between the ages of twelve and thirteen and receiving the same education, regardless of their grade and possible assignments. The reforms were carried out by the then Second (later First) Sea Lord Jackie Fisher .

November 1905 to March 1906 George and Maria toured British India, where he was disgusted by racial discrimination and campaigned for more Indian participation in the government. The tour was followed almost immediately by a trip to Spain for the King's wedding Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg , cousin George where the bride and groom narrowly escaped murder. A week after returning to England, George and Maria went to Norway for the coronation of the king Haakon VII , cousin and brother-in-law George, and queens Maud , sisters George.

May 6, 1910 died Edward VII , and George became king. He wrote in his diary:

I lost mine best friend and the best of fathers ... In my life there was never a single word with him. I am heartbroken and overwhelmed with grief, but God will help me in my duties, and dear Maria will be my consolation, as always. May God give me strength and guidance in the difficult task that has befallen me.

George was proclaimed the new king and crowned on June 22, 1911 at Westminster Abbey. Exactly at the moment of his coronation, two tower clocks on the Royal Liver Building were launched - the largest clock in Great Britain from 1911 to the present.

George did not like the wife's habit of signing official documents and letters as " Victoria Maria ", and he insisted that she give up one of these names. They both thought she shouldn't be called a queen Victoria and so she became queen Maria . Later that year, a radical propagandist Edward Milius published a lie that George secretly married in Malta as a young man, and hence his marriage to the Queen Maria was bigamy. The lie first appeared in print in 1893, but George dismissed it as a joke. To destroy the rumors Milius was arrested, tried and found guilty of libel and sentenced to one year in prison.

In England new king faced two difficult political situations. The House of Lords rejected the budget proposed by the Commons; the latter, in response, put forward a Bill of Parliament, significantly limiting the power of the House of Lords. At the request of the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith The king was forced to promote the adoption of a bill of parliament. The second arose because of the proposal to introduce home rule (self-government) in Ireland. Before the threat of an uprising, the king in 1914 convened representatives of all parties, but a decision on this issue was never taken. The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed only in 1921.

Coronation George and Mary took place at Westminster Abbey on 22 June 1911 and was celebrated at the Festival of Empire in London. In July the King and Queen visited Ireland for five days; they received a warm welcome and thousands of people lined their way to support them. Later, in 1911, the King and Queen traveled to India for the Delhi Durbar, where they were introduced on 12 December 1911 to an assembled audience of Indian dignitaries and princes as Emperor and Empress of India. George wore the newly created Imperial Crown of India at the ceremony and announced the transfer of India's capital from Calcutta to Delhi. He was the only Emperor of India to attend the Delhi Durbar. They traveled throughout the subcontinent, and George took the opportunity to go big game hunting in Nepal, shooting 21 tigers, 8 rhinos and a bear in 10 days. He was a keen and experienced marksman. On December 18, 1913, he shot over a thousand pheasants in six hours at Barn Hall, Lord Burnham's home, although even George had to admit that "we went too far" that day.

On August 4, 1914, the king wrote in his diary: “At 10.45 am I called a council to declare war on Germany. This is terrible disaster, but it's not our fault... Thanks to God, this may end soon." From 1914 to 1918 England and her allies were at war with the Central Powers led by the German Empire. German Kaiser Wilhelm II , who for the British public became a symbol of all the horrors of war, was the king's cousin. The King's paternal grandfather was the Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Albert ; consequently, the king and his children bore the titles Prince and Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke and Duchess of Saxony. Queen Maria like her mother, she was the daughter of the Duke of Teck, a descendant of the German Dukes of Württemberg. The King had sons-in-law and cousins ​​who were British subjects but held German titles such as Duke and Duchess of Teck, Prince and Princess of Battenberg, and Prince and Princess of Schleswig-Holstein. When G. G. Wells wrote about Britain's "alien and boring court", Geor g famously replied, "I may be boring, but I'll be damned if I'm an alien."

July 17, 1917 George soothed the feelings of the British nationalist by issuing a royal proclamation that changed the name of the British royal house from the German-sounding Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. He and all his British relatives abandoned their German titles and titles and adopted British surnames. George compensated his male relatives by creating British titles for them. His cousin, Prince Louis of Battenberg , who at the start of the war was forced to resign as First Sea Lord due to anti-German feelings, became Louis Mountbatten , first Marquess of Milford Haven, and the Queen's brothers Mary became Adolf Cambridge with the title of 1st Marquess of Cambridge, and Alexander Cambridge with the title of 1st Earl of Athlone.

