A Brief History of the House of Windsor by Michael Paterson Page B

his unfamiliarity with protocol, but he found the king not only anxious to put him at ease but pleased to have his service and willing to help him. (‘He impressed me very much. He wishes to do the right thing,’ said George.) Labour cabinet ministers were suddenly being invited to Buckingham Palace or Windsor, and taking part in occasions at which, a generation earlier, people of their views or background would not have been seen. Some of their supporters derived a certain smug pleasure from seeing them now walking the corridors of power, while others were irritated at the sight of them, dressed – and behaving – like members of the upper classes. MacDonald himself was criticized by members of his party for wearing both Privy Council uniform and a tailcoat, as well as for appearing in photographs dressed in tweeds at the prime ministerial country house, Chequers, for all the world like an aristocrat.
    The General Strike of 4–13 May 1926 looms large in British social history. It was prompted by a proposal to reduce working men’s wages in keeping with a time of economicdownturn. Miners – traditionally the most militant of workers – led the walkout and caused fuel shortages throughout the country. Printers, transport workers and a host of others followed. Though much of the public sympathized with them, large sections of the middle class stepped in to take over their jobs – driving buses and delivery-vans – to keep the country running. Sailors were even brought into Fleet Street to operate the printing-presses and keep newspapers going. Though there was naturally animosity, and class antagonism, there was no real upheaval – no echo of revolution – as some had feared. A team of strikers even played football against their natural opponents, the police. When the Strike collapsed after nine days, George was able to record his pride in the moderation of all classes of his subjects: ‘Our old country can well be proud of itself. It shows what a wonderful people we are.’
    He himself could not always avoid becoming embroiled in constitutional issues. The onset of the Depression had sent shock-waves through the world, and in 1931 British banks were in imminent danger of collapse. The Labour government could find no viable solutions and its leader, MacDonald, together with his cabinet offered to resign. Informed opinion both inside and outside Parliament favoured Baldwin, perhaps leading a Conservative–Liberal alliance, as successor. King George, after meeting the party leaders, decided however to invite MacDonald to resume power at once as head of a ‘National Government’ assembled from three parties. MacDonald accepted, without consulting his supporters. Labour was split over the issue. MacDonald lost considerable popularity and the king was blamed for interference. The government was, however, to last until 1945, albeit under changing leadership.
    The empire over which the king presided reached its territorial zenith in the early 1930s, though its actual heyday had been in the jingoistic 1890s. It was becoming increasingly difficult, in spite of the common cause shown in the war, to keep it a united, or seemingly united, community. The Dominionswere now bent on following their own paths. ‘The British Empire has advanced to a new conception of autonomy and freedom, to the idea of a system of British nations, each freely ordering its own individual life, but bound together in unity by allegiance to one Crown and cooperating in all that concerns the common weal.’ Though it was not the king but his son Bertie who said these words, in a speech given in 1927, they sum up one of the most profound and significant changes during the reign of George V. In the same way that the Colonies would seek autonomy in the wake of the Second World War, so the Dominions were seeking to separate from dependency on the mother country in the wake of the First. These territories – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of