21 Facts About George VI

1. George VI held a long torch for Loughborough, but there was a hitch: she was already married.

2. George VI decided Edward had forfeited all rights to royal titles, including "Royal Highness", by forfeiting the crown.

3. George VI proposed to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon three times before she said yes.

4. George VI was king of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1936 to 1952.

5. George VI was posthumously awarded the Ordre de la Liberation by the French government in 1960, one of only two people to be awarded the medal after 1946.

6. George VI bestowed the George Cross on the entire "island fortress of Malta" in 1943.

7. George VI became king at a point when public faith in the monarchy was at a low ebb.

8. George VI wrote to his brother Edward that in the aftermath of the abdication he had reluctantly assumed "a rocking throne" and tried "to make it steady again".

9. George VI was interred initially in the Royal Vault until he was transferred to the King George VI Memorial Chapel inside St George's on 26 March 1969.

10. George VI had died from a coronary thrombosis in his sleep at the age of 56.

11. In January 1946, George VI addressed the United Nations at their first assembly, which was held in London, and reaffirmed "our faith in the equal rights of men and women and of nations great and small".

12. George VI developed an interest in working conditions, and was President of the Industrial Welfare Society.

13. George VI represented his father, and toured coal mines, factories, and railyards.

14. George VI was the first member of the British royal family to be certified as a fully qualified pilot.

15. George VI completed a fortnight's training and took command of a squadron on the Cadet Wing.

16. George VI was mentioned in despatches for his action as a turret officer aboard Collingwood in the Battle of Jutland, an indecisive engagement with the German navy that was the largest naval action of the war.

17. George VI suffered from chronic stomach problems as well as knock knees, for which he was forced to wear painful corrective splints.

18. George VI had a stammer that lasted for many years.

19. George VI was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria.

20. George VI adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth.

21. George VI attended naval college as a teenager, and served in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force during the First World War.