A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
IN his admirable article on King George VI in last week's Spectator John Gore suggested that it was too soon -to attempt to assess the King's place among modern British Sovereigns. No doubt he is wise in his caution. I am not wise, and in attempting some assessment for myself I have found myself carried very far back in history before coming on a King (King, not Sovereign) of whom it can be said with any assurance that heserved his country better than George VI, or as well. Who, in fact, is there ? Not, I think, his father. Both the Georges of the twentieth century had the same virtues, but George V was rougher-hewn, and he treated his family less wisely than his son has done; history since 1936 might have been different but for that. Not Edward VII, for many reasons. Certainly not William IV or any of the first four Georges. Certainly not William III, invaluably opportune though his accession was, nor any of the Stuarts. The first temptation to halt is at Henry VII, in spite of the genial qualities of Henry VIII. But kingship in England then was something so diffuent from kingship in Britain today that comparisons are hardly possible. Let me therefore simply sub- mit that in the last 400 years or longer no King in Britain has more flawlessly fulfilled the offices of kingship than the Sovereign who is about to make his last ceremonial progress from Westminster to Windsor. The only question is between him and George V. The son, I think, was more finely tuned.
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