A Brief History of the House of Windsor by Michael Paterson Read Free Book Online Page A

expected similar reverence from those below. His period of naval service was to last for fourteen years, from 1877 to 1892, when the death of his brother meant that he was called to another type of duty. He was successful in professional exams, gaining qualifications in seamanship, gunnery and torpedoes – achievements that his exalted position alone could not have won for him. The Navy gave him a quarterdeck view of the world that would stay with him for the rest of his life – a bluff, blunt, to-the-point manner that would include fo’c’sle language, paroxysms of anger and loud expressions of impatience with those who failed to match up to his expectations. Deeply conservative by nature and entirely at home in this hierarchical, no-nonsense world, the Navy made him a man of absolutely decided views, which he saw no reason ever to change. Unlike his grandmother, who never travelled outside Europe and who thus never saw the worldwide empire over which she presided, George had first-hand experienceof the lives of her overseas subjects. It was ironic that, having spent his early life roaming the world, he would come to hate foreign travel. Once he became king he would make only one significant trip outside his realms – a Mediterranean cruise – and even that was undertaken only on doctor’s orders. He did not want to go, and no doubt would have given vent to one of his outbursts when advised to take the trip.
    Delighted at being lower in the order of succession than Eddy, George had expected to spend his life as a serving officer. He was given one of the most agreeable postings in the Service – to Malta, where he was under the command of his uncle, the Duke of Edinburgh. (Sixty years later another Duke of Edinburgh would also serve there in the Royal Navy, and his wife would spend a very pleasant interlude on the island before becoming queen.) George was handsome and personable (his only faults, perhaps, his knock knees and the bulging blue eyes he had inherited from his grandmother), and he developed an affection for his uncle’s daughter, Marie. She was a spirited girl with both intelligence and a fine sense of humour. They were distant enough relations for a marriage to be possible, but her mother did not want him for a son-in-law. The Duchess of Edinburgh was the only daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Haughty by nature, she had never taken to living in England, and disliked her husband’s family. She discouraged the match, and her formidable personality was an obstacle that could not be surmounted. Ironically, in that she considered the British royal family too pro-German, she was to marry Marie to a member of Prussia’s ruling house, the Hohenzollerns, which had been invited to occupy the throne of Romania. As queen of that country, Marie would exert influence to ensure that it fought on the Allied side in the Great War. Her children would subsequently marry so extensively into neighbouring royal families that she would earn the sobriquet ‘the Mother-in-Law of the Balkans’.
    It was during this period that George grew the beard that was to become his trademark (Eddy, though senior in years,was not yet able to manage one), and it was at this time too that he began the stamp collection that was to provide him with stimulus and solace, and which would grow into one of the finest in the world. He also became the first of his family to develop a passion for polo, a game taken up by British officers in India and which had spread throughout the British Empire. Enthusiasm for it was all but compulsory among the officer class, and to play it well was a certain route to popularity.
    His brother, who lacked any noticeable passion for anything, had meanwhile moved on to another phase of preparation for his eventual life. He went, still accompanied by John Dalton, to Cambridge to study, though he was to be exempted from having to take any exams. He followed this by going into the Army. Serving in the 10th Hussars, a