The telegram reached the palace on a December morning in 1895, and for a moment the household hesitated. The child had been born on the fourteenth, the very anniversary of the death of Prince Albert, the beloved consort of Queen Victoria. For nearly thirty-five years that date had been a day of mourning for the old queen, and no one knew how she would receive the news of a new great-grandson arriving on such a day. Yet when the message was delivered, Victoria surprised them all.
She received the tidings with great joy and asked that the newborn be given the name of his great-grandfather: Albert. The boy was christened Albert Frederick Arthur George of Windsor and Teck, born at York Cottage in Norfolk, England, on 14 December 1895. He was the second son of the Duke and Duchess of York, the future King George V and Queen Mary. His father would one day sit on the throne of England; his mother was the capable and reserved Mary of Teck.
The couple would have six children, and Albert, called Bertie by the family, was the second of them. His childhood was not an easy one. From his earliest years he suffered from poor health and was a fearful, anxious boy who could be brought to tears over the smallest things. More seriously, he developed a stammer so pronounced that it would shape his entire character, turning him into a shy, withdrawn child who kept to himself.
There was little comfort to be found in his parents, who, as was common among the high nobility of the time, kept a distance from their children. The loneliness of those early years stayed with him. He was also naturally left-handed, but was forced to write with his right hand, and he had a deviation of the legs that gave them a distorted appearance, requiring him to wear corrective splints throughout his childhood. In 1901 his great-grandmother died, and his grandfather ascended the throne as Edward VII.
The succession shifted, and young Albert now stood third in line, behind his father and his elder brother, Edward, the Prince of Wales. The education that followed was the traditional one for a royal prince, but as the second son, his path was directed toward the military. His training focused on the navy, and in 1909 he began his formation as a naval cadet. He was not a strong student; he finished last in his class.
In 1910 his grandfather died, and his father became King George V. Three years later, Albert continued his naval career as a midshipman in the Royal Navy, and during the First World War he took part in the Battle of Jutland. By 1918 he had been promoted to officer in charge and then to commander officer, serving in various naval missions through the remainder of the war. In 1919 he set aside his military career and began to study economics and history.
A more public life opened before him. Although he was not the Prince of Wales, he began to travel across England, visiting cities, mines, towns, and factories, and he became one of the most visible figures of the monarchy. Yet the public did not warm to him. His shy, withdrawn manner and his stammer worked against him, and the people far preferred the charming Prince Edward.
Albert, by contrast, grew into a handsome young man with a good physical bearing, devoted to sport and a fine tennis player, and he developed a growing interest in the labor conditions and social welfare of the English people. But the stammer was his greatest affliction. He was unable to pronounce certain words properly, mispronounced many others, and when forced to give even a small speech he read too quickly out of nerves, so that often no one could understand a word he said. He came to dread public speaking.
In 1920 he met the woman who would change his life: Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, a young noblewoman. He fell in love with her immediately and was certain from that moment that he would marry her. He proposed three times, and three times she refused him. Persistence won at last.
On 26 April 1923, the couple married in Westminster Abbey. He was twenty-seven; she was twenty-two. They would have two daughters: Elizabeth, who would one day reign as Elizabeth II of England, and Margaret, who would become the Countess of Snowdon. His family life was wonderful, but he remained burdened by his stammer and the panic it caused him when he spoke in public, where he was often the object of mockery.
In time he placed himself in the hands of a prestigious Australian speech therapist named Lionel Logue. The first sessions were agonizing; Albert was terribly nervous. But gradually he began to enjoy them. They talked, they sang, they recited tongue-twisters, and above all, he was treated with respect and encouraged to improve.
Under Logue’s guidance, Albert lost his fear of public speaking and grew more confident in himself. He would never be completely free of the stammer, but it became far less noticeable, and he was able to speak with fluency, faltering only rarely. In January 1936, his father, King George V, died. His brother, the Prince of Wales, was crowned Edward VIII.
The new king soon informed his ministers that he wished to marry an American woman named Wallis Simpson. The ministers were aghast: she was a divorcée, and twice over. They tried to convince the monarch to abandon the idea, insisting that the people would never accept her as queen. Nearly a year after his coronation, Edward VIII abdicated the throne, to everyone’s surprise, in order to marry the woman he loved.
No one had expected that the eternal second son of the royal family would ever become king. But on 12 May 1937, Albert was crowned King of England, taking the name George VI. He sought to steer his kingdom along the same course his father had taken. Shortly after the coronation, the new king and queen undertook several journeys far from the United Kingdom, including visits to France and North America, seeking the support of the United States and Canada in case a new war like the First World War should break out.
When the Second World War did break out in 1939, George VI appeared as a man deeply worried for both his people and his soldiers. The royal family visited various London neighborhoods that had been devastated by bombing, and then traveled to the cities that had suffered the most from the war. The king ordered that aid be given to those who had lost everything. He involved himself heavily in the welfare of both civilians and the military throughout the conflict.
He insisted that members of the royal family serve in the armed forces, men and women alike. His wife, Queen Elizabeth, and his daughter, Princess Elizabeth, drove military trucks and tended to the wounded. He ordered that food be rationed within the palace, and that luxury and unnecessary spending be eliminated. He remained deeply conscious of the needs of his people.
He also formed a close friendship with the minister Winston Churchill, and the two men made decisions together. He developed a strong relationship with the United States as well, forging a great alliance. The war left a deep mark on him. On one occasion, he and his wife nearly lost their lives when Buckingham Palace was bombed while they were inside.
During the conflict he also lost his younger brother, the Duke of Kent, killed in action. When the war ended, the royal family traveled throughout the United Kingdom to give moral support to their people, a gesture the British took deeply to heart. The king kept the rule that the royal family would not waste money on needless luxuries, and he continued food rationing through the economic crisis that gripped the country in the postwar years. Soon after the war ended, his health began to fail.
Doctors diagnosed lung cancer; the king had been a very heavy smoker. He also suffered from circulatory problems in his right leg. His poor health forced him to cancel a number of planned trips. On 23 September 1951, his left lung, which contained a malignant tumor, was removed.
Despite the operation, his health worsened day by day. He could barely continue his duties as sovereign and could not attend public events. On 6 February 1952, the king died in his sleep, the victim of a thrombosis. He was fifty-six years old.
His funeral was broadcast on television, and vast crowds came to pay their respects to their king. His remains rest in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. It seemed that George VI was destined to remain that stammering boy, forever the second son. But when his brother abdicated, he surprised everyone by taking the crown, and in the end he became one of the most beloved kings in English history.
Historians consider him one of the most appreciated monarchs England has ever had, for his closeness to the people and his concern for their welfare. He restored the monarchy’s standing at a time when its popularity had been declining steadily since the death of Queen Victoria, and he won back for the royal family the affection and admiration of the British people.
