Edward VII, born November 9, 1841, was the eldest son of Queen Victoria.
He took the family name of his father, Prince Consort Albert, hence the
change in lineage, although he was still Hanoverian on his mother's side.
He married Princess Alexandra of Denmark in 1863, who bore him three sons
and three daughters. Edward died on May 6, 1910, after a series of heart
attacks.
Victoria, true to the Hanoverian name, saw the worst in Edward. She and
Albert imposed a strict regime upon Edward, who proved resistant and
resentful throughout his youth. His marriage at age twenty-two to Alexandra
afforded him some relief from his mother's domination, but even after
Albert's death in 1863, Victoria consistently denied her son any official
governmental role. Edward rebelled by completely indulging himself in
women, food, drink, gambling, sport and travel. Alexandra turned a blind
eye to his extramarital activities, which continued well into his sixties
and found him implicated in several divorce cases.
Edward succeeded the throne upon Victoria's death; despite his risquй
reputation, Edward threw himself into his role of king with vitality. His
extensive European travels gave him a solid foundation as an ambassador in
foreign relations. Quite a few of the royal houses of Europe were his
relatives, allowing him to actively assist in foreign policy negotiations.
He also maintained an active social life, and his penchant for flamboyant
accouterments set trends among the fashionable. Victoria's fears proved
wrong: Edward's forays into foreign policy had direct bearing on the
alliances between Great Britain and both France and Russia, and aside from
his sexual indiscretions, his manner and style endeared him to the English
populace.
Social legislation was the focus of Parliament during Edward's reign. The
1902 Education Act provided subsidized secondary education, and the Liberal
government passed a series of acts benefiting children after 1906; old age
pensions were established in 1908. The 1909 Labour Exchanges Act laid the
groundwork for national health insurance, which led to a constitutional
crisis over the means of budgeting such social legislation. The budget set
forth by David Lloyd-George proposed major tax increases on wealthy
landowners and was defeated in Parliament. Prime Minister Asquith appealed
to Edward to create several new peerages to swing the vote, but Edward
steadfastly refused. Edward died amidst the budgetary crisis at age sixty-
eight, which was resolved the following year by the Liberal government's
passage of the act.
Despite Edward's colorful personal life and Victoria's perceptions of him
as profligate, Edward ruled peacefully (aside from the Boer War of 1899-
1902) and successfully during his short reign, which is remarkable
considering the shifts in European power that occurred in the first decade
of the twentieth century.
THE HOUSE OF WINDSOR
The House of Windsor came into being in 1917, when the name was adopted
as the British Royal Family's official name by a proclamation of King
George V, replacing the historic name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. It remains the
family name of the current Royal Family.
During the twentieth century, kings and queens of the United Kingdom have
fulfilled the varied duties of constitutional monarchy. One of their most
important roles was national figureheads lifting public morale during the
devastating world wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45.
The period saw the modernization of the monarchy in tandem with the many
social changes which have taken place over the past 80 years. One such
modernization has been the use of mass communication technologies to make
the Royal Family accessible to a broader public the world over. George V
adopted the new relatively new medium of radio to broadcast across the
Empire at Christmas; the Coronation ceremony was broadcast on television
for the first time in 1953, at The Queen's insistence; and the World Wide
Web has been used for the past five years to provide a global audience with
information about the Royal Family. During this period British monarchs
have also played a vital part in promoting international relations,
retaining ties with former colonies in their role as Head of the
Commonwealth.
GEORGE V (1910-36)
George V was born June 3, 1865, the second son of Edward VII and
Alexandra. His early education was somewhat insignificant as compared to
that of the heir apparent, his older brother Albert. George chose the
career of professional naval officer and served competently until Albert
died in 1892, upon which George assumed the role of the heir apparent. He
married Mary of Teck (affectionately called May) in 1893, who bore him four
sons and one daughter. He died the year after his silver jubilee after a
series of debilitating attacks of bronchitis, on January 20, 1936.
