THE death of King George VI at Sandringham on February 6, 1952, marked the beginning of one of the biggest stories ever covered by the Glasgow Herald in its 240 years.
It was about more than the passing of a 56-year-old king who had endured his share of íll-health. It was also about the accession of his daughter who would, in the paper's own words that February, "bear alone the full responsibility of a British sovereign". Here are extracts from three key Herald editorials, the first two in the wake of the King's death, and the third from June of the following year, when his daughter, Elizabeth, was crowned at Westminster Abbey in a gilded ceremony watched by an estimated 277 million worldwide on television.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1952
SERVANT OF HIS PEOPLE
KING GEORGE VI is dead. Britain and the Commonwealth have lost a wise ruler, a good man, and a devoted servant of the people. The task of kingship in the modern State can never be either easy or enviable. It has few privileges but unending responsibilities which must tax the strength and spirit of even the strongest and most resilient.
The health of King George was never vigorous, the circumstances of his accession in 1936 [his brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in order to marry the divorcee, Wallis Simpson] must have been both painful and repugnant, and some of the prestige that the monarchy had enjoyed under King George V had been dissipated.
It was a hard destiny [for George VI] and one to be accepted only by a man whose sense of duty overcame all personal considerations. And if the Queen [Mother] with her singular charm and radiance nobly sustained the King in his new duties and responsibilities and helped with the princesses to restore to the monarchy the tradition of happy family life, the King's part in that work of rehabilitation was the triumph of his own character over real difficulties.
... But the last three years have passed under the cloud of ill-health brought on by the excessive strain of public duties willingly performed but at a price too high for a not-robust constitution ... At home, in the Dominions, and in the Colonies the death of the King comes with a sense of personal loss, heightened, if that were possible, by the remarkable recovery from his operation last autumn [George, a heavy smoker, underwent a left total pneumonectomy in September 1951] which encouraged the hope that the King's reign would be prolonged even if his activities were restricted. He created by an enduring act of dedication a sense of community with his peoples which has restored and confirmed the monarchy as an institution and made it secured and honoured for his successor.
... And on the new Queen
LONG LIVE THE QUEEN
THERE will be the deepest sympathy for the new Queen that the news of her father's death should come with such tragic suddenness. It fits indeed the tenor of her life over the past three years that this saddening event comes upon her at the opening of another round of public duty. For, as a direct consequence of the late King's health, Elizabeth found herself called upon to assume many of his royal burdens. This she did in a manner to evoke the greatest admiration - with dignity, graciousness, and calm acceptance of an onerous task.
... She emerged into public life at a time of grave national crisis; she takes the crown when our political inheritance stands in the greatest danger. The tension of the age, the struggle to maintain the bases of national existence, the flowering of British democracy, the dramatic development of the Commonwealth overseas - all combine to bring the monarchy ever closer to the people, causing it to be seen as a standard and an example, the centre of a political faith and a cultural outlook.
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... In Washington and Paris her presence was accepted as evidence of the ties now linking the whole free world of the West. At home her name recalls the traditions of the Elizabethan age: a time of national expansion, of defending the realm against a foe of overwhelming power, above all a time of adventure. That was a glorious page in our history. May the reign of Queen Elizabeth be equally glorious.
TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1953: The day of the Coronation
QUEEN OVER THE PEOPLES
TO-DAY throughout the free world, in all those countries where the concept of man's dignity and individual liberty is still cherished as an inalienable right and privilege, all thoughts will be turned to the setting of traditional pomp and symbolism at Westminster Abbey, amid which the young Queen of the British Commonwealth will be crowned.
The event is more than just formality. It goes beyond the pattern of human circumstance, beyond the detail of earthly government, to those sources of emotional and spiritual significance which are the true bond of society and the fruit of a nation's history.
Outside the abbey the vast crowds will wait, drawn to the processional route by the lure of spectacle and a sense of the occasion's import, the followers of ancestors whose acclamations over the centuries have demonstrated the mystic grip of monarchy and the loyalty to established institution that have been the enduring links in a people's chain of memories.
Within the walls, enshrined in time, will be the Queen herself, seen for a brief moment as more than a young woman, the first lady in the land, seen as the personification of a way of life and the temporal guardian of things almost intangible, surrounded by the estates of her realm, witnesses to the act of Coronation and the formal beginning of another reign.
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Then will men think of the event's greater meaning: of Britain and the Commonwealth and the Empire; of that process of development from whose trials and crises, the forge of history, have sprung at home our modern democracy and overseas a unique association of States, all sovereign and master of their destiny, some bound by ties of race and kinship, some members by virtue of political partnership; of those growing communities for whose wellbeing and future we hold chief responsibility; of the dangers and perils that beset the whole on the threshold of the atomic age; and, above all, of the common peoples in all lands who can see in the crowning of Elizabeth II evidence of stability when all seems in flux, the power of tradition and inheritance when old world and new are groping to fresh forms of understanding, and the example of personal service and family strength when old conventions everywhere are under attack.
The words of Her Majesty will be in our minds, words of duty and sacrifice: "I shall dedicate myself anew to your service". In them is implicit the link between Crown and people which, if age-old, in this century takes on a deeper significance.
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The monarchy has moved outside the orbit of active political power, but in doing so has come closer to the subject.
In restraint it has acquired flexibility and wider prestige, a dominance of title and unity, freely accepted in the Commonwealth, founded on respect and attention, satisfying human needs.
"Yet, even with the aid of these bulwarks, the Queen in her youth bears a heavy burden and responsibility. At this momentous hour she will take the crown of St Edward with the support and admiration of her subjects. "And all the people rejoiced ..." God save the Queen!
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