By Sarah Bradford
2011 Penguin
689 pages
The 2010 multiple award-winning film The King's Speech introduced to movie going audiences a monarch less known to contemporary young adults. Only a few can boast remembering the rule of George VI, who reigned from 1937 to 1952. Indeed, for most of us, his daughter Queen Elizabeth II has been the sole British monarch of our lifetime. The film revived popular interest in King George VI, and the republication of Sarah Bradford's book can be seen as a response to it. Be warned, however: If you are looking for more details about the King's speech impediment, this not the book for it. Bradford pays sufficient attention to the difficulties presented by the stammer, but readers looking for details about the King's treatment must look elsewhere (for example, Logue and Conradi's 2010 book The King's Speech)
Bradford's biography was initially published as The Reluctant King in 1989. George VI was a King, Bradford's title underlined, who did not want to be king. Perhaps the interest of current readers in the late King's stammer persuaded publishers to change the title of the book. George VI was certainly a reluctant King, but is also remembered in particular for overcoming his unpreparedness for kingship and becoming a central figurehead of national unity and endurance during the difficult years of the Second World War. The change of title seems to signal to us that George VI was not just a stammerer nor an unwilling monarch but a person who lived in exceptional times of abdication and World War and triumphed with great personal endeavor.
Indeed, contemporary readers, thanks to cinematic portrayal of the man of The King's Speech, are no doubt interested by the personal aspects of George VI's personality, especially his battle for self-confidence, plaguing self-doubt and emotional frustration and exhaustion with which most people at least at some point in their lives can identify. Readers with expectations of further insight into these dimensions will not be disappointed. Weaving together George's VI's lifestory from his younger days as Prince Albert to the Duke of York and eventually succeeding his brother as George VI, Bradford conveys both the continuities of his personality as well as the challenges he had to faced at each of these stages of his life.
One of those was invariably the sense of inferiority he felt towards his elder brother the Duke of Windsor, who not only put him down when he was younger but continued to hound him from exile at the after his abdication at the behest of his domineering wife the Duchess. Indeed, George VI's tumultuous relationship with his elder brother, close and friendly at youth and more distant and even hostile as adults, comes across as one of the defining ones when it comes to understanding the development of his personality. Where the Duke of Windsor was handsome, glamorous, pleasure-seeking and a philanderer, George VI was athletic, more serious, a devoted husband and father and possessed a distinct and unwavering sense of duty. Arguably it is this devotion and dutifulness that enabled him not only to take on the challenge of a position he was not brought up for, but also perform it commendably. It would, however, also take a great toll on him: his life. His widow the Queen Mother always blamed the Duchess of Windsor for the early death of her husband; without the abdication that put him on the throne, he would still be alive, she believed.
Perhaps more than anything, Bradford's biography made me want to reread the biographies of George VI's contemporaries, like Hugo Vickers' biography of his wife the late Queen Mother, as well as Charles Higham's account of the life of the Duchess of Windsor. The Duchess, long gone, is still a controversial issue. Bradford certainly does not make any effort to empathize with 'Mrs Simpson of Baltimore,' who is painted as a calculating and manipulative foreigner without the slightest comprehension or care of social conventions in the 1930s, or of the damage she was causing the monarchy. (On that note, Hugo Vickers' latest book is on the infamous Mrs Simpson, and promises to be an interesting read -- more on that later!).
All in all, Sarah Bradford's biography of George VI is a highly recommended read of a royal figure much more interesting than we thought. So much, I suppose, can be assumed solely on viewing The King's Speech. Whether approaching the subject out of interest through the film or not, this is a fantastic book written with such skill, lucidity and detail, compacted into a deliciously readable prose that only a seasoned writer as Bradford could produce.
Bradford's biography was initially published as The Reluctant King in 1989. George VI was a King, Bradford's title underlined, who did not want to be king. Perhaps the interest of current readers in the late King's stammer persuaded publishers to change the title of the book. George VI was certainly a reluctant King, but is also remembered in particular for overcoming his unpreparedness for kingship and becoming a central figurehead of national unity and endurance during the difficult years of the Second World War. The change of title seems to signal to us that George VI was not just a stammerer nor an unwilling monarch but a person who lived in exceptional times of abdication and World War and triumphed with great personal endeavor.
Indeed, contemporary readers, thanks to cinematic portrayal of the man of The King's Speech, are no doubt interested by the personal aspects of George VI's personality, especially his battle for self-confidence, plaguing self-doubt and emotional frustration and exhaustion with which most people at least at some point in their lives can identify. Readers with expectations of further insight into these dimensions will not be disappointed. Weaving together George's VI's lifestory from his younger days as Prince Albert to the Duke of York and eventually succeeding his brother as George VI, Bradford conveys both the continuities of his personality as well as the challenges he had to faced at each of these stages of his life.
One of those was invariably the sense of inferiority he felt towards his elder brother the Duke of Windsor, who not only put him down when he was younger but continued to hound him from exile at the after his abdication at the behest of his domineering wife the Duchess. Indeed, George VI's tumultuous relationship with his elder brother, close and friendly at youth and more distant and even hostile as adults, comes across as one of the defining ones when it comes to understanding the development of his personality. Where the Duke of Windsor was handsome, glamorous, pleasure-seeking and a philanderer, George VI was athletic, more serious, a devoted husband and father and possessed a distinct and unwavering sense of duty. Arguably it is this devotion and dutifulness that enabled him not only to take on the challenge of a position he was not brought up for, but also perform it commendably. It would, however, also take a great toll on him: his life. His widow the Queen Mother always blamed the Duchess of Windsor for the early death of her husband; without the abdication that put him on the throne, he would still be alive, she believed.
Perhaps more than anything, Bradford's biography made me want to reread the biographies of George VI's contemporaries, like Hugo Vickers' biography of his wife the late Queen Mother, as well as Charles Higham's account of the life of the Duchess of Windsor. The Duchess, long gone, is still a controversial issue. Bradford certainly does not make any effort to empathize with 'Mrs Simpson of Baltimore,' who is painted as a calculating and manipulative foreigner without the slightest comprehension or care of social conventions in the 1930s, or of the damage she was causing the monarchy. (On that note, Hugo Vickers' latest book is on the infamous Mrs Simpson, and promises to be an interesting read -- more on that later!).
All in all, Sarah Bradford's biography of George VI is a highly recommended read of a royal figure much more interesting than we thought. So much, I suppose, can be assumed solely on viewing The King's Speech. Whether approaching the subject out of interest through the film or not, this is a fantastic book written with such skill, lucidity and detail, compacted into a deliciously readable prose that only a seasoned writer as Bradford could produce.
