King George and Queen Mary - The First Windsors (Part 1)

a castle has stood on this hill in Windsor near London since the time of William the conquerer [Music] the seat of the British royal family for generation upon generation it has become a living symbol of the amazing staying power of the world's oldest monarchy [Music] but it was not until the 20th century when George v and Queen Mary reigned that the momentous decision was made to change the royal family's name from saxe-coburg-gotha to the Windsors this is the story of how George and Mary became the first Windsor's [Music] it is the summer of 1935 and George v and his beloved Queen Mary are following a familiar royal route only this time there are two royal firsts they are not only celebrating their silver jubilee 25 years on the throne together but thanks to the wonders of modern technology it's also the very first time a king and queen have been filmed in color the royal couple are both deeply moved by this show of public love they can remember times when it was not always like this George that's him on horseback now can remember when he felt the beam King was too much for him that's why he salutes Mary as she watches over him he knows he couldn't have done it without her no one could remember George ever being happier than he was in his Jubilee year but then no one imagined that this would be the last year of his life no one that is except Mary who'd nursed him through a near-fatal illness and who alone knew the strain of the job that had weakened him her love of being needed made her the perfect match for George for he was a man who needed to be loved the king was in a nostalgic mood when he recalled a day forty years earlier when his father was still Prince of Wales and Victoria was still on the throne [Applause] just as George's Jubilee would coincide with the arrival of colour photography so his grandmother Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee would coincide with the invention of the movie camera [Music] as a young man of 25 George had intimidating memories of the Queen they called the widow of Windsor a first hint that the castle to which Victoria would summon her entire brood would one day give its name to a whole dynasty she lived long enough to hold George's baby's son in her arms and when she died in 1901 after the longest reign in history the nation honored a queen who'd been admired rather than loved the Victorian age was over her son and heir Edward was the polar opposite of his tyrannical pious mother a man for whom adultery was almost a vocation but whose infidelity was tolerated by his docile wife Alexandra Edward was now a portly 60-year old but his accession was received by high society with a sigh of relief what if the new king for all his roly-poly girth was a bit of an intellectual Pinkney he had a big heart a ready wit and a keen eye the day he was crowned turned out to be one of the most eccentric coronations in royal history as the crown was placed on the aging Ruiz head there was an excited rustle of skirts from the special box high above the altar where his mistress's past and present had been assembled among them were Sarah Bernhardt the famous actress and the woman who would one day be called to his deathbed mrs. Alice kibble unlike his mother Queen Victoria Edward the seventh welcomed the bold new world of the Machine Age this was a world whose factories created the wealth that financed the pleasures of a new middle class a class which enjoyed the loosening of moral stays in what was now Edwardian Britain but walking towards us is a young man who would never feel at ease in that raffish Edwardian atmosphere he is Prince George and those surrounded by predatory women he is indifferent to their charms for some years ago he married a German Princess Mary of Teck who'd been originally engaged to his older brother who need to see him die of a sudden illness I'll marry you said George but this unlikely marriage in 1893 would produce six children the baby is Prince John who died at 14 the main problem is the oldest boy Edward who was emotionally fragile and a poor student so it was decided that he should follow royal tradition and go to sea like his father and grandfather and off he went to Naval College where his misery would eventually rebound on the whole royal line meanwhile years of good living had done their worst to Edward the seventh waistline these days it was an uphill struggle for him just to climb into his carriage [Music] when Edward died in May 1910 his subjects were surprised by the depth of their grief the jolly Phil Andra had come late to the throne but he'd spread the good times throughout the kingdom [Music] so the reign of George v and his wife Mary began with them wearing crowns that many thought might prove too big for them the couple had been part of the landscape for 20 years but no one really knew them the applause on this their first major public appearance was no more than polite George a naturally shy man would write of this occasion that it had made him sick with nerves the only thing he liked about being king he once confessed was the dressing up his normal routine meant changing clothes five times a day he loved it as long as the clothes weren't modern formal attire and clothes that looked at least a decade out-of-date that's what the King insisted on for Mary she would wear these old style fashions all their married life knowing that society women mocked her for it their relationship was inevitably an odd one he was not only her husband he was her king and like