George V

The lasting reputation of George V is for dullness. However, throughout his reign, the monarch navigated a constitutional crisis, the First World War, the fall of thirteen European monarchies and the rise of Bolshevism. The suffragette Emily Davison threw herself under his horse at the Epsom Derby, he refused asylum to his cousin Tsar Nicholas Il and he facilitated the first Labour government.

How this supposedly limited man steered the Crown through so many perils is a gripping tale. With unprecedented access to the Royal Archives, Jane Ridley has reassessed the many myths associated with this dramatic period for the first time.