George ascended the throne in the midst of a constitutional crisis: the
budget controversy of 1910. Tories in the House of Lords were at odds with
Liberals in the Commons pushing for social reforms. When George agreed to
create enough Liberal peerages to pass the measure the Lords capitulated
and gave up the power of absolute veto, resolving the problem officially
with passage of the Parliament Bill in 1911. The first World War broke out
in 1914, during which George and May made several visits to the front; on
one such visit, George's horse rolled on top of him, breaking his pelvis -
George remained in pain for the rest of his life from the injury. The
worldwide depression of 1929-1931 deeply affected England, prompting the
king to persuade the heads of the three political parties (Labour,
Conservative and Liberal) to unite into a coalition government. By the end
of the 1920's, George and the Windsors were but one of few royal families
who retained their status in Europe.
The relationship between England and the rest of the Empire underwent
several changes. An independent Irish Parliament was established in 1918
after the Sinn Fein uprising in 1916, and the Government of Ireland Act
(1920) divided Ireland along religious lines. Canada, Australia, New
Zealand and South Africa demanded the right of self-governance after the
war, resulting in the creation of the British Commonwealth of Nations by
the Statute of Westminster in 1931. India was accorded some degree of self-
determination with the Government of India Act in 1935.
The nature of the monarchy evolved through the influence of George. In
contrast to his grandmother and father - Victoria's ambition to exert
political influence in the tradition of Elizabeth I and Edward VII's
aspirations to manipulate the destiny of nations - George's royal
perspective was considerably more humble. He strove to embody those
qualities, which the nation saw as their greatest strengths: diligence,
dignity and duty. The monarchy transformed from an institution of
constitutional legality to the bulwark of traditional values and customs
(particularly those concerning the family). Robert Lacey describes George
as such: ". . . as his official biographer felt compelled to admit, King
George V was distinguished 'by no exercise of social gifts, by no personal
magnetism, by no intellectual powers. He was neither a wit nor a brilliant
raconteur, neither well-read nor well-educated, and he made no great
contribution to enlightened social converse. He lacked intellectual
curiosity and only late in life acquired some measure of artistic taste.'
He was, in other words, exactly like most of his subjects. He discovered a
new job for modern kings and queens to do - representation."
EDWARD VIII ( JANUARY-DECEMBER 1936)
As Prince of Wales, Edward VIII (reigned January-December 1936) had
successfully carried out a number of regional visits (including areas hit
by economic depression) and other official engagements. These visits and
his official tours overseas, together with his good war record and genuine
care for the underprivileged, had made him popular.
The first monarch to be a qualified pilot, Edward created The King's Flight
(now known as 32 (The Royal) Squadron) in 1936 to provide air transport for
the Royal family's official duties.
In 1930, the Prince, who had already had a number of affairs, had met and
fallen in love with a married American woman, Mrs Wallis Simpson. Concern
about Edward's private life grew in the Cabinet, opposition parties and the
Dominions, when Mrs Simpson obtained a divorce in 1936 and it was clear
that Edward was determined to marry her.
Eventually Edward realised he had to choose between the Crown and Mrs
Simpson who, as a twice-divorced woman, would not have been acceptable as
Queen. On 10 December 1936, Edward VIII executed an Instrument of
Abdication which was given legal effect the following day, when Edward gave
Royal Assent to His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act, by which
Edward VIII and any children he might have were excluded from succession to
the throne. In 1937, Edward was created Duke of Windsor and married Wallis
Simpson.
During the Second World War, the Duke of Windsor escaped from Paris,
where he was living at the time of the fall of France, to Lisbon in 1940.
The Duke of Windsor was then appointed Governor of the Bahamas, a position
he held until 1945. He lived abroad until the end of his life, dying in
1972 in Paris (he is buried at Windsor). Edward was never crowned; his
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