Monarchs from the United Kingdom

"The Old Country must wake up if she intends to maintain her old position of pre-eminence in her Colonial trade against foreign competitors."

"Prince Henry of Prussia came to see me on Sunday July 26 [1914] at 9.30 a.m. and asked me if there was any news. I said the news was very bad & it looked like a European war & that he better go back to Germany at once. He said he would go down to Eastbourne to see his sister (Queen of Greece) & he would return to Germany that evening. He then asked what England would do if there was a European war. I said "I don't know what we shall do, we have no quarrel with anyone & I hope we shall remain neutral. But if Germany declared war on Russia, & France joins Russia, then I am afraid we shall be dragged into it. But you can be sure that I & my Government will do all we can to prevent a European war!" He then said—"Well, if our two countries shall be fighting on opposite sides, I trust that it will not affect our own personal friendship". He then shook hands & left the room, having been with me about eight minutes."

"Tuesday August 4th. I held a Council at 10.45. to declare war with Germany. It is a terrible catastrophe, but it is not our fault. An enormous crowd collected outside the Palace; we went on the balcony both before & after dinner. When they heard that war had been declared, the excitement increased & May & I with David went on to the balcony; the cheering was terrific. Please God it may soon be over & that he will protect dear Bertie's life."

"At this grave moment of our national history I send to you, and through you to the officers and men of the Fleets of which you have assumed command, the assurance of my confidence that, under your direction, they will revive and renew the old glories of the Royal Navy and prove once again the sure shield of Britain and of her Empire in the hour of trial."

"Yesterday morning, four large German cruisers, it being foggy, appeared off the east coast of Yorkshire about 8.0 o'clock, & shelled Hartlepool & Scarborough for 40 minutes, doing considerable damage, killing about 40 women, children & civilians and maiming & wounding about 400. This is German kultur."

"I may be uninspiring but I'll be d——d if I'm alien."

"It has always been my dream that the two English-speaking nations should some day be united in a great cause, and to-day my dream is realized. Together we are fighting for the greatest cause for which peoples could fight. The Anglo-Saxon race must save civilization."

"After a struggle longer and far more terrible than anyone could have foretold, the soil of Britain remains inviolate. Our Navy has everywhere held the seas, and wherever the enemy could be brought to battle it has renewed the glories of Drake and Nelson."

"These new soldiers, drawn from the civil population, have displayed a valour equal to that of their ancestors, who have carried the flag of Britain to victory in so many lands in bygone times... Not less prompt was the response, not less admirable the devotion to the common cause, of those splendid troops which eagerly hastened to us from the Dominions overseas, men who showed themselves more than ever to be bone of our bone, inheriting all the courage and tenacity that have made Britain great. A hundred battlefields in all parts of the world have witnessed their heroism, have been soaked with their blood, and are for ever hallowed by their graves."

"I shall ever remember how the Princes of India rallied to the cause, and with what ardour her soldiers sustained in many theatres of war, and under conditions the most diverse and exacting, the martial traditions of their race. Neither can I forget how the men from the Crown Colonies and Protectorates of Great Britain, also fighting amid novel and perilous scenes, exhibited a constancy and devotion second to none."

"In all these ways, and through all these years, there has been made manifest the unconquered and unconquerable spirit of our race, nourished on the glorious traditions of many centuries of freedom. This spirit, conscious of its strength, bore the trials and disappointments of these years with a fortitude that was never shaken and a confidence that never failed. It knew its motives to be pure, and it held fast to its faith that Divine Providence would not suffer injustice and oppression to prevail."

"We have to create a better Britain, to bestow more care on the health and well-being of the people, and to ameliorate further the conditions of labour."

"In these years Britain and her traditions have come to mean more to us than they had ever meant before. It became a privilege to serve her in whatever way we could; and we were all drawn by the sacredness of the cause into a comradeship which fired our zeal and nerved our efforts. This is the spirit we must try to preserve. It is on a sense of brotherhood and mutual good will, on a common devotion to the common interests of the nation as a whole, that its future prosperity and strength must be built up. The sacrifices made, the sufferings endured, the memory of the heroes who have died that Britain may live, ought surely to ennoble our thoughts and attune our hearts to a higher sense of individual and national duty, and to a fuller realisation of what the English-speaking race, dwelling upon the shores of all the oceans, may yet accomplish for mankind."

"For centuries past Britain has led the world along the path of ordered freedom. Leadership may still be hers among the peoples who are seeking to follow that path. God grant to their efforts such wisdom and perseverance as shall ensure stability for the days to come! May good will and concord at home strengthen our influence for concord abroad. May the morning star of peace which is now rising over a war-worn world be here and everywhere the herald of a better day, in which the storms of strife shall have died down and the rays of an enduring peace be shed upon all the nations."

"I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment, and good will... May this historic gathering be the prelude of a day in which the Irish people, North and South, under one Parliament or two, as those Parliaments may themselves decide, shall work together in common love for Ireland upon the sure foundation of mutual justice and respect."

"I said to your predecessor: 'You know what they're all saying, no more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris.' The fellow didn't even laugh."

"After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months."

"How's the Empire?"

"After you've met one hundred and fifty Lord Mayors, they all begin to look the same."

"I look upon him as the greatest criminal known for having plunged the world into war."

"You dress like a cad. You act like a cad. You are a cad."

"I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien."

"But, remember, I wish to have the best collection, not just one of the best collections in England."

"You can't shake hands with a clenched fist."

"Always go to the bathroom when you have a chance."

"Golf always makes me so damned angry."

"My father was frightened of his mother. I was frightened of my father and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me."

"What did you do about peeing?"

"It's the shortest one I know."

"They make me look like a stuffed monkey."

"I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne."

"Bugger Bognor."

"Goddamn you!"

"There can be no question that one outstanding reason for the high level of loyalty and patriotic effort which the people of this country maintained [during the First World War] was the attitude and conduct of King George V."

"For seventeen years, he did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps."

"The King feels so strongly that, no matter the crime committed by anyone on whom the VC has been conferred, the decoration should not be forfeited. Even were a VC to be sentenced to be hanged for murder, he should be allowed to wear his VC on the scaffold."

"A good Prince ought to make his passions subservient to the interest of his country, for all things are either good or bad for him as they regard his people; but Francis had been bred up with different sentiments from these, flattery the bane of all princes had poisoned his mind; he instead of regarding the affairs of his country, totally gave himself to pleasure, which was the reason all his military operations met with such frequent delays."

"The pride, the glory of Britain, and the direct end of its constitution, is political liberty."

"[Freedom of speech] is not only the natural privilege of liberty but also its support and preservation, every man therefore here is allowed to declare his sentiments openly, to speak or write whatever is not prohibited by the laws."

"Thus we have created the noblest constitution the human mind is capable of framing, where the executive power is in the prince, the legislative in the nobility and the representatives of the people, and the judicial in the people and in some cases in the nobility, to whom there lies a final appeal from all other courts of judicature, where every man's life, liberty, and possessions are secure, where one part of the legislative body checks the other by the privilege of rejecting, both checked by the executive, as that is again by the legislative; all parts moving, and however they may follow the particular interest of their body, yet all uniting at the last for the public good."

"We may therefore infer from this long reign that this people will never refuse anything to a sovereign who they know will be the defender of their liberties."

"[Charles I] had too high a notion of the regal power and thought that every opposition to it was rebellion."

"The unhappy party divisions must ever give an honest man a most unfavourable opinion of these times, when the honour and dignity, the safety and tranquility, of the nation, were continually neglected for the little interested views of party; but however this Convention with all its blemishes saved the nation from the iron rod of arbitrary power. Let that palliate all defects, and though the constitution was not so well established as it might have been at this time, though sufficient care was not taken to keep the advantages of our insular situation, nor effectual bars put to Continental influence, let us still remember we stand in debt for our liberty and religion to the success of 1688."

"[The military policy of Great Britain should be based on a navy] equal if not superior to those of all other powers together, which must preserve it from invasion."

"If vice and faction can be got the better of, this nation will again appear in her ancient lustre."

"Attempting with vigour to restore religion and virtue when I mount the throne, this great country will probably regain her ancient state of lustre."

"Let the day once come in which the banner of virtue, honour and liberty shall be displayed, that noble actions and generous sentiments shall lead to the royal favour, and prostitution of principle, venality and corruption meet their just reward, the honest citizen, the zealous patriot, will lift up their heads, all good men will unite in support of a government built on the firm foundations of liberty and virtue, and even the degenerate mercenary sons of slavery will suppress their thoughts, and worship outwardly the generous maxims of a prince, while they in secret detest his maxims and tremble at his virtues. Power, wealth, and honours still remain the favourite object, but let the royal fiat change, the road revive, the long untrodden path, and crowds of all denominations will soon frequent it, and a generous reformation will ensure.... The prince once possessed of the nation's confidence, the people's love, will be feared and respected abroad, adored at home by mixing private economy with public magnificence. He will silence every clamour, be able to apply proper remedies to the heavy taxes that oppress the people, and lay a sure foundation for diminishing the enormous debt that weights this country down and preys upon its vitals."

"Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain."

"I am happy enough to think I have the present the real love of my subjects, and lay it down for certain that if I do not show them that I will not permit Ministers to trample on me, that my subjects will in time come to esteem me unworthy of the Crown I wear."

"Nothing can astonish me more than that any one should accuse me of all people of loving foreign fashions, whom I owne rather incline too much to the John Bull, and am apt to despise what I am not accustom'd to."

"Though I have subjects who will suffer immensely [i.e. in Hanover] whenever this Kingdom withdraws its protection from thence, yet so superior is my love to this my native country over any private interest of my own that I cannot think help wishing that an end was put to that enormous expence by ordering our troops home."

"You can name me no Whig families that shall not have my Countenance; but where Tories come to me on Whig principles, let us take them."

"I do not pretend to any superior abilitys, but will give place to no one in meaning to preserve the freedom, happiness and glory of my dominions, and all their inhabitants, and to fulfill the duty to my God and my neighbour in the most extended sense. That I have erred is undoubted, otherwise I should not be human, but I flatter myself all unprejudiced persons will be convinced that whenever I have failed it has been from the head not the heart."

"The ministry continued and consequently the war, alliances, and home affairs bore the same face; the only difference of conduct I adopted was to put an end to those unhappy distinctions of party called Whigs and Tories, by declaring that I would countenance every man that supported my Administration and concurred in that form of government which had been so wisely established by the Revolution."

"[U]pon pain of the highest displeasure, to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed."

"By God, Harrison, I will see you righted!"

"I am glad to find Mr. Montague's motion has been rejected, as it will keep many worthy men in good humour; besides, the abolition of the day would not be very delicate."

"As I understand the Petition of the Dissenters is to be presented to-morrow... I think you ought to oppose it personally through every stage, which will gain you the applause of the Established Church and every real friend of the Constitution. If you should be beat, it will be in doing your duty, and the House of Lords will prevent any evil; indeed it is the duty of Ministers as much as possible to prevent any alterations in so essential a part of the Constitution as everything that relates to religion, and there is no shadow for this Petition, as the Crown regularly grants a noli prosequi if any over-nice Justice of Peace encourages prosecutions."

"I have seen Lieutenant-General Gage, who came to express his readiness, though so lately come from America, to return at a day's notice, if the conduct of the Colonies should induce the directing coercive measures. His language was very consonant to his character of an honest determined man. He says they will be lyons, whilst we are lambs; but, if we take the resolute part, they will undoubtedly prove very meek."

