Coronation of George V

June 22, 1911: The coronation of King George V of England takes place in Westminster Abbey. 
He along with the Queen Consort, Mary of Teck, were crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, as was custom, although the future Archbishop, Cosmo Gordon Lang, played a prominent role in the ceremonies.

There is much to be said of this ascension.

Mary, the Queen Consort, was born in Slavonia, in present day Croatia. This part of the Balkans, would  be a key player in the coming years, leading to the beginning of the Great War. She was at first betrothed to George's brother, Prince Albert Victor, who died during the great influenza pandemic of 1889–92. Prince George and Victoria Mary, later Mary, would marry in the following year. She would be known to her family as May.

Events of the coronation:

All accounts of the day suggest that it was a regal yet restrained occasion. The London Times reported on the day as follows:

The great day of the Coronation is over. King George V and his Consort, Queen Mary, have been crowned in Westminster Abbey. The impressive service, of which so little has been changed for centuries, and of which a part goes back to the days of the Kings of Israel, has been sung and said with all the state and ceremony to which the last two Coronations had accustomed the people of this century, and without the wasteful extravagance by which George IV thought to purchase the loyalty of an indifferent nation.

There is much to be said in that brief paragraph. This was only the second coronation in England since 1838. Many contemporary reports were from the reverent and respectful, as in many American periodicals, such as the New York Times, to irreverent, as in the case of French newspapers (crown too big for George).


How his father Edward VII influenced his feelings towards Germany, leads to conjecture, but there was much family infighting. His first cousin, the Emperor of Germany, the Kaiser Wilhelm II, was the son of his father's sister, Princess Victoria. His other first cousin, the Tsar Nicholas II, shared the same maternal grandmother with George, Louise of Hessel-Kassel ( Luise Wilhelmine Friederike Caroline Auguste Julie von Hessen-Kassel). Nicholas and Wilhelm were not first cousins.

George was the second monarch  of England to ascend from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The house was later to be renamed the house of Windsor after the start of the war. The lineage is from his grandfather Prince Albert. Prince Albert and Queen Victoria were first cousins. She was from the house of Hanover.What happened to the Tudors and the Stuarts that the there were no Anglo-Saxon houses?

Edward VII can no longer intimidate his nephew, the Kaiser from the grave. A cousin he barely knows, rules the world's greatest empire at the time. The question in the coming years is: where do the loyalties and political influences of a monarchy lie? George V had threatened Parliament before his ascension that he would create hundreds of new Liberal peers to neutralize the Conservative majority in the Lords.

This day, one hundred years ago, were heard the tumultuous shouts of "God Save King George! Long Live King George!"