OUR FAULTLESS KING WAS LOVED THE WORLD OVER
By WINSTON CHURCHILL
An extract from Mr Churchill’s address to the nation on Thursday, February 7, 1952
MY FRIENDS, when the death of the King was announced to us yesterday morning, there struck a deep and solemn note in our lives which, as it resounded far and wide, stilled the clatter and traffic of 20th-century life in many lands, and made countless millions of human beings pause and look around them.
The King was greatly loved by all his peoples and respected far beyond the many realms over which he reigned.
The simple dignity of his life, his manly virtues, his sense of duty, his gay charm and happy nature, his example as a husband and a father, his courage in peace or war — all of these
His simple dignity, his manly virtue, his happy charm
were aspects of his character which won the glint of admiration from the innumerable eyes whose gaze falls upon the Throne.
During his last months, the King walked with death as if death were a companion he did not fear.
After a happy day of sunshine and sport, after ‘Goodnight’ to those who loved him best, he fell asleep as every man or woman who strives to fear God and nothing else may hope to do.
Let me tell you another fact. One day when Buckingham Palace was bombed during the war, the King had just returned from Windsor. The opposite side of the courtyard was struck and if the windows out of which he and the Queen were looking had not been open, they would have been blinded by broken glass instead of being only thrown back.
Yet amid all that was then going on, I never heard of this until a long time after. Their Majesties never thought it significant. This seems to me to be a revealing trait in the royal character.
For 15 years King George VI was King. Never did he fail in his duty.
It is at this time that our compassion and sympathy go out to his consort and widow. Their marriage was a love match with no idea of pomp.
To Queen Mary, his mother, another son is dead — the Duke of Kent having been killed on active service — but there belongs the consolation of seeing how well he did his duty. Now I must turn to the future. Famous have been the reigns of our Queens. Now that we have the second Queen Elizabeth, also ascending the Throne in her 26th year, our thoughts are carried back nearly 400 years to the magnificent Elizabethan age.
I, whose youth was passed in the august and tranquil glories of the Victorian era, may well feel a thrill in invoking once more the prayer and anthem ‘God Save the Queen’.