My front-row seat to watch history in the making
Former Tatler editor Robert Innes-Smith recalls being a front-row witness to the last journey of George V, 80 years ago
On this day, 80 years ago, King George V made his final journey. Following several debilitating attacks of bronchitis, he died peacefully, aged 70, on January 20, 1936, at his beloved Sandringham Castle. A doctor’s note later testified that the king had been administered a lethal injection of morphine and cocaine to speed things along, which ensured the announcement of his death could make the morning newspapers.
From Sandringham, the king made his last journey to King’s Cross station, from where he was taken to Westminster Hall for the lying-instate, and finally to St George’s Chapel, Windsor, for the funeral service and burial on January 28.
It is a stirring punctuation mark in British history, and one that I can remember with crystal clarity because I was there. As a seven-year-old boy, I negotiated a front-row seat for the passing of the cortege along the streets of London to Westminster. I jostled through the enormous crowds, and secured a splendid view of the funeral vanguard, of which I have never forgotten.
I remember the banner-draped coffin resting on a gun carriage with the Imperial State Crown on top. I remember the procession of important people following on foot, although I was too young to know who they were. I remember being awestruck at the magnanimity of the event, the rows and rows of humanity who had come to witness his body being carted along, and the sense of occasion and sombre splendour.
I’ve been a monarchist for as long as I can remember, and my family tree is awash with Jacobites and Cavaliers. Growing up, one of my most prized possessions was a toy golden coach given to me by my parents to commemorate King George V’s silver jubilee. I treasured it.
A year before the king died, I tried to walk into Buckingham Palace. I was staying at 11 Wilton Place in London with my uncle – my family lived in Iver, Buckinghamshire – and had been desperate to see the palace. My uncle’s butler relented, took me and I walked straight into the courtyard (it was not so well-guarded then) and a policeman asked what I was doing.
I told him I’d come to see the king in a voice of angelic insistence that only small boys can muster. He informed me the king wasn’t in, but if I waited half an hour I would see Queen Mary leave. I wasn’t interested in her, so we left.
On 23 January 1936, the day the king’s funeral cortege was due to pass through London, an Irish maid called Murphy took me to Hyde Park Corner. She had overheard me pleading to go and, as her boyfriend was in the cavalry regiment on duty that day, she thought we might secure a good spot. We found him and he hauled me onto his steed. For two minutes, I had an unadulterated view over the sea of adults’ heads. I saw the orb, the sceptre and the crown resting on the coffin, and the slow, aching procession. The new King, Edward VIII, was following the coffin on foot with his three brothers, the Dukes of York, Gloucester and Kent.
All too soon, an NCO started bawling at the young serviceman, and I was swiftly lowered back to ground level.
A woman saw my distress and beckoned me onto the roof of a taxi behind. I pushed through a forest of legs and climbed on top. You could put a kitchen sink on top of those things. They had flat tops and rails to prevent luggage (or small boys) from falling off. From my vantage point, I resumed watch, seeing so much but understanding little, except for the severity and grandeur of it all.
My family has long believed that my uncle’s mother-in-law, Mrs Gustav Hamel, mother of the famous aviator, who lived on the fringes of Regent’s Park at Park Crescent, had been a secret girlfriend of King Edward VII, George V’s father. She knew Edward VIII and George V and was inconsolable over the latter’s death. I remember her crying when it was announced on the wireless when we visited her house. I suspect she knew there was trouble coming with Edward VIII.
Before I was born, so the story goes, Edward VII rode to her house after riding in Rotten Row, arrived at her house accompanied by his equerry and beloved wire fox terrier called Cesar. He asked to come up, which Mrs Hamel allowed but she refused the dog entry to her drawing room, bellowing: “Is that you, Bertie? You can come up but I don’t want that dirty little dog!” Cesar was dispatched to the palace with the equerry. My memories of Mrs Hamel are as a dignified old woman who wore a choker encrusted with diamonds in the form of “ER VII”.
In truth, King George V’s reign was a welcome relief from the playboy days of his father. He approved the 1911 Parliament Act, visited hundreds of frontline troops during the First World War and pressed for the humane treatment of German prisoners of war and conscientious objectors. He readily accepted the first Labour government in 1926, backed the idea of a national coalition government and was the first sovereign to broadcast a Christmas message. His reign stretched for 26 years and he rarely put a foot wrong, apart from betraying his cousin Tsar Nicholas II by refusing to give his family refuge in Britain before they were slaughtered in the name of the Russian revolution.
Today, I am still proud to call myself a monarchist. (In the 1960s, I edited
Tatler, and it was practically a job requirement.) The Queen is a wonderful woman, this country’s pride and joy and the reason we are the envy of so many other nations. The Royal family – most of them, at least – breed respect, and its longevity and history is steeped in reverence and mystic. I worry only for the continuation of its bloodline.
King Farouk of Egypt once said: “The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will only be five kings left – the King of England, the King of Spades, the King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds.”
That may not yet be far off. The institution of monarchy is under threat from many assailants, not least modernity and socialism (Jeremy Corbyn would like to see it dismantled). Which is why I believe it important to commemorate significant anniversaries, such as the passing of a king, and use them to help us understand the acts of great men who have shaped us. So long as there are boys and girls who are able to gaze in wonder at the monarchy, as I did 80 years ago, I have faith it will hold firm for centuries to come.