many women of her time and class Mary believed that a king ruled by divine right at first Mary's profound shyness made her public appearances an ordeal as a German princess in an English court she had been teased over her foreign accent but with her husband's loving support she would grow in confidence as King George had inherited the title emperor of India and now in 1911 he chose to mark his own coronation with a grand durbar in delhi george caused a ripple of panic in white settler ranks by praising the bearing of native Maharaja's and asking why such splendid chaps weren't allowed in european clubs he threatened to do something about it but alas after four hours in the burning Sun he was so drained that he forgot all about it even a new crown a gift from the Indian people studded with six thousand diamonds couldn't cheer him up George would be relieved to be back in bustling that familiar London greeting local dignitaries on a pleasantly cool afternoon note George's Victorian style bowler and Mary's towering chapeau designed to make her stand out in a crowd the couple shared a fairytale vision of an England that never was an innocent pastoral world where polite but manly boys steered gentle girls towards their only destiny to be obedient wives and mothers the trouble was that the young women of the year 1912 made a mockery of that royal vision they wanted to fashion their own destinies choose a career and fall in love with a man of their own choice or worse pompous man delivered tirades against these impudent girls but they were swimming against the tide for led by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Silvia the suffragettes were on the March what had begun as a protest by a handful of educated women had become a national movement demanding a woman's right to vote in a world ruled by men King George thought this female rebellion a very rum thing after all what use would a woman be to a chap like captain Scott the man who was leading a British expedition to the ends of the earth in a daring bid to plant the Union Jack on the south pole before any foreign Johnny got there George wrote in his diary how he envied the men on this great adventure but when news arrived of how these heroes had frozen to death in their tent the king was deeply upset he awarded a posthumous knighthood to Captain Scott it was his personal tribute to someone he called a great Englishman in that same year 1912 George and Mary took the channel steamer to France it was their royal duty to brandish the flag but also to form new bonds with the country known as the old enemy it was difficult for George who spoke barely a word of any foreign language but Mary could translate for him everyone knew that behind the friendly gossip and the glamorous style loves the threat of war but this time not with France back home the royal party was preparing for an event that the whole country wanted to salute the maiden voyage of the greatest ocean liner ever built in Britain a ship which they said was unsinkable as the Titanic sailed off on its first voyage to America it seemed to be carrying a cargo of imperial pride a challenge from the old world to the new world across the water [Music] within days the Titanic would be at the bottom of the sea with 1,500 lives lost a terrible symbol of what too much pride can bring as George and Mary set out on one of their favorite royal fixtures Derby Day at the Epsom races they could never have foreseen how this day would also end in tragedy but of a very different kind the big race began smoothly enough but as the horses reached a tanam corner the unthinkable happened a woman runs out she throws herself under the flying hooves of a horse the watching King realizes with horror that the young woman has deliberately chosen his horse to be the instrument of her death [Music] the young suicides name is emily davidson she had been a fervent member of the suffragettes this was her last desperate gesture to draw the world's attention to the cause of women's rights George was deeply distressed by the incident he wrote in his diary that he feared the image of that poor deluded girl being trampled to death would haunt him for the rest of his life he felt some relief when he learned that Emily Davidson had been suffering from an incurable disease this news however would only strengthen the resolve of the suffragette movement which now embraced its first martyr the Lancers on parade signaled that things were back to normal in the royal household but not quite one of those plumed helmets leading this royal procession belonged to Kaiser Wilhelm the German ruler with absolute power who happened to be George's cousin the king had a healthy dislike for his German relative he thought him arrogant and he was troubled by the reports that the Kaiser was preparing for war it took the shine off a day when Georgia unveiled a memorial to his grandmother Queen Victoria [Music] 19:13 was turning out to be a bad year for the king here he was reviewing troops at a military base in the full knowledge that any time now these very soldiers might be in deadly battle with Germany a country run by his own cousin Kaiser Wilhelm [Music] surely it couldn't happen could it in the late summer of 1914 Britain found itself

Channel: Professor Cynic

Views: 1,010,982

Rating: 4.6459866 out of 5

Keywords: Queen Mary, King George V, British Royal Family, The Queen, House of Windsor, The Windsors, King George V and Queen Mary

Id: 5SjrBSEWiXo

Length: 16min 14sec (974 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 22 2018