In March 1917 George officially refused to accept the disgraced Russian Emperor Nicholas II with the royal family at the royal court (in fact, he forbade him to enter and continue to live in the UK).

When Russian tsar Nicholas II , cousin George, was overthrown in the 1917 revolution, the British government offered political asylum to the tsar and his family, but deteriorating conditions for the British people and fear that a revolution might come to the British Isles led George to the idea that the presence Romanovs will be considered inappropriate. Despite Lord's later statements Mountbatten from Burma that the prime minister Lloyd George was against the salvation of the Russian imperial family, Lord Stamfordham's letters suggested that it was George V opposed the idea against the government's advice. Preliminary planning for the rescue was undertaken by MI1, a branch of the British secret service, but due to the strengthening of the Bolshevik revolutionaries and the wider difficulties in waging the war, the plan was never put into action. The Tsar and his closest relatives remained in Russia, where they were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. George wrote in his diary: “It was a dirty murder. I was betrayed Nikki who was the kindest of men and a complete gentleman: he loved his country and people." Mother next year Nicholas Maria Fedorovna (Dagmar Danish) and other members of the Russian imperial family were rescued from the Crimea by a British warship.

Two months after the end of the war, the king's youngest son, John , died at the age of 13 after an unhealthy life. George was informed of the death by the queen Maria who wrote: "[ John ] has been a great concern for us for many years... The first break in the family circle is hard to bear, but the people were so kind, helpful and it helped us a lot."

Before the First World War, most of Europe was ruled by monarchs associated with George, but during and after the war the monarchies of Austria, Germany, Greece and Spain, like Russia, fell into revolution and war. In March 1919 Lieutenant Colonel Edward Liesl Strutt was sent on the personal instructions of the king to accompany the former Austrian emperor Charles I and his family to a safe place in Switzerland. In 1922, a Royal Navy ship was sent to Greece to rescue his cousins, Prince and Princess Andrew.

In 1923-1929, due to the economic crisis in Great Britain, there were frequent changes of cabinets. The absence in 1924 of a clear majority among the three rival parties forced the king to replace the Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to Labor James Ramsay Macdonald .

During the miners' strike and the general strike of 1926, the king used every opportunity to reconcile the parties. During the economic crisis in 1931, he accelerated the protracted negotiations of party leaders and proposed a candidate Macdonald as head of the coalition government.

Political unrest in Ireland continued as the Nationalists fought for independence; George expressed his horror at the prime minister David Lloyd George about government-sanctioned killings and reprisals. At the first meeting of the Parliament of Northern Ireland on June 22, 1921, the King, in a speech composed by General John Smuts and approved Lloyd George called for reconciliation. A few weeks later, a truce was signed. Negotiations between Britain and the Irish separatists led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. By the end of 1922, Ireland was partitioned, the Irish Free State was established, and Lloyd George left his post.

The king and his advisers were concerned about the growth of socialist ideas and the growing labor movement, which they mistakenly associated with republicanism. The socialists no longer believed in their anti-monarchist slogans and were ready to negotiate with the monarchy if it took the first step. George adopted a more democratic, all-inclusive stance that crossed class lines and brought the monarchy closer to the public and the working class—a dramatic change for the king, who was most comfortable with naval officers and landowners. He cultivates friendly relations with moderate Labor Party politicians and trade unionists. His rejection of social exclusion conditioned the behavior of the royal family and increased its popularity during the economic crises of the 1920s and more than two generations after that.

Between 1922 and 1929 there were frequent changes in the government. In 1924 George appointed first Labor prime minister Ramsay MacDonald in the absence of a clear majority for any of the three major parties. Tactful and understanding approach George the first Labor government (which lasted less than a year) dispelled the suspicions of party supporters. During the general strike of 1926, the King advised the Conservative government Stanley Baldwin not take inflammatory action and ruled out the suggestion that the strikers were "revolutionaries", saying, "Try to live on your paycheck before you try them."

In 1926 George held an imperial conference in London, at which the Balfour Declaration decided to turn the British possessions into self-governing "autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate to each other." In 1931, the Statute of Westminster formalized the legislative independence of the Dominion and established that the succession to the throne could not be changed unless all Dominion Parliaments, as well as the Parliament at Westminster, agreed. The preamble to the Charter describes the monarch as "the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations" who were "united in common allegiance".

