Ireland had been a trouble for Great Britain for a long time. In 1914, the controversy about the Irish Home Rule was about to cause civil war becuase Ulster, the Northern part of Ireland, where people were Protestant in their majority, was against the Home Rule while the South, Catholic in their majority wanted to applied it. At the outbreak of Worl War I the Irish agreed to postpone the Home Rule until the end of the war, but in 1916 an uprising called the Easter Rebelion took place in Ireland, organized by the Sinn Fein party, and it was bloodishly represed by British soldiers. At the end of the war, in 1919, the Sinn Fein won the majority of the Irish seats at the House of Commons, but its members refused to attemnd the sesion; they gathered instead in Dublin and formed an Irish national assembly, the Dail Eireann, procliaming Ireland an independant Republic, with Eamon de Valera as its president. The Dail Eireann began a campaign of terrorism agaisnt British rule, which lasted a whole year. In 1920, Lloyd George's government esataqblished two Irish Parliaments with limited powers, one in Dublin, the other in Belfast (Ulster). The South repudiated the meassure, but the Ulster did not and invited King George to open its new Parliament.
On June 22, 1921, the King pronounced this speech in Belfast: "The eyes of the whole Empire are on Ireland today... I speak from full heart when I pray that my coming to Ireland today may prove to be the first step towards the end of strife amongst her people, whatever their race or creed. In that hope I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearence and conciliation, to forgive and forget, and to join in making for the land they love a new era of peace, contenptment and goodwill...The future lies in hands of my Irish people themselves. May this historic gathering be the prelude of the day in which Irish people, North and South, under one Parliament or two, as those Parliaments may themselves decide, shall work together, in common love for Ireland, upon the sure foundation of mutual justice and respect".
On the contrary to his father Edwrad VII, who gave the British monarchy a touch of informality and cheerfulness, King George followed the standars established by Queen Victoria; he believed that manarchy depended uon rigid rules of moralty and manners. It was this way of thinking which pushed him into constant conflict wtith his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, who,at 27 was still subjected to a strict paternal vigilance. The Prince was very popular and possesed a boyish good-looks and a charming informality, which caused him to be cheer uo during his public appearences; nevertheless he was shy and nervous. During a topur oveseas, he behaved quite tactless, while his father and his entourgae expected him to behave with circumspection. The British ambassador in Tokyo reported about the Prince's visit to Japan: "He showed no sign of taking an interest in the country, its institutions or goveremtn". He altered his programme of activities as he pleased, refusing to go to expeditions that had been ardously and expensively prepared. He also made some despective comments about the Governeors of Hong Kong and Singapore, and procured himself informal female comapanionship with a complete lack of discretion.. King George who was a heavy-handed father, rebuked him with severity. He also critizised his son's informality; in one ocassion, at the age of 30, the Prince was severely reprimended in front of guests at Sandringham for comming in to tea in shooting clothes. Thge King disliked also his son's constant smoking , his excesive taste fo alcohol as his style in horseback riding; "Why doesn't my son ride like a gentleman?" he once asked.
But what most haunted King George was the Prince's refusal to marry, being instead constantly linked to married women, like Lady Coke or Mrs. William Dudley Wrad. The King wanted to see his son married and occassionaly he implored him to put his life in order for his own sake and for the monarchy. He used to tell the Prince that altough being on the top of popularity, one day people would know of his double life and would recuil from him; he assured him that he would not be completely happy until he had sttled down. The Prince replied that those scandals were only tales about his private life and thtanhe believed the nation was noe more tolerable in judging moral issues. He set clearly to his father that the idea of marrying a foreign princess was distatsteful to him, but the King said that he would allow him to marry a suitable well-born English girl In fact, he had already allowed Princess Mary to marry Viscount Lascelles in 1922 and Prince Albert to marry Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923. But the King failed with his eldest son, moreover that the most espectacular of his romances was yet to come. Fortunately, King George would not live to see it. For his part, the Prince's feelings towards his father were demosntrated by a comment of condolence he made to Lord Mountbatten, on the occasion of the death of Mountbatten's father: I envy you a father whom you could love. If my father had died we should felt nothing but releif". And it was not because he were anxious for inherit the throne.
The King's relation with his second son, Prince Albert, was less conflicting. He recognized many of his own virtues in Prince Abert, sobriety, domesticity, and his passion for sailor life. In 1923, King George wrote his son a letter: "You have always been so sensible and easy to wor5k with and you have always been ready to listen to any advice and to agree with my opinions about people, and things that I feel that we have always got on very well together (very different to Dear David)".
As for the two youngest of the King's survivng sons, things were easiet. Prince Henry was a dedicated cavalry officer and he seldom had any serious difficulty with his father. Prince George, the youngest and most hansome, was usually protected by Queen Mary of any of his father's possible outrages. Princess Mary, for her part was, Queen Mary was in charge of her upbringing. When she married with Viscount Lascelles, she went to lieve to the North part of England. King George wrote about her: "Being my only daughter, I confess that I dread the idea of losing her, but thank God she will live in England". In 1932 she was created Princess Royal by her father.
Altough his succesful in the Ireland affair, thourghout 1922, David Lloyd George's prestige began to detriorate because of failures in foreign policy (his supportr for Greece against Turkey was not welcome by the Conservative party) and unrest and unemployment in Engalnd. Many Conservative memebers of his Cabinet, leaded by Stanley Baldwin began to plot against him, and in October 1922, he had to resign being replaced by Andrew Bonar Law, who appointed Baldwin Chancellor of the Exchequer. Bonar Law's bad health forced him to resign on May 20 1923 and King George recieved his Prime Minister's resignation with sorrow; he had then to excercise the most important of his prerogatives: the appointment of a new Prime Minister. He wrote in his dairy: "Bonar Law's resignation places me in a very difficult possition as it is not easy to make up my ind whether to send for Curzon or Baldwin."
George Nathaniel, Marquess Curzon of Kedlestone had been Viceroy of India and sat in the Hose of Lords. It would not have been a wise decistion by King George to appoint as Prime Minister someone belonging to the House of Lords, since there was already an unusual high proportion of Cabinet appointments already held by Lords and the House of Commons would be resented; moreover, the Labour Party would be hostile to such appointment since it held a majority of Opposition seats in the Commons. So King George appointed Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister because he was a member of the House of Commons, Bonar Law died on October of that same year.
King George was far better prepare to work in harmony with a Socialist Governemtn than Queen Victoria or Edward VII could have been. He told Ramsay MacDonald that same Jnaury morning that he had served in the Navy for fourteen years and had the opportunity to see the world and to mix with people of different races and social classes and he offered to give his advise to his new Minister. During his first short ministery, Ramsay MacDonald renewed Britain's friendship with France and Italy, solved the problem of German reparation and supported the international disarmement. He also worked to re-established relations with Soviet Russia, which would help to destroy his government.
Since 1918, when his cousin Tsar Nicholas II was murdered, King George had implacably loathed the Soviet Government. During his first audience with MacDonald the King said that he hoped his Minister would do nothing to "compel him to shake hands with the murderers of his relatives". But as the Labour Party, in its election manifesto, had promised an improvement in Anglo-Russian reations, MacDonald instructed the Foreign Office to recognize the Soviet Government. MacDonald's Government tried to established a comercial treaty with Russia in which one of its terms was a British loan. This term displeased the Conservatives and Liberals and contributed to the Labourist defeat in October, 1924.
By this same time an additional scandal sprang out; R.J. Campbell, a Comunist journalist, wrote an article inciting the soldiers to disobey their officers if they ordered them to act against strikers.The Attorney-Genral, Sir Patrick Hastings, accused Campbell of sedition but afterwards, in agrremetn with the Cabinet, he withdrew the accusation. The Governemtn was accused of interference with the normnal course of justice; MacDonald denied he had been cosulted or informed about the withdrawal of the prosecution, but nevertheless, it wa another agravating matter for MacDonald's defeat. Another incident came to worsen the sitation: In October 1924, a letter written by Grigory Zinoviev, chairman of the Comitern in the Soviet Union, appeared in London, urging tghe British Communists to promote revolution through acts of sedition. The letter was pubished in The Times and The Daily Mail and also contributed to MacDonald's defeat in the October General Elections by 364 votes to the Conservatives and Libertals against 198 to the Labours. MacDonald resigned on Novemeber 4, 1924.
The King showed himself friendly towards the fallen Minister, thanking him for what he had done; he wrote innhis dairy: "I like him and have always found him quite straight."
Baldwin raised again to power. The King felt relieved by the Conservative return to office, although the Minister dissapointed him in some of his Cabinet appointments like the one of Winston Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Altough he was surprised by the appointment, the King's wartime mistrust for the new Chancellor had abated because of Churchill's patience and tact during the Irish sttlememnt. Chruchill, for his part, tried to be as correct as possible in his relation with the King.
During Baldwin's second Ministery, the sterling pound was consolidated but the doubt increased and the British industry experimented several difficulties for being competitive in exportations. The dfaltion caused a serious conflict, the General Strike of 1926. King George played an important rolke in persuading Baldwin's Governement not to take amn agressive attirude towards the unions formed during the strikes.
On November 21, 1928, King George fell seriously ill. It was the first he was unable to write in his dairy, and he instead dictated a brief paragraph to Queen Mary: "I was taken ill this evening. feverish cold they called it and retired to bed." He was submitted to several medical examinations which revealed a streptococal infection of the chest. An X-ray radiography revealed that two thirds of the King's right lung were affected. The infection of the lung was overshadowed by a general infection of the blood, which was an accute form of septicaemia and the original abscess lay just behind the diaphragm, which made it diffcult to be located, even by X-rays.
On December 2 , the medical bulletin, which reported a "decline in the strenght of the heart", made think that the King was dying and the Prince of Wales, who was on safari in Africa,was summoned to London. By December 12, the King, with fever and suffering form delirium, sunk into unconsciousness. That same day, Lord Dawson of Penn, the royal doctor, at last located the focus of infection amd Dr. Hugh Rigby performed a surgycal operation to drain the abscess in the King's lung.
For January 6 the King was well enough to have a sustained conversation with Queen Mary and the following day he received his private secretary, Lord Stanfordham, for the first time after six weeks. By the end of January the KIng was transfered to the South coast of England, at Bognor, for convalescence. Here he received the visits of old friends and of his granddaughter, Prince Albert's eldest daughter, Princess Elizabeth, who delighted him and who was not yet three. She used to call him "Grandpapa England". On July 15 another operation was performed to drainthe residula abscess. The next morning the King asked for tea, toast and eggs for breakfast and began an uninterrupted convalescence.
The Genral Elections of May 1929 borught the Labour Party again to power and Ramsay MacDonald was again Prime Minister. During his new Government, MacDnald had to face a severe economic depression, added to a problem of growing unemployment.. The Governmenrt appointed an independant committee to recomend how to reduce national expenses, leaded by Sir George May. The committee suggetsed to reduce the expenses in 97 million pouds, saving 67 million from a reduction in unemployment benefits and the other 30 million to be found oput of taxation. MacDonald accepted the suggestion but in the Cabinet the majority voted against it. When MacDonlad annonced the King his decision to resign because of his Cabinet's opposition to the meassures suggested by Sir George May, King George assured him that he was the only man to lead the country trough the cirsis and asked him to reconsidered his resignation, persuading him to form a new coalition Govenrment, including Conservatives, Liberals and Labourists ministers.MacDonald gathered with Baldwin, leader of the Conservatives and Sir Herbert SDamuel, leader of the Liberals, and agreed to form a National Government, led by MacDonald himself, that would not be a coalition but a co-operation of individuals, and would dedicate itself to economies of 70 million pounds. King George was pleased with such decision, but not was the Labour Party which expelled MacDonald from its rows.
