Dan Snow's History Hit - The Death of King George V: A Royal Murder Mystery

Episode Date: April 24, 2022

Just before midnight on January 20, 1936, King George V died at Sandringham, in Norfolk, England. The scandal of King George V’s reign would not be revealed publicly until 1986, in the diary of his physician, Lord Bertrand Dawson. Dawson had written about the night of January 20, detailing that he had injected the king with a lethal concoction of morphine and cocaine, intending to both grant the king a painless death and to guarantee that his passing would be announced in the morning papers rather than the evening journals.Jane Ridley is a historian, author and broadcaster who teaches Modern History at the University of Buckingham. Jane joins Dan on this episode of the podcast to discuss who King George V was, the major events of his reign, and the injection that resulted in the king’s death - an act alternately referred to as “euthanasia,” medically assisted suicide or murder.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.We need your help! If you would like to tell us what you want to hear as part of Dan Snow's History Hit then complete our podcast survey by clicking here. Once completed you will be entered into a prize draw to win a £100 voucher to spend in the History Hit shop.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History. I would like to report a murder.

I would like to report a murder has taken place. The police did nothing about it. It took place in Norfolk, a little place called Sandringham, on the 20th of January 1936. The victim was Mr George Windsor, otherwise known as King Emperor George V. Yes, folks, the King of the United Kingdom was killed by his personal physician on the night of the 20th of January. He was 70 years old.

This is a bonkers story and it's true. But you can decide for yourself whether you think murder is the correct noun or verb of the 20th of January. He was 70 years old. This is a bonkers story and it's true. Well, you can decide for yourself whether you think murder is the correct noun or verb for what took place. I think it probably is. In fact, if you're a lawyer, please let me know. Get on the old social media rising and let me know. This is a story of the euthanasia of King George V, the Queen's grandfather. Fascinating stuff. I got Jane Ridley, Professor of Modern History at the University of Buckingham. She's written a book about George V, Never a Dull Moment, so it's a chance to talk about the man, his service during the war, how he helped to stabilise the monarchy at a very dangerous time for monarchs when the cousins of his were being strung up and shot all

around the continent, and then how he met his end. Cocaine was involved. It's got it all, folks. Drugs, power, generational conflict, and the tabloid press. There you go. So if you want to learn more about George V, we've actually got a great episode on George V. We talked to Alexandra Churchill about George V in World War I.

You can go back and listen to that wherever you get your pods, or you can go back and listen to all of our George V adjacent content on History Hit TV. There's audio on there. There's video on there. We've got hundreds of hours of documentaries. We've got thousands of podcasts. It's all on History Hit TV.

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Can't hurt anyone. Go and check it out. You get two weeks free if you sign up today. And it'd be great to have you as part of the team. Lots going on this year, folks. Trips to Egypt, the battlefields of the Western Front, Antarctica just done. Lots going on at History Hit TV. But in the meantime, here is the very brilliant Professor Jane Ridley. Enjoy. Jane, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Well, it's a pleasure to be here, Dan. Thank you for asking me.

We are going to talk about the remarkable end of George V, but he had a busy old time as King Emperor, didn't he? Let's quickly rehearse some of his key points. He wasn't initially meant to be king, was he? No, he was a second son. He was brought up to have a sort of naval career and be a naval prince. But then his elder brother, Eddie, who was rather a rackety character, died unexpectedly, aged 28, and George suddenly found himself in line for the throne. It's like Henry

VIII, Charles I, one of these strange younger siblings become king sort of moments. Yes, or George VI. Exactly, of course, yeah. So was he, do we know what his views were on that? Was it like the Romanovs? Did he weep or was he excited to step into those shoes? No, he wept. He desperately did not want to be king.