In connection with the world financial crisis, the king called for the formation of a national government in 1931, headed by McDonald and Baldwin and volunteered to cut civil list to help balance the budget. He was worried about coming to power in Germany Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. In 1934, the king directly told the German ambassador Leopold von Hesch that Germany is now a menace to the whole world, and that the war had to take place within ten years if she continued like this; he warned the British ambassador in Berlin Erica Phipsa be suspicious of the Nazis.

In 1932 George agreed to give a speech on the occasion of Royal Christmas, and this event became an annual event. Initially he was not a fan of the innovation, but was persuaded by argument that this was what his people wanted. By the silver jubilee of his reign in 1935, he had become much loved by the king, saying in response to the flattery of the crowd: "I can't understand it, after all, I'm just an ordinary person."

Relations George with his eldest son and heir, Edward , worsened in these later years. George was disappointed by the inability Edward calm down in his personal life and was shocked by his many connections with married women. On the contrary, he loved his second son, Prince Alberta (later George VI ), and was madly in love with his eldest granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth ; he nicknamed her "Lilibet" and she affectionately called him "Grandfather England". In 1935 George talking about his son Edward : "After my death, the boy will destroy everything within 12 months", and about Alberta and Elizabeth : "I pray to God that my eldest son will never marry and have no children,

First World War damaged health George: He was seriously injured on October 28, 1915, when he was thrown off by a horse while inspecting troops in France, and his smoking aggravated his breathing problems. He suffered from chronic bronchitis. In 1925, at the behest of his doctors, he was reluctantly sent on a recuperative private cruise to mediterranean sea; it was his third trip abroad since the war, and his last. In November 1928 he fell seriously ill with sepsis, and over the next two years his son Edward took over many of his responsibilities. In 1929, a proposal for a further holiday abroad was rejected by the king "quite harsh words." Instead, he retired for three months to Craigweil House, the village of Aldwick, in the seaside resort of Bognora, Sussex. As a result of his stay, the city acquired the suffix "Regis", which means "king" in Latin. A myth later grew that his last words, when told that he would soon be well enough to revisit the city, were "Bugger Bognor!"

George never fully recovered in his Last year He was occasionally given oxygen. Death of his beloved sister Victoria , in December 1935 deeply shocked him. On the evening of January 15, 1936, the King went to his bedroom at Sandringham Palace complaining of a cold; he remained in the room until his death. George gradually became weaker, sinking in and out of consciousness. Prime Minister Baldwin later said:

“Each time he regained consciousness, it was some kind of request or kind observation of someone, some words of gratitude for the kindness shown. But he said to his secretary when he sent for him: "How is the Empire?" An unusual phrase in this form, and the secretary said: "It's all right, sir, with the Empire," and the king smiled at him and fell unconscious again.

By January 20, he was close to death. His physicians led by Lord Dawson a bulletin was issued from Penn with the words that have become famous: "The life of the king is peacefully moving towards its end." The Diary Dawson , found after his death and made public in 1986, shows that the king's last words, his muttering "Damn you!" were addressed to his nurse Katherine Black when she gave him a sedative that night. Dawson , who supported the "soft growth of euthanasia", admitted in his diary that he hastened the king's death by injecting him after 11 p.m. with two successive lethal injections: ¾ gr. morphine, followed by 1 g of cocaine soon after. Dawson wrote that he acted to preserve the King's dignity, prevent further strain on the family, and so that the King's death at 11:55 p.m. could be announced in the morning edition of The Times rather than in the "less appropriate... evening magazines" . Neither Queen Mary, who was strongly religious and might not have sanctioned euthanasia, nor the Prince of Wales was consulted. The royal family did not want the king to endure pain and suffering and did not want his life to be artificially extended, but they also disapproved of the action. Dawson . The British Pathé magazine announced the king's death the following day, describing him as "more than a king, the father of a large family".

In deference to their father, the four surviving sons George, Edward , Albert , Henry and George , installed a guard, known as the Princes' Vigil, in the hearse the night before the funeral. The vigil was not repeated until the death of the daughter-in-law George, Elizabeth The Queen Mother, in 2002. George V He was buried in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle on January 28, 1936. Edward abdicated less than a year later, granting Albert ascend to the throne George VI.

George V did not like to sit for portraits and despised modern Art; he was so angry with one portrait Charles Sims that ordered to burn it. He admired the sculptor Bertram McKennall who created the statues George for screenings in Madras and Delhi, and William Reed Dick , whose statue George V stands near Westminster Abbey in London.

George preferred to stay at home, occupied with stamp collecting and game shooting, and lived a life later considered boring by biographers due to its conventionality. He was not an intellectual; on his return from one evening at the opera, he wrote in his diary: "I went to Covent Garden and saw Fidelio and was damn bored." Nevertheless, he was sincerely devoted to Britain and its Commonwealth. He explained: "I have always dreamed of identifying myself with the great idea of ​​Empire." He seemed industrious and admired the people of Britain and the Empire as well as the "establishment". According to the historian David Kennedine , king George V and queen Maria were "an inextricably committed couple" who maintained "character" and "family values". George set a standard of conduct for British royalty that reflected the values ​​and virtues of the upper middle class rather than the lifestyles or vices of the upper class. He was a traditionalist by temperament who never fully appreciated or approved of the revolutionary changes taking place in British society. However, he consistently used his influence as a force of neutrality and moderation, seeing his role as mediator rather than final decision maker.

Family of George V

Father: Edward VII(November 9, 1841 - May 6, 1910), King of Great Britain and Ireland (January 22, 1901 - May 6, 1910), Emperor of India (January 22, 1901 - May 6, 1910), Austrian field marshal (May 1, 1904).

Mother: Alexandra Danish(Alexandra Carolina Maria Charlotte Louise Julia of Denmark) (1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925), Danish princess, eldest daughter of the Prince Christiana (April 8, 1818 – January 29, 1906) of the German dynasty Glucksburg (King of Denmark (November 15, 1863 – January 29, 1906)), and Louise of Hesse-Kassel (Louise Wilhelmina Frederick Caroline Augusta Julia of Hesse-Kassel) (September 7, 1817 - September 29, 1898).

Wife: Mary of Teck(Victoria Maria Augusta Louise Olga Paulina Claudina Agnes of Teck) (May 26, 1867 - March 24, 1953), daughter Franz (27 August 1837 – 21 January 1900), Duke of Teck, and Mary Adelaide of Cambridge (November 27, 1833 – October 27, 1897).

Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David) (June 23, 1894 - May 28, 1972), King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions (January 20 - December 11, 1936), Emperor of India (January 20 - December 11, 1936 G.).

George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George) (14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952), King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (11 December 1936 – 6 February 1952), Emperor of India (11 December 1936 – 15 August 1947), Head of the Commonwealth of Nations (April 23, 1949 – February 6, 1952).

Mary of Great Britain (25 April 1897 – 28 March 1965), Princess Royal of Great Britain and Ireland (25 April 1897 – 28 March 1965), Countess of Harewood (22 February 1922 – 28 March 1965).

Henry (Henry William Frederick Albert) (31 March 1900 – 10 June 1974), Duke of Gloucester (31 March 1928 – 10 June 1974), 11th Governor General of Australia (30 January 1945 – March 11, 1947).

George (Georg Edward Alexander Edmund) (20 December 1902 – 25 August 1942), Duke of Kent (4 October 1934 – 25 August 1942)

John of Great Britain (John Charles Francis) (12 July 1905 – 18 January 1919), Prince of Great Britain and Ireland (12 July 1905 – 18 January 1918).

1. When George was still in the status of a prince, he became an ardent philatelist. For his collection he long time could not acquire one of the rarest stamps in the world - "Blue Mauritius". In 1904, the Prince of Wales succeeded. At the auction in Brussels, Georg arrived incognito and took with him a clean (unused) copy of "Blue Mauritius" for £1,400, which is equivalent to today's $200,000, although today this stamp is valued at $15,000,000.

2. George and his wife Victoria Mary of Teck were crowned at Westminster on May 22, 1911. At the same time, the newly-made wife of the king began to be called Queen Mary, despite the fact that her first name was Victoria. This name was not given to her. In memory of George's late grandmother, Queen Victoria, it was decided that henceforth no queen of England would bear that name.

3. Once, enraged by something, George V slammed his fist on the dining table during dinner. After that, he cursed loudly and issued a decree that the forks should be placed on the table with the prongs down. This is how this well-known rule of table etiquette appeared.

4. Cousins ​​- George V and Nicholas II - were very similar. About the case associated with this feature in his book "Nicholas and Alexandra" wrote the American Robert Macy in the late 1960s. So, in July 1893, at the wedding of the Duke of York, the future George V, and Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, Russia and the House of Romanov were represented by the Heir Tsarevich and Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich, the future Nicholas II. The future Russian Emperor spoke English so well that, given the outward resemblance to his brother, many guests mistook him for the Duke of York and congratulated him on his legal marriage. Meanwhile, the groom himself, who was mistaken for Nikolai, was approached at the same time with questions about the purpose of his visit to London and future plans.