The Genral Elections of 1931 were disastorus for teh Labour Party and allowed MacDonald to cotinue with his National Government pursuing May's economical meassures and adquiring an almost Comservative complexion.
King George considered MacDonald a patriot and a friend. When David Lloyd George published hisWar Memoirs reproducing MacDonald's manifesto of 1917 where he promised to do for England what Russian Revolution did for Russia, King George did great efforts to protect his Minister from a possible discredit caused by his radical past.
Throughout the rise of Nazism during the early thirties, King George expressed his distastes for the Party and its anti-Jews methods. He forbade the Prince of Wales to attend the wedding of the Crown Prince of Sweden to Princess Sibylla of Saxe Coburg becuase her father, Charles Edward, duke of Saxe Coburg, who was the King's first cousin, was pro-Hitler.
On November 29 1934 King George had the joy to see his youngest son Prince George, now Duke of Kent, marry to Princess Marina of Greece, daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Grand Duchess Helena Vladimirovna of Russia. The following year Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester married to Lady Alice Montagu-Douglass-Scott, a daughter of he Duke of Bucclecuh. That night King George worte i his dairy: Now all teh children are married except David".
On May 6 1935 King George drove to St. Paul's Cathedral accompanied by his family to attend a service of Thanksgiving for his 25 years on the throne. Ten days after the Jubilee, Ramsay MacDonld told the King that, by medical prescription, he would have to resign his post. The King had toconsent but insisted that MacDonald remained in the Cabinet as Lord President of teh Council. On June 7 he resigned as Prime Minister, being suceeded again by Stanley Baldwin. In the farewell audience the King told him: I hoped you might have seen me trough but I now know it is impossible. But I do not think it will be very long. I wonder hoiw you hve stood it -specially the lss of your friends and their beastly behaviour. You have been the Prime Minister I have liked the best; you have so many qualities, you have kept up the dignity of the Office, without using it to give you dignity. You will see me as often as you like, and of course you will come this year to Balmoral and as you now have nothing to do you will not merely stay a weekend.".
By the end of the year King George's health began to decline. The narrowing of the arteries to his brain caused him to fall asleep during the day during the nights he couldn't sleep at all. His private nurse, Sister Black, who had attended him since his illness of 1928, often admnistrated him oxigen to help him to rest. On December 3,his favourite sister, Princess Victoria, died and the King fell into a deep depression. At the beginning of the New Year, 1936, the King was feeling weak and sad. During early January he continued riding his white pony Jock ot taking walks with Queen Mary trough the grounds and gardens of Sandringham.
On Friday January 17, Queen mary realised her husband was very ill and she sent for Lord Dawson of Penn. On this day King George made his last entry to his dairy: "Dawson arrived this evening. I saw him and felt rotten". The medical bulletin reported that the King's bronquial catarrh was not severe but there had appeared signs of cardiac weakness. During the next two days the King went in and out of uncosciousness with his heart growing weaker. He died on Jnauary 20 at 11:15 pm in the presence of Queen Mary and his children. Queen Mary took the hand of her eldest son in hers and kissed it. She later wrote in her dairy: "Am brokenhaerted... at five to twelve my draling husbnd passed peacefully away...The sunset of his deatyh tinged the whole word's sky."
Prince David succeded his father with the name of Edward VIII. He abdicated the throne a year later. on December 10, 1936, in order to marry Mrs. Wallis Simpson. His brother, Prince Albert, sucedded him as George VI, and lead the country during World War II. Queen Mary survived her husband for seventeen years; she outlived two of her sons, Prince George, Duke of Kent, who died in an air crash at Morven, Scotland while on active service, and King George VI, who died on February 6 1952. The Queen finally died on March 24, 1953, a year after the accesion to the throne of her granddaughter, the present sovereign of Great Britain, HM Queen Elizabeth II.