The Reluctant King, Not So Reluctant When It Mattered Most

Two score and fifteen years ago today, a King passed away, and a Queen began her long, faithful service to the Commonwealth:

“His Gracious Majesty King George VI, whose sudden death we mourn today, reigned over us with singular distinction, unfailing courage, and the most constant devotion. He was a constitutional monarch in the grand tradition of his father, King George V, of happy memory. Possessed of great force of character, a most royal sense of duty, a keen perception of the movements and issues of his day, our late beloved King was in the vast and bitter crisis of the war, in which he served us all so well, ruler, and leader, and friend. His was no distant throne, for he sought no security and shared cheerfully every danger and every trial. All those who saw England under daily and nightly attack in the great battle of 1940 and 1941 were stirred by the spectacle of an embattled nation, normally not unacquainted with internal divisions and hostilities, in which there was unity, cheerfulness, courage, and a common resolution which ran through factory and farm, and which made the King and his humblest subject feel a deep and human brotherhood. It was that superb fusing of the common will which defeated the enemy, and did so much to save the world. King George VI and his Queen Elizabeth were among the great architects of that brotherhood”

- Sir Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia, February 6, 1952

Read Professor David Flint at the ACM: 55 years of Faithful Service