"[A]ll men seem now to feel that the fatal compliance in 1766 has encouraged the Americans annually to encrease in their pretensions to that thorough independency which one state has of another, but which is quite subversive of the obedience which a colony owes to its mother country."

"The letter from the Quakers of Pensilvania to some of [the] chiefs of that persuasion in London shews they retain that coolness which is a very strong characteristick of that body of people; but I was in hopes it would have contained some declaration of their submission to the mother-country; whilst by the whole tenour they seem to wish for England giving in some degree way to the opinions of North America; the dye [sic] is now cast, the Colonies must either submit or triumph. I do not wish to come to severer measures, but we must not retreat; by coolness and an unremitted pursuit of the measures that have been adopted I trust they will come to submit; I have no objection afterwards to their seeing that there is no inclination for the present to lay fresh taxes on them, but I am clear there must always be one tax to keep up the right, and as such I approve of the Tea Duty."

"I am not sorry that the line of conduct seems now chalked out, which the enclosed dispatches thoroughly justify; the New England Governments are in a state of rebellion, blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent."

"[W]here violence is with resolution repelled it commonly yields, and I owne, though a thorough friend to holding out the olive-branch, I have not the smallest doubt that, if it does not succeed, that when once vigorous measures appear to be the only means left of bringing the Americans to a due submission to the mother country, that the Colonies will submit."

"I am clear as to one point, that we must persist and not be dismayed by any difficulties that may arise on either side of the Atlantick. I know I am doing my duty, and therefore can never wish to retract. The resolution proposed by the House of Commons is the utmost that can be come into; and, if people will have patience, this must in the end be obtained."

"Major-Gen. Haldimand is arrived, and seems thoroughly acquainted with the sentiments of the Americans. I desire you will, if possible, see him. He says nothing but force can bring them to reason, and ownes that, till they have suffered for their conduct, that it would be dangerous to give ear to any propositions they might transmit; but, if I am rightly informed, they do not seem inclined to put on even the appearance of wishing in the least to recede from doctrines, that it would be better totally to abandon them than to admit a single shaddow [sic] of them to be admitted."

"Whereas many of our subjects...in North-America, misled by dangerous and ill-designing men, and forgetting the allegiance which they owe to the power that has protected and sustained them... have at length proceeded to an open and avowed Rebellion... we do accordingly strictly charge and command all our officers, as well as civil and military, and all other our obedient and loyal subjects, to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such Rebellion, and to disclose and make known all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which they shall know to be against us, our Crown and dignity."

"If the Opposition is powerfull next session it will much surprize me, for I am fighting the battle of the legislature, therefore have a right to expect an almost unanimous support. If there should arise difficulties they will not dismay me, for I know the uprightness of my intentions, and therefore am ready to stand every attack of ever so dangerous a kind with the firmness that honesty and an attachment to the constitution will support."

"When the unhappy and deluded multitude, against whom this force will be directed, shall become sensible of their error, I shall be ready to receive the misled with tenderness and mercy!"

"[W]hen such acts of vigour are shewn by the Rebellious Americans, we must shew that the English Lion when rouzed has not only his wonted resolution but has added the swiftness of the Race Horse."

"Perhaps the time may come when it will be wise to abandon all North America but Canada, Nova Scotia, and the Floridas, but then the generality of the nation must see it first in that light, but to treat with Independence can never be possible... A sea war is the only wise plan."

"[E]very letter from France adds to the appearance of a speedy declaration of war; should that event happen, it might perhaps be wise to strengthen the forces in Canada, the Floridas, and Nova Scotia; withdraw the rest from North America, and without loss of time employ them in attacking New Orleans, and the French and Spanish West India possessions. Success in those parts would repay us the great expences incurred: we must at the same time continue destroying the trade and ports of the rebellious colonies, and thus soon bring both contests to a conclusion."

"[S]hould a French war be our fate, I trust you will concurr with me in the only means of making it successful, the withdrawing the greatest part of them [the troops] from America, and employing them against the French and Spanish settlements; but if we are to be carrying on a land-war against the rebels and against those two powers, it must be feeble in all parts and consequently unsuccessful."

"[N]o consideration in life shall make me stoop to Opposition. I am still ready to accept any part of them that will come to the assistance of my present efficient Ministers; but whilst any ten men in the kingdom will stand by me, I will not give myself up into bondage. My dear Lord, I will rather risk my crown than do what I think personally disgraceful; and whilst I have no wish but for the good and prosperity of my country, it is impossible that the nation shall not stand by me; if they will not, they shall have another king, for I will never put my hand to what would make me miserable to the last hour of my life."

"It has been a certain position with me that firmness is the characteristick of an Englishman, that consequently when a Minister will shew a resolution boldly to advance that he will meet with support... the times require vigour, or the state will be ruined."

"I should think it the greatest instance among the many I have met with of ingratitude and injustice, if it could be supposed that any man in my dominions more ardently desired the restoration of peace and solid happiness in every part of this empire than I do; there is no personal sacrifice I could not readily yield for so desirable an object; but at the same time no inclination to get out of the present difficulties, which certainly keep my mind very far from a state of ease, can incline me to enter into what I look upon as the destruction of the empire. I have heard Lord North frequently drop that the advantages to be gained by this contest could never repay the expence; I owne that, let any war be ever so successful, if persons will sit down and weigh the expences, they will find, as in the last, that it has impoverished the state, enriched individuals, and perhaps raised the name only of the conquerors; but this is only weighing such events in the scale of a tradesman behind his counter; it is necessary for those in the station it has pleased Divine Providence to place me to weigh whether expences, though very great, are not sometimes necessary to prevent what might be more ruinous to a country than the loss of money."

"The present contest with America I cannot help seeing as the most serious in which any country was ever engaged: it contains such a train of consequences that they must be examined to feel its real weight. Whether the laying a tax was deserving all the evils that have arisen from it, I should suppose no man could alledge [sic] that without being thought more fit for Bedlam than a seat in the Senate; but step by step the demands of America have risen: independence is their object; that certainly is one which every man not willing to sacrifice every object to a momentary and inglorious peace must concurr with me in thinking that this country can never submit to: should America succeed in that, the West Indies must follow them, not independence, but must for its own interest be dependent on North America. Ireland would soon follow the same plan and be a separate state; then this island would be reduced to itself, and soon would be a poor island indeed, for, reduced in her trade, merchants would retire with their wealth to climates more to their advantage, and shoals of manufacturers would leave this country for the new empire. These self-evident consequences are not worse than what can arise should the Almighty permit every event to turn out to our disadvantage; consequently this country has but one sensible, one great line to follow, the being ever ready to make peace when to be obtained without submitting to terms that in their consequence must annihilate this empire, and with firmness to make every effort to deserve success."

"It is highly necessary for every rational being never to lose sight of the certainty that every thought as well as action is known to the All-wise Disposer of the Universe; and that no solid comfort ever in this world can exist without a firm reliance on His protection, and on His power to shield from us misfortunes: but these reflections are still more necessary to be foremost in the minds of those at sea who naturally are exposed to perils peculiar to that element; therefore I strongly recommend the habitual reading of the Holy Scriptures and your more and more placing that reliance on the Divine Creator which is the only real means of obtaining that peace of mind that alone can fit a man for arduous undertakings."

"Though when at home a Prince, on board of the Prince George you are only a boy learning the naval profession; but the Prince so far accompanies you, that what other boys might do you must not; it must never be out of your thoughts that more obedience is necessary from you to your superiours in the Navy, more politeness to your equals, and more good nature to your inferiours, than from those who have not been told that these are essential for a gentleman."

"I own I expect great efforts from this force, and shall not be satisfied if persons count what number of ships are brought against us. It was the vigour of mind shown by Queen Elizabeth and her subjects, added to the assistance of Divine Providence, that saved this island when attacked by the Spaniards. It is necessary to be active on the present occasion, and to bring the enemy as soon as possible to decisive action."

"[I]t is by bold and manly efforts Nations have been preserved not pursueing alone the line of home defence."

"Our islands must be defended even at the risk of an invasion of this island. If we lose our Sugar Islands it will be impossible to raise money to continue the war and then no peace can be obtained but such a one as He that gave one to Europe in 1763 never can subscribe to."

"I trust Parliament will take such measures as the necessities of the time require. This tumult must be got the better of, or it will encourage designing men to use it as a precedent for assembling the people on other occasions; if possible, we must get to the bottom of it, and examples must be made. If anything occurrs to Lord North wherein I can give any farther assistance, I shall be ready to forward it, for my attachment is to the laws and security of my country, and to the protection of the lives and properties of all my subjects."

"I feel the justness of our cause; I put the greatest confidence in [the] valour of both navy and army, and, above all, in the assistance of Divine Providence. The moment is certainly anxious; the dye is now cast whether this shall [continue?] a great empire or the least dignified of the European States. The object is certainly worth struggling for, and I trust the nation is equally determined with myself to meet the conclusion with firmness."

"I shall only add that on one material point I shall ever coincide with Ld. G. Germain, that is, against a separation from America, and that I shall never lose an opportunity of declaring that no consideration shall ever make me in the smallest degree an instrument in a measure that I am confident would anihilate [sic] the rank in which this British empire stands among the European States, and would render my situation in this country below continuing an object to me."

"I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power."

"Whereas we cannot but observe, with inexpressible concern, the rapid progress of impiety and licentiousness, and that deluge of profaneness, immorality, and every kind of vice, which, to the scandal of our holy religion, and to the evil example of our loving subjects, hath broken in upon this nation: we, therefore, esteeming it our indispensable duty to exert the authority committed to us for the suppression of these spreading evils, fearing lest that they should provoke God's wrath and indignation against us, and humbly acknowledging that we cannot expect the blessing and goodness of Almighty God (by whom kings reign, and on which we entirely rely) to make our reign happy and prosperous to ourself and our people, without a religious observance of God's holy laws, to the intent that religion, piety, and good manners may (according to our most hearty desire) flourish and increase under our administration and government, have thought fit, by the advice of our Privy Council, to issue this our Royal Proclamation, and do hereby declare our royal purpose and resolution to discountenance and punish all manner of vice, profaneness, and immorality, in all persons of whatsoever degree or quality, within this our realm."

"I have signed the Messages to the two Houses of Parliament respecting the Province of Quebec, and shall be happy if the alterations proposed prove agreable to the different classes of subjects in that Province, but must ever think those who have the strongest claim on the attention of this country are the old inhabitants, whose rights and usages ought by no means to be disturbed."

"I am rejoiced at Mr. Secretary Dundas's information of the taking of the Island of Tobago, which I trust will at a proper time be followed by that of other valuable islands. Now is the hour to humble France, for nothing but her being disabled from disturbing other countries, whatever Government may be established there, will keep her quiet."

"[I]t seems highly necessary after the conduct of the King of Prussia and of the tame Dutch that a language becoming the character of this country should be held, namely, a language of resolution to prosecute a war that every type of religion, morality and society not only authorizes but demands. I am certain this cannot be done too forcibly... [I]t seems to me to be advisable to meet Opposition with firmness rather than leave them to make the attack."

"Unless the French are thoroughly reduced, no solid peace can be obtained, and no attempt ought to be encouraged of opening a negotiation, which even has the effect of destroying all energy in those who ought to look forward to the continuance of war."

"George: I hope I am not pledged to any thing further in favor of the Romanists? Henry Dundas: Your majesty is not absolutely pledged to any thing further; but certainly the Irish catholics do hope, from your majesty's goodness, for a further relaxation of the restraining laws yet in force; and your majesty's servants will think it right, humbly to recommend to your majesty liberal and indulgent attention to their united and dutiful petitions. George: But how can I grant these claims, consistently with my coronation-oath? Dundas: The coronation-oath was taken by your majesty in your executive, not your legislative capacity; and could only be meant to bind your majesty to act conformably to the laws actually subsisting, and so long only as they should continue to subsist; for the legislature, of which your majesty is an essential part, cannot by any act limit its own power. George (angrily): None of your Scotch metaphysics, Mr. Dundas!"

"We are here in daily expectation that Bonaparte will attempt his threatened invasion; the chances against his success seem so many that it is wonderful he persists in it. I own I place that thorough dependence on Divine Providence that I cannot help thinking the usurper is encouraged to make the trial that the ill-success may put an end to his wicked purposes. Should his troops effect a landing, I shall certainly put myself at the head of my troops and my other armed subjects to repel them."

"Little did I think that I should ever live to regret Mr. Fox's death."

"Nothing important happened today."

"At the period of Mr. Fox's return to power [in 1806], the King, then in full possession of his faculties, showed for several days considerable uneasiness of mind: a cloud seemed to overhang his spirits. On his return one day from London the cloud was evidently removed, and his Majesty, on entering the room where the Queen and Princess Augusta were, said, he had news to tell them. I have taken Mr. Fox for my minister, and on the whole am satisfied with the arrangement. When Mr. Fox came into the closet for the first time, his Majesty told them, he purposely made a short pause, and then said, Mr. Fox, I little thought you and I should ever meet again in this place. But I have no desire to look back upon old grievances: and you may rest assured I never shall remind you of them. Mr. Fox replied, My deeds, and not my words, shall commend me to your Majesty."

"Our images of King George III are distorted by the lenses of history. In particular, the fact that in his later years he suffered bouts of "madness" ensured that the retrospective view of this king would be anything but charitable. But during the period of Great Britain's imperial crisis with her North American colonies, George III was neither a tyrannical despot nor insane. Although it is easy in retrospect to point to some of the weaknesses in his character and intellect that made him far from the ideal British sovereign to deal with the American imperial crisis, these failings may not have been so obvious at the time."

"George was the third in a line of Hanoverian British kings, members of the royal family in Hanover, in what is today Germany. They had gained their right to rule in Britain by a complicated Act of Settlement following the death of Queen Anne, who had died childless. George's great-grandfather and grandfather were born in Germany, and both spoke English only haltingly. As a consequence, neither played an active role in the governance of England, letting British ministers such as Sir Robert Walpole and Thomas Pelham, the First Duke of Newcastle, do much of the day-to-day work of running the empire. George was the first Hanoverian king to be born in England, to speak English as his first language and, most important, to attempt to play an independent part in leading his empire rather than merely delegating all power to his ministers. He had been greatly influenced by Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke, and his 1749 work The Idea of a Patriot King. In that essay, Bolingbroke exalted the concept of a virtuous and impartial monarch capable of transcending the quarrels and intrigues that had marked the behavior of members of Parliament and the king's ministers. But George would not find it easy to turn Bolingbroke's theory into practice. And though George was by no means the dullard some of his critics made him out to be, neither was he the brightest candle in the chandelier, and his studious nature, which helped keep him informed about the issues facing his empire while he was monarch, was at times undermined by his lack of self-confidence and judgement."

"If there was any trait upon which George III's contemporaries most commented, it was his seriousness. George III's grandfather, George II, would reign from 1727 until his death in 1760. But George III's father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, the next in succession, died suddenly after a brief illness in 1751, when George was thirteen. And so from that young age onward, George knew that the responsibilities of serving as the King of England awaited him. With the death of his grandfather in 1760, the full weight of those responsibilities fell on the shoulders of the twenty-two-year-old grandson. Once he had ascended to the throne, however, he showed every indication of being fully prepared to serve in his new role. In addition to his seriousness of mind, we might add conscientiousness and commitment to our description of him, for George III, unlike his grandfather and his great-grandfather, was determined to be a responsible and active sovereign."

"[I]t will be our especial duty, as good subjects and good Englishmen, to reverence the crown, and yet guard against corrupt and servile influence from those who are intrusted with it's authority; to be loyal, yet free; obedient, and yet independent: and, above every thing, to hope that we may long, very long, continue to be governed by a sovereign, who, in all those public acts that have personally proceeded from himself, hath manifested the highest veneration for the free constitution of Britain; hath already in more than one instance remarkably strengthened it's outworks; and will therefore never harbour a thought, or adopt a persuasion, in any the remotest degree detrimental to public liberty."

"[A] Prince, who has, at once, displayed a most ardent and steady attachment to the Constitution, and exhibited a most exemplary pattern of Religious and moral excellence—a Prince whose piety, and whose virtues, combined with a manly firmness and consistency of character, have been for years the grand bulwark, not only of this country, but of the whole civilized world. If at such a time the British Throne had been deficient in any one of the qualities by which it has been so eminently distinguished, it is more than probable that every Religious and social establishment would, ere now, have been laid in the dust, and that an atheistical band of sanguinary anarchists, would, at this moment, have been triumphing upon the ruins of civil Society."

"The monarchy had little to fear from pseudo-Jacobins plotting a revolution on the French model. So long as it could command the confidence of the propertied classes it was in no danger. To do this it must conform to their ideals in politics and in morals. This King George understood well. The Crown must pay its way; it must be conservative, but not opposed to change when change was the will of the nation; and it must set an example of duty and religious observance. These precepts were forgotten during the reigns of the King's two successors when the prestige of the Crown reached its nadir... By reverting to the precepts of King George III Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort restored the prestige of the Crown. If we would wish to know what King George would have been like had he lived in the days of Peel and Palmerston, we have but to study the conduct of the Prince Consort. There is the same devotion to duty, frugality, concern for religion and morality, interest in the arts and science, which won for the Crown the confidence of the middle class. In ideals and precepts, though not in character, the Prince Consort might have been a reincarnation of the King. King George III was the first of the Victorians."

"His popularity is very great, for the mass of people look up to his good moral character, and to his age, and to a comparison with his sons."

"I have only to assure you, from accurate observation, that the personal popularity of the King is as great as it possibly can be; and if anything had been wanting to add to that popularity, the circumstance of his owing his present malady to his parental feelings for his daughter, has given the people a still greater veneration and affection for him than they had before."

"The fault of his constitution, he said, was a tendency to excessive fat, which he kept, however, in order, by the most vigorous exercise, and the strictest attention to a simple diet. When Mrs. Delany was beginning to praise his forbearance, he stopped her. "No, no," he cried, "’tis no virtue; I only prefer eating plain and little, to growing diseased and infirm.""

"George III alienated the people of his American colonies by his tyrannical behavior, provoking them to take up arms to win their independence. The first of the Hanoverian kings to be born in England, George III was generally slow-witted: he certainly exhibited extraordinarily bad judgment when it came to picking prime ministers."

"The temper of the new ruler was adverse. George III had very clear ideas of what he wanted and where he was going. He meant to be King, such a King as all his countrymen would follow and revere. Under the long Whig regime the House of Commons had become an irresponsible autocracy. Would not the liberties of the country be safer in the hands of a monarch, young, honourable, virtuous, and appearing thoroughly English, than a faction governing the land through a packed and corrupt House of Commons? Let him make an end of government by families, choose his own ministers and stand by them, and end once and for all the corruption of political life. But in such a monarchy what was the place for a man like Pitt, who owed nothing to corruption, nothing to the Crown, and everything to the people and to his personal domination of the House of Commons? So long as he was in power he would divide the kingdom with Caesar. He could not help it. His profound reverence for the person and office of George III could not conceal from either of them the fact that Pitt was a very great man and the King a very limited man."

"The personality of George III was now exercising a preponderant influence upon events. He was one of the most conscientious sovereigns who ever sat upon the English throne. Simple in his tastes and unpretentious in manner, he had the superficial appearance of a typical yeoman. But his mind was Hanoverian, with an infinite capacity for mastering main principles. He possessed great moral courage and an inveterate obstinacy, and his stubbornness lent weight to the stiffening attitude of his Government. His responsibility for the final breach is a high one."

"Not all the Opposition Members were so foolish or extreme, but in the King's mind all were traitors. George III grew stubborn and even more intent. He closed his ears to moderate counsel and refused to admit into his Government those men of both parties who, like many American Loyalists, foresaw and condemned the disasters into which his policy was tottering and were horrified at the civil war between the Mother Country and her colonies. Even Lord North was half-hearted, and only his loyalty to the King and his sincere old-fashioned belief, shared by many politicians of the day, that a Minister's duty was to carry out the personal wishes of the sovereign stopped him from resigning much sooner than he did. Though technically responsible as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had no grip on the conduct of affairs and allowed the King and the departmental Ministers to control the day-to-day work of government. George III tirelessly struggled to superintend the details of the war organisation, but he was incapable of co-ordinating the activities of his Ministers. These were of poor quality. The Admiralty was headed by Wilke's comrade in debauch, the Earl of Sandwich. His reputation has been mauled, but recent research has shown that at least the Fleet was in much better condition than the Army. Rarely has British strategy fallen into such a multitude of errors. Every maxim and principle of war was either violated or disregarded."

"The King is really prepared to take the field in case of attack, his beds are ready and he can move at half an hour's warning."

"At the end of 1783, George III was forty-five years old, and he had been twenty-three years on the throne. Corpulent, voluble, energetic, sharing many of the leading tastes of the time – a scientific farmer, a keen collector, a devotee of music – he was a model, in a dissolute age, of simple domestic virtue. His Court was remarkably free of scandal, he was faithful to his Queen, he had just had his fifteenth child, he preferred a modest life at Kew or Buckingham House to the splendours of a palace. The fashionable world found him rather ridiculous, and inexpressibly dull: his careful habits preserved a sanctum from the world to which duty called. For duty was the keynote of George III's existence; it sustained his every effort, it was the rock on which he built."

"At the time you succeeded the late Mr. Pitt, being in waiting on my late revered and beloved royal master, I one day repaired to Buckingham House for the usual morning ride. Soon after the King was on horseback he called me to come nearer to him, when he said, "I have not had any sleep this night, and am very bilious and unwell." I replied, "I hoped his ride would do him good." He then told me it was in consequence of Mr. Pitt's applying to him to consent to Catholic emancipation. On our arrival at Kew he ordered me to attend him to the library; and when there, asked me if I knew where to find his coronation oath. I said, "In Blackstone;" but I think I found it in Burnet's History of the Reformation. I was commanded to read it to him, which I did, and then followed quickly an exclamation, "Where is that power on earth to absolve me from the due observance of every sentence of that oath, particularly the one requiring me to 'maintain the Protestant reformed religion?' Was not my family seated on the throne for that express purpose? And shall I be the first to suffer it to be undermined, perhaps overturned? No; I had rather beg my bread from door to door throughout Europe than consent to any such measure." These words I am ready to attest if called upon, and am of opinion they ought to be written in letters of gold."

"In the perplexity of nations, the throne of the King of England was the only one unshaken, and its stability was the work of his virtue."

"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell, and George III may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."

