book review

The Reluctant King: The Life & Reign of George VI 1895-1952 by Sarah Bradford, St Martin’s Press, New York, 1989.

King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II’s father, lived much of his life as the under-rated younger brother of the fashionable heir to the throne, Prince Edward, who would become King Edward VIII and later, The Duke of Windsor. King Edward VIII would ultimately abdicate the throne for his love of Mrs. Wallis Simpson — an event now known as the “Abdication Crisis” – leaving the British people with a king many worried was too frail for the job. World War II proved King George VI was exactly the king they needed.

I have long wanted to read a biography of King George VI and find out how this shy man, who attained a reputation as a resolute leader and strong wartime partner of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, became the king he was. Before picking up this book, I had read the official biography of The Queen Mother (The Queen Mother: The Official Biography by William Shawcross) and the second volume of the diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles (King’s Counsellor: Abdication and War: The Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles edited by Duff Hart-Davis) which both piqued my interest in King George VI. I was interested in finding out how he developed the resilience he needed to inspire his nation to carry on during the difficult war years.

In reading The Reluctant King by Sarah Bradford, I learned the fundamentals of King George VI’s life and how his early years formed him. Bradford draws an interesting theme throughout the book illustrating how his experiences as the second son actually prepared him quite thoroughly to be king during the war years. The future king, then known by his given name Prince Albert, spent much of World War I at home recovering from severe gastrointestinal problems with his father, King George V, observing on a daily basis what is required of a king. Interspersed with his time recovering at home, Prince Albert spent the war switching military branches and becoming familiar with how they each operate. Later, during his young adult years, he was assigned the responsibility of maintaining relations with the royal European relatives which in turn prepared him to manage the upheaval of the European royal system during World War II. He was also put in charge of following industrial development and became the person most familiar with Britain’s industry and its needs and capacities as well as the needs and desires of the working man.

In this book, Bradford does a good job of showing how King George VI, in struggling to satisfy his father’s demanding standards as a child and young adult, later created a happy home life with his wife and two daughters in opposition to what he experienced as a child, and how he worked hard to serve his roles well – especially his diligent effort to overcome his speech impediment. It is clear Bradford did a lot of new research and unearthed original sources that especially fill in background on society’s thoughts around the Abdication Crisis. It also seems that she wrote much of the book as a conversation with his official biography (King George VI: His Life and Reign by Sir John Wheeler Bennett), so if one has not read that book, as I have yet to, then one might get a bit lost at times. 

Bradford often jumps around in time and assumes a familiarity with the subject that can make things confusing. Do you know who Lord Beaverbrook is? If not, you may want to read with Wikipedia close at hand because the author never tells you. The addition of footnotes might have been helpful for readers trying to keep track of all the players. Bradford’s sourcing is also, at times, inconsistent and can make one wonder where she got an explosive statement, such as on page 45 “Knowledge of, or fear of, being sterile can prompt the obsessive sexual life to which the Prince [Edward] was prone.” Is that true? No source is noted so the reader is unfortunately unable to judge the veracity of such a statement for themselves. 

In the Abdication Crisis section of the book, King George VI is almost entirely missing so even though it was interesting and filled in a lot of my gaps in knowledge, it set the tone for a majority of the book’s focus on the Duke of Windsor at the expense of King George VI. The book quotes extensively from the Duke of Windsor’s papers with very little from King George VI. I would assume much of this has to do with a lack of sources from the tight-lipped King George VI, but whether the fault of the author or not, nevertheless leaves me wanting to read another biography about King George VI.

Ultimately, Bradford’s biography suffers the same fate as King George VI did in his lifetime – it is overshadowed by his brother, and offers the reader little understanding of how King George VI became the one of Britain’s greatest modern monarchs. For this, and Bradford’s aforementioned tendency to abandon helping the reader understand the broad cast of characters, I recommend this book only to the most studious readers of the British aristocracy who have read multiple royal biographies already as there is likely new information they have not seen before, but will prove a disappointment for those seeking a thorough study of King George VI.

Thinking about our theme of resiliency, I found the book useful and interesting to read, and it appropriately demonstrates how the under-rated second son – though even out-shone by his brother in his own biography – became the leader Britain needed at a crucial time in its long history. King George VI was devoted to his inherited duty and, despite his and other’s perception of him as weak, persevered to serve as a resolute king who strengthened his people through an immensely difficult war. Unfortunately, the smoking habit he used to help cope with the stress of the war and being king ultimately led to his death from lung cancer at the young age of 56. He, like so many of his generation, used his sense of duty to propel himself and his country through two difficult world wars, at great personal cost. Perhaps, for King George VI resiliency was found in his own belief that he was ill-suited to lead his people. Maybe, this perception, though false, coupled with his innate sense of duty, propelled him to become one of Britain’s greatest modern monarchs.