King George's overwhelming realisation following Edward VIII's departure – which got him sobbing on his mother's shoulder for an hour

Daily Mail​

12-05-2025

It was meant to be a day of joy and celebration. A day when the House of Windsor would rise, phoenix-like, out of the ashes of the Abdication. Instead it was a day fraught with fear, loathing and a large dollop of incompetence.
The Coronation of King George VI – King Charles 's grandfather – took place on May 12, 1937 against a troubling backdrop of uncertainty about the future of monarchy in Britain.
The big question was: is the new King up to the job?
George – or Bertie, as he was known by the family – was the second son of King George V and ideally placed to succeed his elder brother David, whose 325-day reign as King Edward VIII had ended abruptly five months before when he fled the country leaving behind a throne, an empire and a shocked nation.
Despite warning-bells ringing for many months prior to Edward's departure, nobody thought to prepare the stuttering, ailing second son for kingship. And when the realisation finally dawned that Bertie would have to step up to the job, he sobbed for an hour on his mother's shoulder.
He knew nothing about being King.
And if Bertie was fearful of the path ahead, that was nothing by comparison with those who surrounded him – courtiers, politicians and churchmen. Few of them thought he could do it.
The cracks in his reign started to show less than two months into the job, when in January 1937 Buckingham Palace announced Bertie wouldn't be attending the fabulous Durbar in India which had been arranged to celebrate his arrival on the throne.
'He was overwhelmed with the magnitude of the task thrust upon him,' reported his private secretary Lord Wigram. 'And he [insisted he] must have more time to settle down.'
Wigram added that the King's doctors were advising against anything that could add to the nervous strain to which the new monarch was prone. One newspaper wrote that Bertie was suffering 'falling fits' – or, in other words, epilepsy.
All this nervousness at the very top of the tree increased public speculation about Bertie's mental and physical health. The News Chronicle reported on 'a crop of rumours that the King's health is causing grave concern to the Cabinet and the royal entourage.'
It wasn't just the politicians. Another newspaper report revealed, 'There is a malicious whispering campaign in Britain directed against the King. The scandal-mongers, who include famous Mayfair hosts and hostesses, prominent stockbrokers, and some politicians, might find themselves being charged with treason.'
Not much chance of that. Stanley Baldwin, the prime minister, was sufficiently fearful Bertie might suffer a breakdown that he advised him to stay away from London at Sandringham for 'as long as possible' in the run-up to the Coronation, in order to calm his nerves.
'The Royal Family – and Britain – could not withstand a second failure,' wrote the historian Kenneth Rose. 'King Edward's departure had torn apart the fabric of monarchy. If King George was not fit enough to take on kingly responsibility, all faith in the monarchy as an institution would be lost. At that time, there were no other credible candidates worthy of sitting on the throne.'
With no Plan B in place, those closest to the Palace grew ever more nervous as the big day approached.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Cosmo Lang, declared 'It is not worthwhile [having] Television [cameras covering the ceremony],' and turned down the BBC's request to have cameras in the Abbey. In fact the Archbishop realised that with live TV coverage, there was no possibility of censoring the output should something go wrong.
And people were increasingly feeling that it would go wrong.
'Interfering and officious as ever,' wrote Bertie's biographer Sarah Bradford, 'Lang now recommended a new speech therapist to treat the King.'
Up until now Bertie had relied on Australian Lionel Logue, whose great work in eradicating his stammer was captured in the film The King's Speech starring Colin Firth. The two men had a close relationship, and Logue had made great strides in dealing with the King's affliction. In the end it was realised that to introduce somebody new, with new techniques, to Bertie in the short run-up to the ceremony could prove disastrous.
Far worse for Bertie than the ordeal ahead in the Abbey was the prospect of his Coronation Day broadcast.
The microphone had become his gravest enemy.
But with Logue, the BBC's Robert Wood and the corporation's formidable chairman Lord Reith all standing supportively nearby, Bertie got through the broadcast with flying colours. For him, the worst was over.
That left the Coronation itself, an ancient ritual going back a thousand years and more. For the King, it turned into a bit of a comedy.
At the dress-rehearsal he had to hold back his laughter as the pompous Archbishop of Canterbury and the roly-poly Dean of Westminster cannoned into each other and tripped over things.
The next day's Daily Mail praised the 'glorious ceremony' which had gone off without a hitch
The Bishop of Norwich, an elderly gentleman, was no match for the hefty Bible he was supposed to carry through the proceedings – 'he would have collapsed under the weight,' wrote Sarah Bradford and a smaller lightweight version had to be quickly found to save his blushes.
Coronation Day started bright and early – 3am – with the testing of the public address loudspeakers just outside Bertie's bedroom window. 'Bands and marching troops for lining the streets arrived at 5am so sleep was impossible,' the King groaned to his diary. 'I could eat no breakfast and had a sinking feeling inside.'
At the Abbey a fainting Presbyterian chaplain held up the arriving procession of Bertie's queen, Elizabeth, and 'I was kept waiting, it seemed as if for hours.'
As he was due to read his Coronation oath, Bertie found the words had been obscured by the thumb of the Archbishop holding the book, while the Duke of Portland and the Marquess of Salisbury tangled up their Garter chains of office over a silk cushion.
And then, to be helpful, someone had stitched a small piece of red thread as a marker so that the Archbishop would be sure to put the ancient Coronation crown on Bertie's head the right way round. Someone, equally helpful, had taken the thread away so Bertie never knew whether it was on the right way round.
Just then, as he rose after the crowning, a bishop stood on his robe 'I had to tell him to get off it pretty sharply as I nearly fell down,' recalled Bertie with a laugh.
In the end, though, through sheer guts and determination and supported by his loving wife Elizabeth, Bertie got through the day and began his reign proper, a reign which was to last a relatively short 15 years until his death aged 56 in January 1952 – but one which restored faith in the stability and importance of monarchy in Britain.