The King With 'Peter Pan Syndrome' Who Nearly Doomed Britain скачать в хорошем качестве

The King With 'Peter Pan Syndrome' Who Nearly Doomed Britain

There was such a contrast in character between Bertie and Edward. One grew up—and the other one didn't.Their father knew. King George V, that gruff and demanding patriarch of the House of Windsor, possessed an almost terrifying ability to see his sons for exactly what they were. Edward, the golden Prince of Wales, charmed crowds across the British Empire with his boyish smile and casual elegance. The newspapers couldn't get enough of him. Society women swooned. He was the most photographed man in the world, the heir to the greatest throne on earth, the very definition of royal promise.And behind closed doors at Buckingham Palace, his father was watching the clock on a disaster."After I am dead," George V stated bluntly, "the boy will ruin himself in twelve months."Not might ruin himself. Will. The father knew his son with a clarity that can only come from decades of watching willful immaturity calcify into permanent character. He watched Edward shirk duties. He watched him chase married women with barely any attempt at discretion. He watched him treat the protocols that held the monarchy together with something approaching contempt. And so George V did something extraordinary for a reigning monarch—he prayed that the succession would skip his eldest son entirely. He specifically prayed that "nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne."