George VI - Reluctant King

Reluctant King

King George V had severe reservations about Prince Edward, saying, "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne." On 20 January 1936, George V died and Edward ascended the throne as Edward VIII. In the Vigil of the Princes, Prince Albert and his three brothers took a shift standing guard over their father's body as it lay in state, in a closed casket, in Westminster Hall.

As Edward was unmarried and had no children, Albert was the heir presumptive to the throne. Less than a year later, on 11 December 1936, Edward VIII abdicated in order to marry his mistress, Wallis Simpson, who was divorced from her first husband and divorcing her second. Edward had been advised by British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin that he could not remain king and marry a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands. Edward chose abdication in preference to abandoning his marriage plans. Thus Albert became king, a position he was reluctant to accept. The day before the abdication, he went to London to see his mother, Queen Mary. He wrote in his diary, "When I told her what had happened, I broke down and sobbed like a child."

On the day of the abdication, the parliament of the Irish Free State removed all direct mention of the monarch from the Irish constitution. The next day, it passed the External Relations Act, which made provision for the monarch to act as the state's representative in foreign affairs. The two acts made the Irish Free State a republic in essence without removing its links to the Commonwealth.

Courtier and journalist Dermot Morrah alleged that there was brief speculation as to the desirability of bypassing Albert (and his children) and his brother, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in favour of their younger brother Prince George, Duke of Kent. This seems to have been suggested on the grounds that Prince George was at that time the only brother with a son.