So he certainly didn't have the second sand thing of wanting to inherit. And partly because of that, he was treated rather gently when he was Prince of Wales and allowed to sort of go on doing what he really liked doing, which was shooting lots of birds. And we think of him as lacking a charisma of his father, Edward VII. I don't agree with this because I've just written a book about George V. But George V has a reputation for being dull. And a lot of that reputation goes to the contrast between George V and his father, Edward VII, who was this very kind of colourful playboy figure with a very kind of louche, fashionable, scandalous even, court. And George V was the opposite of all that. He didn't believe in having

lots of mistresses. He said, I don't want anyone's man's wife, just I'm happy with my own. He also was very domestic in his habits, very regular habits, and he didn't like going out at all. Couldn't have been more different. But that doesn't mean he's dull. He was ordinary, but I think not dull. And there's an interesting, I saw people talking about the other day in connection with Boris Johnson partying in Downing Street while the rest of the country was locked down. He was rather strict, wasn't he, during the First World War in his habits and how he ran the royal household? Indeed he was. He was sort of tricked during the First World War by Lloyd George into giving up drink when he didn't

really want to. Lloyd George put it in the paper before he could do anything about it, so there he was stuck. So for the whole of the First World War, there was no alcohol served at Buckingham Palace or Windsor or wherever. Food was rationed. And perhaps much more important than all of that, you will have sort of giving an example to the country. But what was really important was that George V and his wife, Queen Mary, if you look at their dowries during the war, they are constantly, the whole time, going to hospitals, visiting troops. He's buttoning medals on soldiers. It is an absolutely full-time job and done completely out of an idea of public service. You know, he doesn't sort of spin it. It's not in the newspapers at all. It just is what he does

every day. As his cousins were toppled from their thrones in 1917 and 1918 in Russia and Germany and elsewhere. Does he become aware that there's an existential moment for dynastic monarchy in Europe? Does he face those demons? It most certainly is an existential crisis for dynastic monarchy. And George is very much aware of that. I think there's one fundamental difference between him and the Russians and the Germans, which is that Britain won the war. I mean, what would have happened if we'd lost? I'm not sure. But nevertheless, George is very frightened about Bolshevism after the 1917 Russian Revolution. So much so that he refuses to invite his cousin, Nicholas II, of whom he was very fond. He refuses to give him asylum in this country,

which of course ultimately means that Nicholas II is murdered in 1918. And so George, how does he, apart from rejecting his poor cousin, how does he express that struggle for rule, legitimacy? I think the most important thing he does is to rebrand the monarchy, if you like. His surname, monarchs don't usually use their surnames. He was always known as King George. But the surname of his family was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which is definitely a German surname, which had been Prince Albert's surname. And in 1917, George V gets rid of the German surname. Today, the monarch was changing their name. There will be endless committees, etc., etc. But what happens is that a couple of elder statesmen are invited

to Windsor and they sort of play a sort of paper game and say, you know, should it be Stuart or Judah Stuart or something like that? And in the end, Lord Stamfordham, who is George's exceptionally good private secretary, comes up with the name of Windsor, which was brilliant. It was English, Windsor Castle, etc. And so they changed the dynasty. And the Kaiser makes one of his few jokes and says, well, I suppose instead of the merry wives of Windsor, we will now be talking about the merry wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. So I think there's a deliberate attempt to distance the British monarchy from the monarchs who are having such a bad time in Europe, losing their thrones in the last years of the First World War.

Did the British monarchy survive because it had found a sustainable model from the late 17th century onwards? Or do you think it did come down to personalities? You know, if someone more fiery had been around in the hot summer of 1911 or during the Great Depression, things could have gone differently. Did George really matter? I think it's a bit of both. One of the things about a monarchy is that personalities do count. And obviously, the personality of Edward VIII was extremely unsuitable for the role, as even he recognised. So that can be the factor. But I think on the other hand, the institution needs to adjust and needs to modernise itself

when time changes. And I think that what George rather surprisingly proved able to do was to sort of judge when to modernise and what to do from that point of view. So, for example, he was aware of the importance of modernising the monarchy so that it worked in a democracy, adjusting it to a democracy. And partly for that reason, he was very much in favour of the first Labour government, which he sort of enabled when he didn't need to. It was a minority government, he could have blocked it, which would have been troublesome, but you know but it could have been done. Instead of which, he did everything he could to make it work and establish a good working relationship with Ramsay Macdonald, the Labour Prime Minister. And I think perhaps also more important was his perception of the idea that the monarchy must not

be sort of distant and grand and fashionable and aristocratic. It must be ordinary and it must be something that ordinary people can relate to. And it should be ideally a family monarchy as well, because people can relate to that. And of course, the thing about George's legacy is that he's tremendously successful in building up this ordinary domestic family monarchy. And in the 1920s, the monarchy reached a sort of high point of prestige, but it's undercut by the sort of problems he has with his eldest son. I mean, that quarrel with his eldest son goes a long way towards undermining his legacy. Somebody once said to George V, you know, you've done a wonderful job in raising the monarchy so high. And George

replied, yes, and I know that within a year, the whole thing will be pulled down by my son. So he had this sense that, you know, his legacy was going to be ruined. That's so depressing. Bonker's father and Bonker's oldest son. So sandwiched between two Edwards. What was his relationship like with both of those two kind of extroverts? Both men quite different to he was. His relationship with his father was tricky, but he adored his father and was terrified of him. Edward VII, a big man, hugely sociable,

and with the kind of charisma that George lacked. So he always sort of did what his father said, but actually when his father died, he wasn't totally stricken with grief. And I think, as I said, the contrast between Edward VII and George V makes George V look dull, which I don't think he was. And then, of course, yes, George's eldest son, Edward, later King Edward, and briefly King Edward VIII, his relationship with him was very difficult indeed. In fact, Edward, son Edward, really stood for everything that George most loathed. George hated the 20th

century. He hated women wearing painted fingernails. He hated jazz. He hated women with short hair, et cetera, et cetera. And all of these were the sort of things that were characteristic of his son Edward's friendship group. And they couldn't have been more different. And in fact, this rift that opens up between George and his son has significant historical consequences, because I think it's one of the background reasons for the abdication. Because George is at such loggerheads with his son, he makes no attempt to prepare him to become king, to do any of the things that you ought to do to the heir to the throne. And the result is that Edward really doesn't want to be king,

hence the abdication in 1936. If you listen to Dan Snow's history, we'll talk about George V being killed, or mercy killed, if that's a thing. Youth and age, more coming up. history. We'll talk about George V being killed or mercy killed if that's a thing. Euthanasia, more coming up. How can toilet training cows help save the planet? Should we start renting our clothes? And why on earth is beds from the Happy Mondays now keeping bees? I'm Jimmy Doherty, TV presenter, farmer and conservationist. And these are just a few of the questions we'll be

answering on my new podcast on Jimmy's Farm from History Hit. Join me on the farm to hear from the likes of the founder of the Eden Project, Sir Tim Smith, Professor Dieter Helm on how to stop climate change, and my old friend Jamie Oliver. Listen to On Jimmy's Farm now wherever you get your podcasts. your podcasts. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.

Jane, we're going off topic a bit here, but while I i've got you what is it about hereditary monarchy that leads this kind of collapse in relations between generations i mean is it just do we all fall out with our parents and our kids or is there something about a family firm the hanoverians couldn't be in the same room as their sons and you get that here as well victoria and albert couldn't stand edward like what's why do you get that here as well. Victoria and Albert couldn't stand Edward. Why do you get this toxicity injected in these parental relationships with their oldest children? That's a very good question. And George himself was actually well aware of the issue. And he had a conversation with one of his friends who said to him, why don't you get along with your children? I like

seeing my children. Why don't you speak to them? And George said, well, my father was terrified of his mother, Queen Victoria. I was terrified of my father, Edward VII, and I'm damned if my children aren't going to be terrified of me, especially the eldest son. But this was almost part of the sort of playbook of being a monarch. Somebody said the Hanoverians are like ducks, they trample on their young. And I think there's quite a lot of truth in that. So the only one who really emerges well from this story is Edward VII, who really went out of his way to be kind to his son, George. But of course, the effect of that was to make George even more terrified of him. So it's a no-win situation. Is there an issue, and I don't want to draw modern parallels here,

but is there an issue, something about the nature of the job, it distances you from, you can either be a monarch or a great parent, it seems like it's tricky to do both. I think the only example that I can think is George VI, who I think was a good monarch, much to everybody's surprise because his stutter, etc. But he was also, I think, an excellent father to the queen. Maybe there's something about gender there.