5. It is known that after the overthrow and death of Nicholas II, George V acquired the treasures of the Russian Imperial House almost for nothing, and simply appropriated some of them.

6. The most beautifully made dollhouse in the world was presented to his wife Queen Mary by George V. The house was first shown to the public in 1924, when the British Imperial Exhibition was held in London. Now it is stored in Windsor. The house was created under the guidance of the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. It is made on a scale of one to twelve. It has more than 40 rooms, electric lighting, two elevators, cold and hot water, a miniature vacuum cleaner and a coal-burning stove. Outside, the house is a mansion in the classical tradition. There are gardens with metallic flowers. The house also has a library with specially created paintings. In the dining room there is a table 50 centimeters long. The largest room is the hall, in which there is a throne and a huge piano.

7. On December 25, 1934, King George V of Great Britain made his first New Year's address to the citizens of his country. Interestingly, the text royal address Written by famous writer Rudyard Kipling.

Born June 3, 1865 at Marlborough House (London), the second son of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later Edward VII and Queen Alexandra), was christened George Frideric Ernst Albert. His mother is the sister of Maria Feodorovna - the wife of the Russian Tsar Alexander III and the mother of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II. George V was very outwardly similar to his cousin Nicholas II. German Emperor Wilhelm II was also a cousin of George V.

Not assuming that he could take the throne, he received a naval education and served in the navy. In 1892, the untimely death of the Duke's elder brother, the Duke of Clarence, made him second in the line of succession to the throne. Queen Victoria awarded her grandson in May 1892 the title of Duke of York. In July 1893 he married Princess Victoria Maria of Teck of Baden-Württemberg, who had previously been engaged to his elder brother. After the death of his grandmother in January 1901, as heir to the throne, George received the duchies of Cornwall in England and Rothesay in Scotland, and on November 9, 1901 he became Prince of Wales after the coronation of his father Edward VII. After Edward's death on May 6, 1910, George was proclaimed the new king and crowned on June 22, 1911 at Westminster Abbey.

In England, the new king faced two difficult political situations. The House of Lords rejected the budget proposed by the Commons; the latter, in response, put forward a Bill of Parliament, significantly limiting the power of the House of Lords. At the request of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, the King was forced to promote the passage of a Bill of Parliament. The second arose because of the proposal to introduce home rule (self-government) in Ireland. Before the threat of an uprising, the king convened representatives of all parties in 1914, but a decision on this issue was never taken; Anglo-Irish treaty was signed only in 1921.

During World War I, George V renounced all personal and family German titles and changed the name of the royal house from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.

In 1923-1929, due to the economic crisis in Great Britain, there were frequent changes of cabinets. The absence in 1924 of a clear majority among the three rival parties forced the king to replace the Conservative Prime Minister Baldwin with Labor MacDonald.

During the miners' strike and the general strike of 1926, the king used every opportunity to reconcile the parties. During the economic crisis in 1931, he accelerated the protracted negotiations of party leaders and proposed the candidacy of Macdonald as head of the coalition government.

Under him, the Statute of Westminster was adopted in 1931, which established the legal status of the dominions and their relationship with Great Britain: he created the British Commonwealth, and George also became the king of all dominions.

Best of the day

Tsar Nicholas II, George V and King Albert I of Belgium.1914. Pay attention to the external similarity of Nicholas II and George

Awards

Military ranks

British Field Marshal and Admiral of the Fleet (6 May 1910), Prussian Field Marshal General (16 May 1911), Honorary Danish Admiral (25 May 1910), Russian Admiral (1910), German Admiral (27 January 1901), Swedish Admiral , Spanish Captain General, Honorary Siamese General, Marshal of Japan (October 28, 1918).

Children

Children of George V and Mary of Teck:

Edward VIII (23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), Duke of Windsor, renounced his rights to the throne in connection with a morganatic marriage to Wallis Simpson;

George VI (December 14, 1895 - February 6, 1952), King of Great Britain (1936-1952), married Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923;

Mary (25 April 1897 – 28 May 1965), Princess Crown Princess, married Henry Lesceles, 6th Earl of Hearwood;

Henry (31 March 1900 – 10 June 1974), Duke of Gloucester, was married to Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott;

Georg (20 December 1902 – 25 August 1942), Duke of Kent, was married to Marina, Princess of Greece and Denmark;