On This Day: Coronation of King George VI five months after abdication crisis

MAY 12, 1937: King George VI was crowned on this day in 1937 – five months after becoming the monarch following the shock abdication of his brother Edward VIII.

The unexpected new monarch and his wife, Queen Elizabeth of Bowes-Lyon, were enthroned in a lavish ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London.

Two million Britons lined the streets to watch the procession from Buckingham Palace despite many others having lost their faith in the monarchy amid the crisis.

A British Pathé newsreel shows crowds cheering as a succession of presidents and prime ministers, including Britain’s Stanley Baldwin, were ferried by horse-drawn carriage to the Abbey.

Then members of the royal family, including a young Princess Elizabeth, the future monarch, leave Buckingham Palace.

Finally King George V, who had formerly been Prince Albert, Duke of York, and Queen Elizabeth, who later became the Queen Mother, left in a gold-crested carriage.

The glittering affair helped steady the nerves of a nation still shocked by the former king’s abdication just 326 days into his reign after sparking a constitutional crisis.

Effervescent Edward, whom Bertie replaced as the new monarch, quit the throne so that he could marry unpopular U.S. divorcee Wallis Simpson.

The Government threatened to resign if he married her, and could have dragged Edward into a general election and would ruin his status as a politically neutral, constitutional monarch.

Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin believed that, although the king was popular, people would not accept a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands as queen.

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Marrying Mrs Simpson would also have conflicted with Edward being head of the Church of England, which opposed the remarriages of divorced people with living former spouses.

Edward exiled himself in France and Bertie took over – but decided to rule as King George VI to emphasise continuity with his popular father.

With monarchy discredited (Labour MP George Hardie said the crisis did ‘more for republicanism than 50 years of propaganda’) the new sovereign tried to restore trust.

But, with war brewing, he had bigger problems ahead of him.

George VI, who continued to be called Bertie by his family, had to reassure the nation that it could stand up to German might and aggression.

Having battled his stammer with the help of both his wife and a speech therapist – as depicted in The King’s Speech movie – he gave the greatest radio address of any monarch.

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He also won back the people’s trust by insisting on staying in London despite ministers advising him to leave.

Indeed, Buckingham Palace was palace was bombed a total of seven times, with his loyal wife saying the damage allowed her to ‘look the East End in the face’.

After the war, George had to lead a Britain mired in austerity and with its empire in rapid terminal decline.

He weathered those trials too, but in the end they shortened his life.

The heavy smoker died aged 56 from a coronary thrombosis on February 7, 1952.

However, his wife, who became the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother after their eldest of two daughters ascended the throne, was one of the longest living royals.

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In the five decades after her husband’s death, the Queen Mum – as she was affectionately known – was one of the most popular members of the family.

She was well known for her headstrong nature and love of life – in particular gin and horseracing.

When she died aged 101 in 2002, a million people gathered outside Westminster Abbey and along the route of her funeral procession to Windsor.