I mean, maybe father on son is harder to sort of control than father on daughter. I don't know. Henry VIII and Mary and Elizabeth isn't a great advert for... I don't know. Although Henry I and Matilda, there you go. That was a nice relationship, but we have to go back some. Okay, so...

Queen Victoria, we don't know because her father was dead when she was a few months old. Yes. Let's talk about his health. He smoked a lot, didn't he? George V smoked a lot. Yes, he did. He didn't smoke a huge amount when he was a young man,

but I think what really, as with so many people, caused him to become dependent on smoking was the First World War, all that stress. Well, Lloyd George stole his booze. Of course he smoked. Well, exactly. Yes, indeed. I mean, that's what got him through. And it's interesting, actually, that Edward VII, George V, and also George VI all die moderately early of smoking-related illnesses. So when was it clear that he was on his last legs? Well, he had a very serious illness in 1928 and everybody thought he was going to die.

And that was a really serious chest infection and abscess. But he recovered from that and it was only really obvious that he was on his last legs. Well, if you really mean, you know, literally going to die soon. He died on the 20th of January, 1936. And it was only obvious that he was critically ill at the beginning of January, New Year. Tell me about his doctor, his health care. What's going on there? Well, the chief royal doctor was a chap called Bertram Dawson, usually known as Lord Dawson, Lord Dawson

of Penn. And he got on quite well with the king at a sort of social level. George V was a very sort of direct speaker. And he liked a doctor who didn't beat around the bush and told him what was wrong and, you know, was sort of on the same wavelength. And Lord Dawson was like that. He understood the king. He wasn't a marvellous clinician. He wasn't a famous research doctor. He was a kind of social doctor, a doctor also who represented the medical profession, spoke up for the medical profession in the House of Lords, interested in public health, interested in the future of medicine, that sort of thing. Talk to me about the doctor-patient relationship in those last few days of his life.

Talk to me about the doctor-patient relationship in those last few days of his life. Well, here we are, it's January 1936, and the king is quite clearly on the way out. He's got heart failure issues. He's got this terrible cough. He can't walk. He's very ill indeed. So Lord Dawson is summoned to Sandringham. And it's interesting, actually, Lord Dawson seems to spend an awful lot of time alone with the king. You would expect

with a royal deathbed that there would be sort of huge amounts of doctors in attendance. But there is quite a lot of time when Lord Dawson is on his own. Now, we don't exactly know what happened before George's death. We know that Lord Dawson had a conversation with Edward, Prince of Wales, and a conversation with Queen Mary. And in both these conversations, particularly, I think, with Queen Mary, it was made clear that the Queen said, you know, she didn't want the King to have an undignified death. But really, no more than that. That's not very plain, is it, what she meant by that. Anyway, on the night of his death, Lord Dawson goes into the king's bedroom at about 11 o'clock. And there's a nurse there called Nurse Black, who was always the king's nurse.

And he asks the nurse to give the king two injections. And one injection was a lethal injection of morphia. And the other was a lethal injection of morphia, and the other was a lethal injection of cocaine. And the nurse who knew that these injections were very significant refused to do it. So Dawson himself gets out his syringe and gives these two injections to the king in his jugular vein in the throat. his jugular vein in the throat. And really, within a very short period of time, the king becomes completely peaceful, you know, sleeping, calm, and unconscious. And he dies at five minutes to 12 that night. That was normal at the time? Illegal? What's the sort of context for this action? I think it wasn't normal. But I think it probably wasn't illegal. I think this was an area

which at that time in the 1930s, there wasn't the whole sort of legal protocol around it that there is today. There wasn't doctors being frightened of being sued by their families of their dying patients. So it was a matter more of practice rather than law. But nevertheless, I think a lot of doctors, if they'd known what had happened at that time, would have been very surprised indeed. The way we think about these drugs today, I think, is kind of very much by our own experience and looking at society around us. Was cocaine and morphine, were they readily available? Would this be something that would only be available to the royal doctor? Were they even thought of as recreational drugs? What

about them? My sense would be that these were drugs that were in doctors' Blaston bags. These were commonly used, as Morpheus still is today, for pain relief. Of course, you know, I suppose on the question of recreational drugs, 1920s, 1930s, drugs like cocaine were in common use. But it would have been different, I think, very different from the way in which they were used medically. Why did Dawson do that? Was it just to spare the king? Dawson did that partly to spare the king. He knew that if he didn't intervene, the king would go through a distressingly long period in which he might suffer some pain. But what's interesting is that the king was not in pain when this injection was given.

So that wasn't Dawson's motive. It wasn't a sort of mercy killing. What Dawson was thinking was about the presentation of the king's death. If the death took place before midnight, it would be in time to be reported in the London Times the next morning. If it was later than midnight, the Times wouldn't have time to print the headline news of the King's death. So the Times is ready and waiting. You know, it was a huge edition of the Times on the day that the King died with lots of pre-recorded, pre-written obituaries and sort of appreciations of the King. And so Dawson is in contact with his wife and gives her a signal. She must ring up the editor of the Times and tell them to hold the presses until 12 midnight, which she does.

And so the next morning, the death appears on the breakfast tables of, well, really the middle classes. And that was very important in Dawson's view. How do we know this? Did Dawson tell people? We know this because Dawson wrote a detailed account, detailed notebook, explaining what he'd done over that period of the king's death. Did everything become public? Did he show any awareness of what he'd done? This all emerged in an article published in History Today, written by Dawson's biographer, in which he gives a very, very detailed account. It's called Francis Watson, the biographer, and Dawson gives a very detailed account of the events that took place on that night. And it was extraordinary, actually. The

whole sort of scenario seems extraordinary, sort of dramatic in a sense. Dawson was a kind of almost an impresario of a doctor. He loved having dramatic moments. Dawson injected the king at 11 o'clock. At 11.15, we know, the Archbishop of Canterbury and some of the family came into the king's bedroom for his final prayers. So that gives that incredibly short window. It's like an Agatha Christie murder or something, isn't it? Between 11 o'clock and 11.15, the fatal injection. Well, you went there. Was it a murder? Was King George V murdered? Well, I think you think that he was murdered. Well, I don't know, actually, because I'm not

familiar with the statutes or etc. of the time. But I mean, it's tempting to say he was. Yes, exactly. I think it's a question of what was okay then in the 1930s, and what is okay now. And I think it's different. I think that today, there are sort of two factors. One is that there is absolutely no evidence that King George told Dawson or anyone indeed that he wanted to be let out of his agony if he was dying. There's no evidence that he ever had that conversation with anybody. And I think the second point is that it's very clear that although he was very ill, George, he wasn't actually in pain. So the two things that might have justified what Dawson did, one, that he was putting the king out

of his agony, or two, that he was obeying a sort of end of life will that the king had made, those things were not there, did not exist. Fascinating stuff. When the news came out, did it cause a stir? Did it change debates around euthanasia? Did it upset people? I don't know in 1986 what effect it had. So the Queen has never gone on the record saying, oh poor old grandpa, he got knocked off. Not that I know. No, no, no. I'm going to add that to my massive list of questions for when the Queen and I one day have a brutally honest conversation about our life. But it's interesting, really, if you look, just how very few English kings have been murdered. Poor old Henry VI, but yeah.

Yes, but having been deposed and put in the Tower, and also Richard II the same, perhaps the only one who's been actually possibly murdered is William II. Well, I was going to say, by his brother. I mean, you know, possibly, possibly. I don't want to get sued here. Obviously, at this distance of time, we can't really prove a thousand years ago. Exactly. I don't want to ruffle any feathers here. This is hot topic stuff, Jane. I mean, you know, accusing Henry I of murder. Thank you very much, Jane. What's the book on George V called?

It is called George V, Never a Dull Moment. Thank you very much indeed for coming on, Jane. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. It was very nice to meet you. Thanks.

I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thanks, folks, for songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished.

Thanks, folks, for listening to this episode. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. With Dan Snow's history, as I say all the time i love doing these podcasts they are the best thing

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