"The United States, for example, has never had a President as bad as George III, but neither has Britain had a king as admirable as George Washington (of whom William Thackeray rightly said that 'his glory will descend to remotest ages' while the memory of the sovereign went the other way). However, George was not too bad. Still, even to concede this obvious argument is to make it plain that a bad monarch is at least as likely as a bad president even given the caprice of random selection by the hereditary principle... We find that the presidency has become too secretive, too powerful, too trammeled, too ceremonial, too impotent or too complicated, depending on the president under discussion or the critic making the analysis. On one thing all are agreed - there is a danger of an 'imperial' or 'monarchical' presidency. An incumbent in Washington knows he is in trouble on the day that cartoonists begin to represent him as a king."

"To us, the offspring of his reign, therefore, the death of an aged Monarch is as if the paternal roof had fallen in, and left our chambers desolate."

"Although simple in his manners and pursuits in private life, yet in his royal character he was partial to shew and pageantry. There were few sovereigns who knew better how to support the state of royalty, or who, when occasion required, could divest himself of it, and fall, as it were, into the rank of a private gentleman."

"For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, his majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the infranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative: thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American states, and to the rights of human nature deeply wounded by this infamous practice."

"he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers; is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

"We I hope shall be left free to avail ourselves of the advantages of neutrality: and yet much I fear the English, or rather their stupid king, will force us out of it. (...) Common sense dictates therefore that they should let us remain neuter: ergo they will not let us remain neuter. I never yet found any other general rule for foretelling what they will do, but that of examining what they ought not to do."

"Did the rapid expansion bring a rush of blood to the heads of the British elite? One can put it that way. Certainly, over the next two decades, the characteristic British values of caution, pragmatism, practical common sense and moderation seemed to desert the island race, or at any rate the men in power there. There was arrogance, and arrogance bred mistakes, and obstinacy meant they persisted in to the point of idiocy. The root of the trouble was George III, a young, self-confident, ignorant, opinionated, inflexible, and pertinacious man, determined to be an active king, not just in name, like his grandfather George II, but in reality. George II, however, was a sensible man, well aware of his considerable intellectual and constitutional limitations. He had employed great statesmen, when he could find them, like Sir Robert Walpole and William Pitt the Elder, who had helped make Britain the richest and most successful nation in the world. George III employed second-raters and creatures of his own making, more court-favorites or men whose sole merit was an ability to manage a corrupt House of Commons. From 1763 to 1782, by which time the American colonies had been lost, it would be hard to think of a more dismal succession of nonentities than the men who, as First Lords of the Treasury (Prime Minister), had charge of Britain's affairs—the Earl of Bute, George Grenville, the Marquis of Rockingham, the Duke of Grafton, and Lord North. And behind them, in key jobs, were other boobies like Charles Townshend and Lord George Germaine."

"Sir, they may talk of the King as they will; but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen."

"Sir, his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Lewis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second."

"My early familiarity with the person of George III might have abated something in my mind of the divinity which doth hedge a king; but it has left an impression of the homely kindness of his nature, which no subsequent knowledge of his despotic tendencies, his cherished political hatreds, and his obstinate prejudices as a sovereign, can make me lay aside. There was a magnanimity about the man in his forgetfulness of the petty offences of very humble people, who did not come across his will, although they might appear indiscreet or even dangerous in their supposed principles."

"The amusements which the satirist ridiculed, when he told of a monarch "Who rams, and ewes, and lambs, and bullocks fed," were pursuits congenial to the English taste, and not incompatible with the most diligent performance of public duty. The daubs of the caricaturist provoked no contempt for "Farmer George and his Wife." The sneers of the rhymester at "sharp and prudent economic kings,"—at the parsimony which prescribed that at the breaking up of a royal card party "the candles should be immediately blown out,"—fell harmless upon Windsor ears."

"George III had been twenty-two when, in 1760, he succeeded to the throne, and to a remarkable degree he remained a man of simple tastes and few pretensions. He liked plain food and drank but little, and wine only. Defying fashion, he refused to wear a wig. That the palace at St. James's had become a bit dowdy bothered him not at all. He rather liked it that way. Socially awkward at Court occasions—many found him disappointingly dull—he preferred puttering about his farms at Windsor dressed in farmer's clothes. And in notable contrast to much of fashionable society and the Court, where mistresses and infidelities were not only an accepted part of life, but often flaunted, the King remained steadfastly faithful to his very plain Queen, the German princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenberg-Streilitz, with whom he had now produced ten children. (Ultimately there would be fifteen.) Gossips claimed that Farmer George's chief pleasures were a leg of mutton and his plain little wife. But this was hardly fair, Nor was he the unattractive, dim-witted man critics claimed then and afterward. Tall and rather handsome, with clear blue eyes and a generally cheerful expression, George III had a genuine love of music and played both the violin and the piano. (His favorite composer was Handel, but he adored also the music of Bach and in 1764 had taken tremendous delight in hearing the boy Mozart perform on the organ.) He loved architecture and did quite beautiful architectural drawings of his own. With a good eye for art, he had begun early to assemble his own collection, which by now included works by the contemporary Italian painter Canaletto, as well as watercolors and drawings by such old masters such as Poussin and Raphael. He avidly collected books, to the point where he had assembled one of the finest libraries in the world. He adored clocks, ship models, took great interest in things practical, took great interest in astronomy, and founded the Royal Academy of Arts."

"The British populace at home was not united behind the war because some people doubted its wisdom and justness. One result of the antiwar sentiment was difficulty in recruiting troops, a difficulty aggravated by George III's reluctance to incur the huge expenses necessary to expand the army. To fill the ranks, England hired German soldiers, collectively known as Hessians, and sent almost 30,000 of them to America. But Hessians alone were insufficient, and England also enlisted slaves, mobilized Indians, and depended on Loyalist soldiers. England still suffered manpower shortages, and these expedients were also partially counterproductive. Hiring mercenaries, using slaves, inciting "savages" and fomenting a civil war within a civil war heightened colonial disaffection."

"The majority of men who took up arms during the "popular uprising" phase of the war in 1775-1776 were not fighting for independence, but for their rights as Englishmen within the Empire. Although a growing number believed independence inevitable, most maintained allegiance to George III, who, they assumed, was being misled by corrupt ministers conspiring to enslave the colonies. Congress insisted that the colonies were only protecting themselves form these conspirators, that reconciliation would occur as soon as the King restrained his advisers."

"Namier and his followers have little to say about the American revolutionists but devote themselves to scolding the English Whigs... By the same token the righteousness of the Americans is somewhat diminished through the loss of the principal villain in the contest. George III is no longer the foe of liberty, seeking to subvert the British constitution, but an earnest and responsible monarch, doing his job to the best of his abilities. And those abilities, we are told, while not of the highest order, were not small either. George, in fact, becomes a sympathetic figure, and one can scarcely escape the feeling that the Americans were rather beastly to have made things so hard for him."

"The king had shown himself to be stolid, courageous, and beneficent in 1786, when he was confronted with the knife-brandishing Margaret Nicholson. This incident left a potent and enduring picture of good King George entreating the crowd: "The poor creature is mad! Do not hurt her! She has not hurt me!" The king also provided his subjects with countless affecting images of a devoted patriarch; whenever he appeared in public he always seemed to have children in tow. Moreover, he allowed his subjects access to the royal family's domestic rituals: walks, gardening, visiting, swimming at Weymouth. Court functions became wholesome and family oriented... George increasingly became identified with the bumbling, well-meaning John Bull. The predominant attitude of the prints shifted from hostility to good-natured amusement."

"George III, with ten years' experience as king, would have been called a "good guy" if he had lived in the twentieth century. He was more popular in Britain and America than any English monarch since Charles II. Sincerely religious, temperate in food and drink, he had an impeccable private life; he never indulged in the clumsy frolics to which male members of the house of Hanover have been prone. He loved manly sports and country life, rode boldly to hounds and ran his own farm. George was very methodical and conscientious in support of his public business. But of the quality of statesmanship to which kings were supposed to be born, he had none. His object was to substitute national leadership for party government, to rescue the crown from the clutches of leading Whig families, and to be his own prime minister. By 1770 George had got the hand of English politics and had become a manipulator second to none in the kingdom. He spent so much money sustaining Lord North's ministry and supporting "friendly" members of the House of Commons that the palace servants complained of not having enough to eat. In the general election of 1780 George spent the enormous sum of £104,000 to have the "right" people elected, and succeeded. It is not correct to say George III introduced a new system of government, or that he aimed at absolutism. He simply put himself at the head of the old Whig system and used it for what, rightly or wrongly, he believed to be the national interest. After several attempts to find a prime minister who would be responsible to him rather than the House of Commons, he got what he wanted in Lord North — and lost an empire. The other Whig factions did not catch on to what was going on for two or three years. By that time they had persuaded themselves that the King was trying to subvert the British constitution through corruption, and and set up a royal absolutism. This explains why Burke, Pitt, Richmond, and other leading Englishmen backed the colonies against their own government, and encouraged Americans to feel that they were fighting for liberty in England as well as America."

"George III felt no prejudice against Americans. If he had the sense to pay them a visit, and had chased foxes in Virginia, shot quail in Carolina, and gone fishing with the Yankees, he might have won their hearts and possibly learned something about colonial quirks."

"What I have never been able to find is the man arrogating power to himself, the ambitious schemer out to dominate, the intriguer dealing in an underhand fashion with his Ministers; in short, any evidence for the stories circulated about him by very clever and eloquent contemporaries."

"The Jubilee seems to have been very happily celebrated everywhere. Nothing could be better than its effect in London, and the town appeared in the morning to be as quiet and orderly as could possibly be wished. The public offices and a few other buildings were illuminated, the mob were occupied the whole night in gaping at them, and cheering as any carriage passed by. The only exercise of their sovereign authority was compelling all the coachmen and servants to pull off their hats as they passed the illuminated crowd over the Admiralty gate."

"From the beginning of his reign to the close of the American War, he was one of the most unpopular Princes that ever sat upon the throne: he is now one of the most popular... When the coalition between Lord North and Mr. Fox took place, the tide turned in his favour. A very general and very just indignation was excited in the public when they saw those two statesmen renouncing all their inveterate political animosities, and forming what seemed a confederacy against the nation... The King's joining the people on so important an occasion, against his Ministers and against the Parliament, laid the foundation of his popularity. Then followed an attempt upon his life by a maniac; then the irregularities and dissipation of the Prince destined to be his successor; next his own unfortunate derangement of mind, and the dread which the public entertained of the government which they saw about to take place, with the Prince for Regent, and for his Ministers the heads of the coalition, who had already claimed for him the Regency upon grounds the most unconstitutional; then his joyful recovery when it was least expected, which dispelled in a moment the gloom which hung over the country: and last of all, but which added tenfold strength to every motive of endearment to the King, the horrors of the French Revolution; the sufferings of the Royal Family, the debasement of the nobles, the confiscation of the property of the rich, the persecution of the clergy, the national bankruptcy, and all those various evils which it had produced, and which gave almost every description of persons who have any influence on public opinion an interest to adhere to, and maintain inviolably, our established Constitution, and, above all, the Monarchy, as inseparably connected with, and maintaining everything valuable in the State."

"His Majesty added, that he had taken a positive determination not to admit Mr. Fox into his councils, even at the hazard of a civil war."

"The crowds of people walking about the streets the whole of the day, after service time, were beyond anything I ever saw; but perfectly quiet, decent, and looking very cheerful... The number of people in the street, from Charing Cross the whole way to the [Merchant Taylors'] Hall, was immense, and the illuminations remarkably beautiful... The crowd, great as I have described it on our going, was become so immense as completely to fill the whole of the streets we passed through from side to side, and the carriage could only move at a foot's pace through the people; but all most perfectly quiet and civil; not an offensive word or insulting gesture... I can truly say I never saw before such a collection of people to give an idea from sight of the population of the metropolis; nor ever witnessed such perfect order and decorum in any great assemblage of the middling and lower order of the inhabitants of it."

"[T]hat so-called "break in the smooth development of our constitutional history" which, according to the familiar legend, was due to "the able attempt of George III to recover the powers of the Crown", etc. ... Professor Namier has shown that this legend is unfounded and that in reality George III carried on, to the best of his more than limited ability, the system of government which he had inherited from his predecessors."

"Though the regular course of the King's domestic living was so plain and unostentatious, he was not diminished to that appropriate show which is befitting a British Monarch, and which has always been displayed by our princes on particular occasions... He was a good antiquary in all that is material in books or prints, concerning the forms and order of our ancient state ceremonials; he regarded not so much the brilliancy, as the fitness of the symbols and attributes of royalty, for the time, place, and object."

"Thousands were afterwards admitted into the chapel, to see the coffin and its splendid paraphernalia, as it lay in the tomb. Thus ended the most awful and magnificent ceremony which any British subject now living ever witnessed in this country; a ceremony, not merely adorned with all the appendages of grandeur which belong as matter of course to all royal funerals, but rendered sublime by the voluntary and heartfelt homage of countless thousands of affectionate subjects, who had thronged to the last obsequies of their King, not from the idle curiosity of seeing a grand exhibition, but to shed a last tear over the grave of a father and a friend."

"It was His Majesty's particular wish that as many of the old customs should be kept up as possible."

"His Majesty's character, then, after all the pains which have been taken to make him odious as well as contemptible remains unimpeached; and therefore cannot be in any degree the cause of the present commotions. His whole conduct both in public and private ever since he began his reign, the uniform tenor of his behaviour, the general course both of his words and actions, has been worthy of an Englishman, worthy of a Christian, and worthy of a King."

"After 1763 all these efforts became hopelessly entangled in the British government's attempts to reform its awkwardly structured empire and to extract revenue from the colonists. All parts of British policy came together to threaten each colonist's expanding republican expectations of liberty and independence. In the emotionally charged atmosphere of the 1760s and the 1770s, all the imperial efforts at reform seemed to be an evil extension of what was destroying liberty in England itself. Through the manipulation of puppets and placemen in the House of Commons, the crown—since 1760 in the hands of a young new king, George III—was sapping the strength of popular representation in Parliament and unbalancing the English constitution. Events seemed to show that the crown, with the aid of a pliant Parliament, was trying to reach across the Atlantic to corrupt Americans in the same way."

"For under him we sit and crack, In peace and unity compact, Whilst every nation's on the rack That does nae like our Geordie."

"There is a motto which has been borne by many of my ancestors — a noble motto, "I serve". Those words were an inspiration to many bygone heirs to the Throne when they made their knightly dedication as they came to manhood. I cannot do quite as they did. But through the inventions of science I can do what was not possible for any of them. I can make my solemn act of dedication with a whole Empire listening. I should like to make that dedication now. It is very simple. I declare before you all, that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family, to which we all belong. But I shall not have the strength to carry out this resolution alone, unless you join in it with me as I now invite you to do. I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow and God bless all of you, who are willing to share with it."

"My Husband and I...."

"It has always been easy to hate and destroy. To build and to cherish is much more difficult."

"Today we need a special kind of courage. Not the kind needed in battle, but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right, everything that is true and honest. We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics, so that we can show the world that we are not afraid of the future."

"On behalf of the British people I salute the skill and courage which have brought man to the moon. May this endeavour increase the knowledge and well-being of mankind."

"1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis."

"Although we must leave you, Fair Castle of Mey, We shall never forget, Nor will never repay, A meal of such splendour, Repast of such zest, It will take us to Sunday, Just to digest. To leafy Balmoral, We are now on our way, But our hearts will remain At the Castle of Mey. With your gardens and ranges, And all your good cheer, We will be back again soon So roll on next year."

"We are a moderate, pragmatic people, more comfortable with practice than theory."

"But nothing that can be said can begin to take away the anguish and the pain of these moments. Grief is the price we pay for love."

"Oh, dear, I hope it wasn't anyone important."

"Since I have landed in Quebec, I think we can say that I am Canadian."

"Discrimination still exists. Some people feel that their own beliefs are being threatened. Some are unhappy about unfamiliar cultures. They all need to be reassured that there is so much to be gained by reaching out to others; that diversity is indeed a strength and not a threat."

"Football's a difficult business and aren't they prima donnas?"

"In tomorrow's world we must all work together as hard as ever, if we're truly to be United Nations"

"A Uachtaráin agus a chairde"

"The right to change the government by the ballot box and not the barrel of a gun; perhaps the best definition of a democracy."

"The concept of our established Church is occasionally misunderstood and, I believe, commonly under-appreciated. Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country."

"Our religions provide critical guidance for the way we live our lives, and for the way in which we treat each other."

"Our peace and prosperity can never be taken for granted and must constantly be tended, so that never again do we have cause to build monuments to our fallen youth."

"The true measure of all our actions is how long the good in them lasts...everything we do, we do for the young."

"I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any. That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country. The pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present and our future."

"Today it may seem hard that we cannot mark this special anniversary as we would wish. Instead we remember from our homes and our doorsteps. But our streets are not empty; they are filled with the love and the care that we have for each other. And when I look at our country today, and see what we are willing to do to protect and support one another, I say with pride that we are still a nation those brave soldiers, sailors and airmen would recognise and admire."

"Remarkably, a year that has necessarily kept people apart has, in many ways, brought us closer. Across the Commonwealth, my family and I have been inspired by stories of people volunteering in their communities, helping those in need. In the United Kingdom and around the world, people have risen magnificently to the challenges of the year, and I am so proud and moved by this quiet, indomitable spirit. To our young people in particular I say thank you for the part you have played. This year, we celebrated International Nurses’ Day, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale. As with other nursing pioneers like Mary Seacole, Florence Nightingale shone a lamp of hope across the world. Today, our front-line services still shine that lamp for us — supported by the amazing achievements of modern science — and we owe them a debt of gratitude. We continue to be inspired by the kindness of strangers and draw comfort that — even on the darkest nights — there is hope in the new dawn."

"Your Majesty, during Your Reign, which commenced in an African country only a little distance to the South, You have carried forward gloriously the traditions of Your lineage and brought new honour to the Throne which You occupy. Your Majesty personally enjoys today the respect, the admiration and the affection of all peoples to whom Britain serves as the symbol of indomitability in adversity, of courage when confronted by danger, of dignity and resolve when threatened with defeat, and of magnanimity and generosity in victory."

"In times when nothing stood but worsened, or grew strange, there was one constant good: she did not change."

"So I went to the top lady. And I was sobbing and I said, ‘What do I do? I'm coming to you. What do I do?’... And she said, ‘I don't know what you should do. Charles is hopeless.’ And that was it. That was help! So I didn't go back to her again for help because I don't go back again if I don't get it the first time, right."

"Wouldn't let that family near me with a sharp stick, let alone a sword"

"The British monarchy doesn't depend entirely on glamour, as the long, long reign of Queen Elizabeth II continues to demonstrate. Her unflinching dutifulness and reliability have conferred something beyond charm upon the institution, associating it with stoicism and a certain integrity. Republicanism is infinitely more widespread than it was when she was first crowned, but it's very rare indeed to hear the Sovereign Lady herself being criticized, and even most anti-royalists hasten to express themselves admiringly where she is concerned. I am not sure how deserved this immunity really is. The queen took two major decisions quite early in her reign, neither of which was forced upon her. She refused to allow her younger sister Margaret to marry the man she loved and had chosen, and she let her authoritarian husband have charge of the education of her eldest son. The first decision was taken to appease the most conservative leaders of the Church of England (a church of which she is, absurdly, the head), who could not approve the marriage of Margaret to a divorced man. The second was taken for reasons less clear."

"We, her people of Gibraltar, are perhaps the only ones in her reign who have chosen to remain British on two occasions... We’ve chosen her twice... So we can proudly say that she is our Queen by invitation and not imposition."

"While British republicanism has long been a minority pursuit... it is undeniable that the cause enters the third decade of the 21st century in a considerably worse condition than it entered the third decade of the 20th... That is a testament to the skill of the woman who might well be the United Kingdom’s most successful politician of the past century: Queen Elizabeth II. The Crown’s popularity is the fruit of her strategy and the decisions she has taken over the nearly seven decades of her reign."

"I had already met her (Queen Elizabeth) formally but she was very different this time, much more open. She went out of her way to make me feel comfortable and kept on cracking jokes. I laughed so much that day. At the same time she was very gracious. I hope that the painting reflects these qualities."

"有個貴族朋友在硬幣背後，青春不變名字叫做皇后；每次買賣隨我到處去奔走，面上沒有表情卻匯聚成就"

"Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards my country; I am very young and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have."

"Affairs go on, and all will take some shape or other, but it keeps one in hot water all the time."

"My dearest Uncle,- I have the greatest pleasure in announcing to you a piece of news which I know will give you as much satisfaction and relief as it does to us, and will do to the whole of the world. Lord Palmerston is no longer Foreign Secretary—and Lord Granville has already named his successor!"

"All marriage is such a lottery -- the happiness is always an exchange -- though it may be a very happy one -- still the poor woman is bodily and morally the husband's slave. That always sticks in my throat. When I think of a merry, happy, and free young girl -- and look at the ailing aching state a young wife is generally doomed to -- which you can't deny is the penalty of marriage."

"I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Women's Rights," with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety. Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were women to "unsex" themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen, and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection."

"It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved."

"It seems to me a defect in our much famed Constitution, to have to part with an admirable Govt like Ld Salisbury's for no question of any importance or any particular reason, merely on account of the number of votes."

"I am too horrified for words at this monstrous horrible sentence against this poor martyr Dreyfus. If only all Europe would express its horror and indignation! I trust there will be a severe retribution."

"I sympathise most deeply with your expressions on the horrors of war, than which no one can feel more strongly than I do; and earnestly hope that it may be averted. But I cannot abandon my own subjects who have appealed to me for protection. If President Kruger is reasonable, there will be no war, but the issue is in his hands."

"We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist."

"Queen Victoria on promotion of Lionel Rothschild to peerage: "It is not only the feeling, of which she cannot divest herself, against making a person of the Jewish religion, a Peer; but she cannot think that one who owes his great wealth to contracts with foreign Governments for Loans, or to successful speculation on the Stock Exchange, can fairly claim a British Peerage. However high Sir L. Rothschild may stand personally in public estimation, this seems to her not less a species of gambling because it is on a gigantic scale and far removed from that legitimate trading which she delights to honour, in which men have raised themselves by patient industry and unswerving probity to positions of wealth and influence.""

"Those kindly graces, those admirable qualities, have endeared her to every class in the community, and are known to all. Perhaps less known was the life of continuous labour which her position as Queen threw upon her. Short as was the interval between the last trembling signature affixed to a public document and the final and perfect rest, it was yet long enough to clog and hamper the wheels of administration; and when I saw the accumulating mass of untouched documents which awaited the attention of the Sovereign, I marvelled at the unostentatious patience which for sixty-three years, through sorrow, through suffering, in moments of weariness, in moments of despondency, had enabled her to carry on without break or pause her share in the government of this great Empire. For her there was no holiday, to her there was no intermission of toil. Domestic sorrow, domestic sickness, made no difference in her labours, and they were continued from the hour at which she became our Sovereign to within a few days—I had almost said a few hours—of her death. It is easy to chronicle the growth of Empire, the course of discovery, the progress of trade, the triumphs of war, all the events that make history interesting or exciting; but who is there that will dare to weigh in the balance the effect which such an example, continued over sixty-three years, has produced on the highest life of her people?"

"He...made observations with regard to the Queen, which, in my opinion, no meeting of people in this country, and certainly no meeting of Reformers, ought to have listened to with approbation. (Cheers.) Let it be remembered that there has been no occasion on which any Ministry has proposed an improved representation of the people when the Queen has not given her cordial, unhesitating, and, I believe, hearty assent. (Cheers.) ... But Mr. Ayrton referred further to a supposed absorption of the sympathies of the Queen with her late husband to the exclusion of sympathy for and with the people. (Hear, hear.) I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are possessors of crowns. (Hear, hear.) But I could not sit here and hear that observation without a sensation of wonder and of pain. (Loud cheers.) I think there has been by many persons a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to her desolate and widowed position. (Cheers.) And I venture to say this, that a woman, be she the Queen of a great realm or be she the wife of one of your labouring men, who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the lost object of her life and affection, is not at all likely to be wanting in a great and generous sympathy with you. (Loud and prolonged cheers.)"

"The centerpiece of the Oval Office was the resolute desk. I had chosen the desk because of its historical significance. Its story began in 1852, when Queen Victoria dispatched the HMS Resolute to search for the British explorer John Franklin, who had been lost looking for the Northwest Passage. The Resolute was trapped in ice near the Arctic and abandoned by its crew. In 1855 it was discovered by an American whaling ship, which sailed the Resolute back to Connecticut. The vessel was purchased by the U.S. government, refitted, and returned to England as a goodwill gift to the queen. When the Resolute was decommissioned two decades later, Her Majesty had several ornate desks made out of its timbers, one of which she gave to President Rutherford B. Hayes."

"The colonisation of Australia and New Zealand, and the acquisition of South Africa in the decline of Holland, created the new and wider British Empire still based upon sea-power and comprising a fifth of the human race, over which Queen Victoria, in the longest reign of British history, presided. In this period moral issues arising from Christian ethics became prominent. The slave trade, from which Britain had so shamelessly profited in the past, was suppressed by the Royal Navy. By a terrible internal struggle, at the cost of nearly a million lives, slavery was extirpated from the United States; above all, the Union was preserved."

"[T]hat monstrous dwarf Queen Victoria."

"We are servants of the Crown as well as servants of the people... I am not ashamed to say that in my old age I rejoice in any opportunity which enables me to testify that, whatever may be thought of my opinions, whatever may be thought of my proposals in general politics, I do not forget the service which I have borne for so many years to the illustrious representative of the British Monarchy."

"The warrior, sage, and poet fill their story With all the various honours of mankind ; — May thy young reign achieve yet truer glory, The pure, enlightened triumphs of the mind ! Too much in this wide world yet needs redressing ; But with thy reign Hope’s loveliest promise came. May thy sweet youth be sheltered by the blessing A nation breathes upon Victoria’s name!"

"No British sovereign was more sincerely mourned. As the news of the queen's death spread, impassioned expressions of grief came from every part of the United Kingdom, of the British empire, and of the world. Native chieftains in India, in Africa, in New Zealand, vied with their British-born fellow-subjects in the avowals of a personal sense of loss. The demonstration of her people's sorrow testified to the spirit of loyalty to her person and position which had been evoked by her length of life and reign, her personal sorrows, and her recent manifestations of sympathy with her subjects' welfare."

"Possessed of no commanding strength of intellect but of an imperious will, she laboriously studied every detail of government business, and on every question of policy or administration she formed for herself decided opinions, to which she obstinately adhered, pressing them to business pertinaciously on the notice of her ministers. No sovereign of England ever applied himself to the work of government with greater ardour or greater industry."

"Whether the queen caused the period, or the period creates the queen, she fitted her time perfectly."

"Another great—far greater—event now occupied the mind of the "man in the street": the illness and subsequent death of Queen Victoria. The "man in the street" certainly took a great interest in that event which filled us and our English friends with sorrow. It was such a great passing away of the most outstanding personality of the past hundred years. The morning that the news appeared in the Paris Daily Mail we were greeted by all our friendly tradespeople with subdued voices and a certain awed expression of face: "Vous savez?" they all said, even before they answered to our "bonjour" "Votre idole est morte". Your idol! That is how they talked of Queen Victoria. She was to their minds (more insular than those of our own people) something quite apart. Not altogether real. A fetish that we, the hated English, almost worshipped, and to their credit be it said that with her death, all scurrilous cartoons and postcards disappeared from the kiosks, nor did any derogatory or disrespectful article appear in the Press."

"Victoria was the Queen of England, the Empress of India, the quintessential pivot round which the whole magnificent machine was revolving—but how much more besides! For one thing, she was of a great age—an almost indispensable qualification for popularity in England. She had given proof of one of the most admired characteristics of the race—persistent vitality. She had reigned for sixty years, and she was not out. And then, she was a character. The outlines of her nature were firmly drawn, and, even through the mists which envelop royalty, clearly visible. In the popular imagination her familiar figure filled, with satisfying ease, a distinct and memorable place. It was, besides, the kind of figure which naturally called forth the admiring sympathy of the great majority of the nation. Goodness they prized above every other human quality; and Victoria, who had said that she would be good at the age of twelve, had kept her word. Duty, conscience, morality—yes! in the light of those high beacons the Queen had always lived. She had passed her days in work and not in pleasure—in public responsibilities and family cares. The standard of solid virtue which had been set up so long ago amid the domestic happiness of Osborne had never been lowered for an instant."

"The girl, the wife, the aged woman, were the same: vitality, conscientiousness, pride, and simplicity were hers to the latest hour."

"When...the news of the approaching end had been made public, astonished grief had swept over the country. It appeared as if some monstrous reversal of the course of nature was about to take place. The vast majority of her subjects had never known a time when Queen Victoria had not been reigning over them. She had become an indissoluble part of their whole scheme of things, and that they were about to lose her appeared a scarcely possible thought."

"Queen Victoria had put an end to the Republican movement in Great Britain and in the Dominions, not by what she had done, but by what she had been, and by what she had refrained from doing. She had won back public respect for the monarchy in her person. And she had disarmed political hostility to the throne by effacing its occupant as a governing power. It was her habit to express to her advisers, often with unnecessary emphasis, her views on all public questions, but she had not insisted on having her way. She had been content with a purely consultative function in relation to Ministers who were in effect chosen for her by Parliament, sometimes much against her own ideas of their fitness."

"She had made the monarchy welcome everywhere, as the representative of the public life of the nation in its non-political aspects. All through her reign, but most of all during its last twenty years, she had appealed to the common human heart of plain people, as a woman who was herself decidedly a "plain person," more apt than the clever, the cultured or the aristocratic of soul to sympathise with the elementary joys and sorrows of her subjects. When she said that she was grieved by some public or private calamity, people knew that her sorrow was sincere, and of the same nature as their own. There was nothing superfine about Queen Victoria in her widowhood. None the less, she made the world recognise in her the symbol of all that was mighty and lasting in the life of England and of the races associated with England in Empire. Because she thus combined the very human and the very high, sentiment about her person became, at the end, akin to the religious. And for an Empire which desired to hold together in brotherhood, but refused to be federated into a single parliamentary Constitution, the only possible unit, in symbolism or in law, was found at last to be the historic Crown of Britain."

"The names of the little one will be, Philippe Eugène Ferdinand Marie Clement Baudoin (baldwin, a name of the old counts of Flanders) Leopold George. My aunt who is his godmother wished he should be called Philippe, honour of his grandfather, and as Philippe le bon, who was one of the most powerful princes of this country. I gave him the name with pleasure. Eugene is her own name, Ferdinand that of Chartres, Marie is the name of the queen and of princess Marie, Clement of princess Clémentine, Leopold your aunt wished and George honour of St. George of England and of George the IV."

"You've been pretty unlucky with the weather, Mr Piper."

"In order that they should be worthily and promptly recognised, I have decided to create, at once, a new mark of honour for men and women in all walks of civilian life. I propose to give my name to this new distinction, which will consist of the George Cross, which will rank next to the Victoria Cross, and the George Medal for wider distribution."

"We are not a family, we are a firm."

"The highest of distinctions is service to others."

"King George VI was always remarkably well informed, and I made a point of reading the latest telegrams before my weekly audience with him. A conscientious, constitutional monarch is a strong element of stability and continuity in our Constitution."

"The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave."

"During his stay in London King was presented to King George VI at Buckingham Palace. His Majesty, wearing the uniform of an admiral of the fleet, received King in a sitting room where he was at work on papers. Whiskey or tea was offered, and as King had given up spirits for the duration of the war, he gladly accepted the tea, which was ready. The King reminisced agreeably about his cruises in the Royal Navy, and asked the admiral about his own with such tact that the audience, in retrospect, resembled a chat between a couple of old sailors."

"I must tell you that I Abhor the principles of the Church of Rome as much as it is possible for any to do, and I as much value the doćtrine of the Church of England. And certainly there is the greatest reason in the world to do so, for the doćtrine of the Church of Rome is wicked and dangerous, and directly contrary to the Scriptures, and their ceremonies—most of them—plain, downright idolatry. But God be thanked we were not bred up in that communion but are of a Church that is pious and sincere, and conformable in all its principles to the Scriptures. Our Church teaches no doctrine but what is just, holy, and good, or what is profitable to salvation; and the Church of England is, without all doubt, the only true Church."

"[C]an you beleeve we will ever truckle to that Monster who from ye first moment of his coming has used us ... but Suppose I did submitt & that the King could change his nature so much as to use me with humanety, how would all reasonable people despise me, how would that Dutch abortive laugh at me & please himself with haveing got ye better. ... No my deare Mrs. Freeman never beleve your faithfull Mrs. Morely will ever submitt, she can waite with patience for a SunShine day & if She does not live to see it yet She hopes England will flourish againe."

"I know my own heart to be entirely English."

"I shall be very careful to preserve and maintain the Act of Toleration, and to set the minds of all my people at quiet; my own principles must always keep me entirely firm to the interests and religion of the Church of England, and will incline me to countenance those who have the truest zeal to support it."

"Whoever of ye Whigs thinks I am to be Hecktor'd or frighted into a Complyance tho I am a woman, are mightely mistaken in me. I thank God I have a Soul above that, & am too much conserned for my reputation to do any thing to forfeit it."

"[T]he answer that was returned, ... as I am told, was worthy of Q. Eliz. It was given in the Cabinet without consultation upon it, & in such a manner that there was not a word offered agst it."

"Upon the king's death, the privy council came in a body to wait on the new queen: she received them with a well considered speech: she expressed great respect to the memory of the late king, in whose steps she intended to go, for preserving both church and state, in opposition to the growing power of France, and for maintaining the succession in the protestant line. She pronounced this, as she did all her other speeches, with great weight and authority, and with a softness of voice, and sweetness in the pronunciation, that added much life to all she spoke."

"The reign of Queen Anne was a glorious one, by the success of her arms against France, under the Duke of Marlborough. As she died without children, the family of the Stuarts ended in her, and the crown went to the House of Hanover, as the next Protestant family, so that she was succeeded by King George the First."

"When Anne came to the throne unexpectedly early, in March 1702 following a fatal riding accident to William, the whole country, apart from the most hard-bitten Jacobites, was united in acclaiming her. Most Tories, in fact, openly gloried in their "Church of England Queen", and her accession certainly helped to reconcile them to the new war which broke out in May."

"Anne was no cipher. She took a serious view of her functions as monarch. She religiously attended the Sunday meetings of the full Cabinet of 12–14 members. Statesmen who neglected to win Anne over to any desired line of policy, or bullied her into ministerial appointments she disliked, usually had cause to regret it; and where appointments in her beloved Church were concerned, she could be tenacious in the extreme. Another prerogative, that of dissolving parliament, she used with devastating effect against the Whigs in 1710."

"To her very marrow she was English, Anglican, Stuart. She made the most of it, declaring to her first Parliament that "I know my own Heart to be entirely English", a statement which echoed Elizabeth I's famous speech at Tilbury and reflected poorly upon William, as well as upon the Pretender and his mother living in Paris as dependents of Louis XIV."

"[T]o say truth, we are a declining People: destined, I fear, to absolute destruction. We have had our Day. It ended with Queen Ann. Since her time all has been Confusion and Discontent at Home; Folly and False Politics abroad."

"At the age of two years Mr. Johnson was brought up to London by his mother, to be touched by Queen Anne for the scrophulous evil ... As Mr. Johnson had an astonishing memory, I asked him, if he could remember Queen Anne at all? "He had (he said) a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, and a long black hood.""

"Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take - and sometimes tea."

"The queen was abroad to-day [31 July 1711] in order to hunt, but finding it disposed to rain, she kept in her coach; she hunts in a chaise with one horse, which she drives herself, and drives furiously like Jehu, and is a mighty hunter, like Nimrod."

"She was indeed no picturesque figure. Yet in that part of heroism which consists of endurance, poor dowdy Queen Anne was no less heroic than her ancestress the Prima Donna of Scottish romance. And certainly the last of the Stuart Queens had many more of the qualities required for the wise ruling of a State. For a dozen weary years the invalid daily faced her office work. She did not leave affairs to her favourites or even wholly to her Ministers. In order to do what she thought right in Church and State, she slaved at many details of government. And the ideas that inspired her were those of moderation, good sense and humanity, for which the Stuart line had not always been conspicuous."

"These works brought all these people here. Something should be done to get them at work again."

"At long last I am able to say a few words of my own... You must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love."

"[The Indian princes’] ceremonies are so irritating and ridiculous"

"This place ought never to have been dug up."

"It must be remembered that Dupach is more than half Negro, and due to the peculiar mentality of this Race, they seem unable to rise to prominence without losing their equilibrium."

"I hear you are going to In-jea. A most interesting country. I had a very good time there in my early youth. You must do the pig-sticking in Rajasthan. And you will find the people most agreeable in their own way. They have been most uncommonly decent to my niece."

""British Empire. First trip to India. Glorious. Never would have believed it would all be gone in my lifetime. Not possible, I'd've thought. I am the last king-emperor, you know. My brother was, for a time, but had to give it up. I didn't."

"Mona said, 'Did you see Gore's new play The Best Man when you were in New York?' 'Of course not.'...'Don't like plays, only shows.' He meant musical comedies."

"Discussing coronation ceremonies with Vidal, "I quickly moved on to...the moment when two masons appear and ask the newly crowned king for instructions as to his tomb. 'Masons? Masons! Yes. You one? I'm one. But I've forgotten all the odds and ends. Dull, really.""

"The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children."

"It certainly is a situation of great delicacy but, at the same time, one in which it would seem I hold fifty per cent of the bargaining power in order that the Duchess and I can plan for the future in the most constructive and convenient way."

"Perhaps one of the only positive pieces of advice that I was ever given was that supplied by an old courtier who observed: "Only two rules really count. Never miss an opportunity to relieve yourself; never miss a chance to sit down and rest your feet.""

"[Italy:] [T]hey are indeed a repulsive nation these dagoes, both the men and the women & I'm just longing to quit them for good & all !!! (18 September 1918)"

"[Cologne, Germany:] Claud & I had a stroll in the centre of town afterwards & had great fun making the Hun men civilians get off the pavement for us .... It does one worlds of good to know how humiliating it must be for the Huns. (9 January 1919)"

"[Quebec City, Canada:] A rotten priest-ridden community who are the completest passengers & who won't do their bit in anything & of course not during the war !! (23 August 1919)"

"[In Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan] (referring to (First Nations of Canada, then known as Canadian Indians):] I've told you what a foul decadent lazy crowd they are & what I think of them !! But this camp is pitched right inside an Indian reserve … & we have hundreds of the mouldy local tribe camped around us. (6 October 1919)"

"[Barbados:] A proper bum island this Barbados....It's a unique sort of scenery, very ugly, & I didn't take much to the coloured population, who are revolting. (26-27 March 1920)"

"[Panama:] [A] deadly spot the end of the world almost....There are 20,000 British coloured people working on the canal...; they are mostly from Jamaica & smell too revolting for words....the Panamanians are a very queer people, all dagoes of course, though very pompous and dirty. (31 March - 1 April 1920)"

"Honolulu, Hawaii:] (At a luau) [A] unique native stunt though the Hawaiian food we were made to eat was too revolting for words....One got rather tired of the native songs & longed for some of our tunes. (14 April 1920)"

"[Outside Adelaide, Australia:] [T]hey showed us some of the native aborigines at a wayside station in the great plain yesterday afternoon though they are the most revolting form of living creatures I've ever seen !! They are the lowest known form of human beings & are the nearest thing to monkeys I've ever seen. (11 July 1920)"

"[Acapulco, Mexico:] [Q]ueer, dirty little dago town....The people are too revolting for words, super dagoes & some of them are quite black as a result of Spaniards inter-breeding with the Indians; & of course they only speak Spanish. (9 September 1920)"

"This trend was encouraged by the well-known sympathies of the Prince of Wales, or King Edward VIII as he became on 20 January 1936. Lacking both intelligence and a sense of constitutional propriety, the Prince made his views clear when he told Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, in July 1933, that it "was no business of ours to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs either re Jews or re anything else" and that "dictators were very popular these days and that we might want one in England before long". Four months later, he told the former Austrian Ambassador Count Mensdorff that national socialism was "the only thing to do", while, in June 1935, the diarist and Tory MP Chips Channon noted "much gossip about the Prince of Wales' alleged Nazi leanings". The reason tongues had been set wagging was the speech the Prince had given to members of the British Legion on 11 June 1935, in which he praised the forthcoming visit to Germany of a delegation of ex-servicemen. This took place the following month and was, as Anthony Eden had warned, a propaganda gift for the regime."

"The importance of the Abdication to our story is twofold. First, it removed a monarch who exhibited a worrying admiration for dictatorships in general and Nazi Germany in particular. Describing the crisis on 22 November, Chips Channon noted that the King, who "is insane about Wallis, insane", was also "going the dictator way", being "pro-German, against Russia and against too much slip-shod democracy". "I shouldn't be surprised", continued the Conservative MP, "if he aimed at making himself a mild dictator." This was unlikely. Yet it is possible to imagine a situation in which the King's sympathies, combined with his lack of respect for the constitution, could have triggered a worse crisis than that which occurred in December 1936. Then the monarchy was able to survive since it was essentially a personal affair and the King went quietly. A political rupture would have been a very different matter. Second, the Abdication was wilfully misinterpreted by Ribbentrop, who persuaded Hitler that it constituted a plot by the British Government to rid itself of a pro-German monarch. "Don’t you know what expectations the Führer has based on the King's support in the coming negotiations? He’s our greatest hope!" expostulated the Ambassador when the Embassy's Press Attaché, Fritz Hesse, tried to warn him about the crisis. "Don’t you think the whole affair is an intrigue of our enemies to rob us of one of the last big positions we hold in this country? … You'll see, the King will marry Wally and the two will tell Baldwin and his whole gang to go to the devil." When this turned out not to be the case, Hitler's confidence in the English and the possibility of an Anglo-German alliance was severely shaken. According to Hesse, he told Ribbentrop to pack his bags and return to Germany. There was, he said, "no other person in England who is ready to play with us" now "that the King has been dethroned"."

"There is another grave matter which overshadows our minds tonight. In a few minutes we are going to sing "God Save the King". I shall sing it with more heartfelt fervour than I have ever sung it in my life. I hope and pray that no irrevocable decision will be taken in haste, but that time and public opinion will be allowed to play their part, and that a cherished and unique personality may not be incontinently severed from the people he loves so well. I hope that Parliament will be allowed to discharge its function in these high constitutional questions. I trust that our King may be guided by the opinions that are now for the first time being expressed by the British nation and the British Empire, and that the British people will not in turn be found wanting in generous consideration for the occupant of the Throne"

"It is not relevant to this account to describe the brief but intensely violent controversy that followed. I had known King Edward VIII since he was a child, and had in 1910 as Home Secretary read out to a wonderful assembly the Proclamation creating him Prince of Wales at Carnarvon Castle. I felt bound to place my personal loyalty to him upon the highest plane. Although during the summer I had been made fully aware of what was going forward, I in no way interfered or communicated with him at any time. However, presently in his distress he asked the Prime Minister for permission to consult me. Mr. Baldwin gave formal consent, and on this being conveyed to me I went to the King at Fort Belvedere. I remained in contact with him till his abdication, and did my utmost to plead both to the King and to the public for patience and delay. I have never reprented of this—indeed, I could do no other."

"He was at his best only when the going was good."

"In Britain the inter-war years were marked by a decline in the power of two traditionally important institutions: the monarchy and the military. In December 1936 Edward VIII abdicated, having been bullied into doing so by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who disapproved of the American divorcée he wished to marry and who asserted that the British public (and the governments of the Dominions) shared his sentiments."

"[An explanation for the attraction of Wallis Simpson] There must have been some sort of sadomasochistic relationship [...] He relished the contempt and bullying she bestowed on him."

"I think it's something that dawns on you with the most ghastly, inexorable sense. I didn't suddenly wake up in my pram one day and say 'Yippee, I —', you know. But I think it just dawns on you, you know, slowly, that people are interested in one, and slowly you get the idea that you have a certain duty and responsibility."

"You have got to choose somebody very carefully who could fulfill this particular role, because people like you, perhaps, would expect quite a lot from somebody like that and it has got to be somebody pretty special."

"I, Charles, Prince of Wales, do become your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship and faith and truth I will bear unto you to live and die against all manner of folks."

"When people are uncertain about what is right and what is wrong, and anxious about being considered old-fashioned, it seems to be worse than folly that Christians are still arguing about doctrinal matters which can only bring needless distress to a number of people."

"Delighted and frankly amazed that Diana is prepared to take me on."

"Anthony Carthew (ITN): And, I suppose, in love? Lady Diana Spencer: Of course! Charles, Prince of Wales: Whatever 'in love' means."

"I have often thought that one of the less attractive traits of various professional bodies and institutions is the deeply ingrained suspicion and outright hostility which can exist towards anything unorthodox or unconventional."

"Perhaps we just have to accept it is God's will that the unorthodox individual is doomed to years of frustration, ridicule and failure in order to act out his role in the scheme of things, until his day arrives and mankind is ready to receive his message: a message which he probably finds hard to explain, but which he knows comes from a far deeper source than conscious thought."

"I would suggest that the whole imposing edifice of modern medicine, for all its breathtaking successes is, like the celebrated Tower of Pisa, slightly off balance."

"A large number of us have developed a feeling that architects tend to design houses for the approval of fellow architects and critics, not for the tenants."

"Instead of designing an extension to the elegant facade of the National Gallery which complements it and continues the concept of columns and domes, it looks as if we may be presented with a kind of municipal fire station, complete with the sort of tower that contains the siren. I would understand better this type of high-tech approach if you demolished the whole of Trafalgar Square and started again with a single architect responsible for the entire layout, but what is proposed is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend."

"I now appreciate that Arabs and Jews were all a Semitic people originally + it is the influx of foreign, European Jews (especially from Poland, they say) which has helped to cause great problems. I know there are so many complex issues, but how can there ever be an end to terrorism unless the causes are eliminated? Surely some US president has to have the courage to stand up and take on the Jewish lobby in US? I must be naive, I suppose!"

"Medieval Islam was a religion of remarkable tolerance for its time, allowing Jews and Christians the right to practise their inherited beliefs, and setting an example which was not, unfortunately, copied for many centuries in the West. The surprise, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent to which Islam has been a part of Europe for so long, first in Spain, then in the Balkans, and the extent to which it has contributed so much towards the civilisation which we all too often think of, wrongly, as entirely Western. Islam is part of our past and our present, in all fields of human endeavour. It has helped to create modern Europe. It is part of our own inheritance, not a thing apart."

"There is perhaps an inherent danger from those who love to parade a kind of dogmatic arrogance without listening to the views of ordinary people. All around us we see the evidence, day after day, of the short-lived theories and fashions which can undermine our individuality, undermine our confidence and take too mechanical or untrusting a view of human nature. The result can be damaging—sometimes devastatingly so—to our confidence and the way we behave... The misnamed fashion for what people call "political correctness" amounts to testing everything, every aspect of life, every aspect of society, against a predetermined, preordained view... The intimidation is palpable. Any questioning, in a perfectly polite way, of the current fashions, usually elicits a vitriolic response—whether it is a wish to teach people the basic principles of English grammar and to rescue the idea that there is a vast difference between good and bad English, or suggesting that in certain circumstances it may be necessary and sensible to administer a smack to your child."

"There is a persistent current that flows along undermining the integrity and motives of individuals, organisations and institutions. An insidious impression is thereby created that, for instance, the police are corrupt, British justice is flawed, the BBC is moribund and public servants are time-serving wasters of taxpayers' money. Can we really believe the fashionable theorists in the English faculties of our universities who have tried to tear apart many of our wonderful novelists, poets and playwrights because they do not fit their abstruse theories of the day?"

"Mrs. Parker Bowles is a great friend of mine...a friend for a very long time. She will continue to be a friend for a long time."

"Jonathan Dimbleby: Understandably, when your marriage collapsed, you form close friendships, you re-establish close friendships, of whatever character that friendship is. Were you, did you try to be, faithful and honourable to your wife when you took on the vow of marriage? Charles, Prince of Wales: Yes, absolutely. Dimbleby: And you were? Charles: Yes, until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried."

"Islamic culture in its traditional form has striven to preserve this integrated spiritual view of the world in a way we have not seen fit to do in recent generations in the West.[...] There is the potential for establishing new and valuable links between Islamic civilisation and the West. Perhaps, for instance, we could begin by having more Muslim teachers in British schools, or by encouraging exchanges of teachers. Everywhere in the world people are seemingly wanting to learn English. But in the West, in turn, we need to be taught by Islamic teachers how to learn once again with our hearts, as well as our heads."

"These bloody people. I can't bear that man. I mean, he's so awful, he really is."

"After my speech, the President detached himself from the group of appalling old waxworks who accompanied him and took his place at the lectern. He then gave a kind of "propaganda" speech which was loudly cheered by the bussed-in party faithful at the suitable moment in the text."

"Such is the end of Empire."

"I believe that the proper mix of proven complementary, traditional and modern remedies, which emphasizes the active participation of the patient, can help create a powerful healing force in the world."

"Orthodox practice can learn from complementary medicine. The West can learn from the East and new from old traditions."

"[In] the ceaseless rush to modernize [...] many beneficial approaches, which have been tried and tested and have shown themselves to be effective, have been cast aside because they are deemed to be old-fashioned or irrelevant to today's needs."

"[In his Highgrove garden.] I happily talk to the plants and trees, and listen to them. I think it's absolutely crucial [...] Everything I've done here, it's like almost with your children. Every tree has a meaning for me."

"If you want to develop character, go to Australia."

"I don’t want to be confronted by my future grandchild and them say, "Why didn’t you do something?" So clearly now that we will have a grandchild, it makes it even more obvious to try to make sure we leave them something that isn’t a total poisoned chalice."

"Climate change and biodiversity loss . . . pose an even greater existential threat [than the COVID-19 pandemic], to the extent that we have to put ourselves on what might be called a war-like footing. . . . Putting a value on carbon . . . [is] absolutely critical. . . . [W]e need a vast military style campaign to marshall the strength of the global private sector[, which has] trillions at its disposal . . . . [E]ach sector needs a clear strategy to speed up the process of getting innovations to market [and we] need to align private investment behind these industry strategies. . . . If we can develop a pipeline of many more sustainable and "bankable" projects, at a sufficient scale, it will attract greater investment. . . . CEOs and institutional investors have told me that alongside the promises countries have made, their nationally determined contributions, they need clear market signals, agreed globally, so that they have the confidence to invest without the goal posts suddenly moving. . . . [[w:Charles III#Natural environment|[W]e are working]] to drive trillions of dollars in support of transition across ten of the most emitting and polluting industries [including] energy, agriculture, transportation, health systems and fashion. . . . I can only urge you, as the world’s decision-makers, to find practical ways of overcoming differences so we can all . . . rescue this precious planet and save the threatened future of our young people."

"I speak to you today with feelings of profound sorrow. Throughout her life, Her Majesty The Queen — my beloved mother — was an inspiration and example to me and to all my family, and we owe her the most heartfelt debt any family can owe to their mother; for her love, affection, guidance, understanding and example. Queen Elizabeth was a life well lived; a promise with destiny kept and she is mourned most deeply in her passing. That promise of lifelong service I renew to you all today."

"In 1947, on her 21st birthday, she pledged in a broadcast from Cape Town to the Commonwealth to devote her life, whether it be short or long, to the service of her peoples. That was more than a promise; it was a profound personal commitment which defined her whole life. She made sacrifices for duty. Her dedication and devotion as sovereign never waivered, through times of change and progress, through times of joy and celebration, and through times of sadness and loss. In her life of service we saw that abiding love of tradition, together with that fearless embrace of progress, which make us great as nations. The affection, admiration and respect she inspired became the hallmark of her reign. And, as every member of my family can testify, she combined these qualities with warmth, humour and an unerring ability always to see the best in people. I pay tribute to my mother's memory and I honour her life of service. I know that her death brings great sadness to so many of you and I share that sense of loss, beyond measure, with you all."

"When the Queen came to the throne, Britain and the world were still coping with the privations and aftermath of the Second World War, and still living by the conventions of earlier times. In the course of the last 70 years we have seen our society become one of many cultures and many faiths. The institutions of the state have changed in turn. But, through all changes and challenges, our nation and the wider family of realms — of whose talents, traditions and achievements I am so inexpressibly proud — have prospered and flourished. Our values have remained, and must remain, constant."

"I have been brought up to cherish a sense of duty to others, and to hold in the greatest respect the precious traditions, freedoms and responsibilities of our unique history and our system of parliamentary government. As the Queen herself did with such unswerving devotion, I too now solemnly pledge myself, throughout the remaining time God grants me, to uphold the constitutional principles at the heart of our nation. And wherever you may live in the United Kingdom, or in the realms and territories across the world, and whatever may be your background or beliefs, I shall endeavor to serve you with loyalty, respect and love, as I have throughout my life."

"In a little over a week's time we will come together as a nation, as a Commonwealth and indeed a global community, to lay my beloved mother to rest. In our sorrow, let us remember and draw strength from the light of her example. On behalf of all my family, I can only offer the most sincere and heartfelt thanks for your condolences and support. They mean more to me than I can ever possibly express. And to my darling mama, as you begin your last great journey to join my dear late papa, I want simply to say this: thank you. Thank you for your love and devotion to our family and to the family of nations you have served so diligently all these years. May "flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.""

"As stewards of this precious planet, it is our actions, and our actions alone, that will determine its future."

"It has been nearly seventy years since the Sovereign first opened Parliament. In the time since, Canada has dramatically changed: repatriating its Constitution, achieving full independence, and witnessing immense growth. Canada has embraced its British, French, and Indigenous roots, and become a bold, ambitious, innovative country that is bilingual, truly multicultural, and committed to reconciliation. The Crown has for so long been a symbol of unity for Canada. It also represents stability and continuity from the past to the present. As it should, it stands proudly as a symbol of Canada today, in all her richness and dynamism."

"When my dear late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, opened a new Canadian Parliament in 1957, the Second World War remained a fresh, painful memory. The Cold War was intensifying. Freedom and democracy were under threat. Canada was emerging as a growing economic power and a force for peace in the world. In the decades since, history has been punctuated by epoch-making events: the Vietnam War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the start of the War on Terror. Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination, and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear, and ones which the Government is determined to protect. The system of open global trade that, while not perfect, has helped to deliver prosperity for Canadians for decades, is changing. Canada’s relationships with partners are also changing."

"Many Canadians are feeling anxious and worried about the drastically changing world around them. Fundamental change is always unsettling. Yet this moment is also an incredible opportunity. An opportunity for renewal. An opportunity to think big and to act bigger. An opportunity for Canada to embark on the largest transformation of its economy since the Second World War. A confident Canada, which has welcomed new Canadians, including from some of the most tragic global conflict zones, can seize this opportunity by recognising that all Canadians can give themselves far more than any foreign power on any continent can ever take away. And that by staying true to Canadian values, Canada can build new alliances and a new economy that serves all Canadians."

"When my dear late mother addressed your predecessors seven decades ago, she said that in that age, and against the backdrop of international affairs, no nation could live unto itself. It is a source of great pride that, in the following decades, Canada has continued to set an example to the world in her conduct and values, as a force for good. … As the anthem reminds us: The True North is indeed strong and free!"

"Convinced republican that I am, and foe of the prince who talks to plants and wants to be crowned "head of all faiths" as well as the etiolated Church of England, I find myself pierced by a pang of sympathy. Not much of a life, is it, growing old and stale with no real job except waiting for the news of Mummy's death? Some British people claim actually to "love" their rather dumpy Hanoverian ruling house. This love takes the macabre form of demanding a regular human sacrifice whereby unexceptional people are condemned to lead wholly artificial and strained existences, and then punished or humiliated when they crack up."

"As in the nineteenth-century reactions against industrialization, environmental concerns raise nostalgia for a bygone age. Like a medieval millenarian, Prince Charles of Britain asserts that we are running out of time to save the world. Charles has emerged as perhaps the premier "feudal critic of capitalism," as one socialist publication put it. He views free-market capitalism as a scourge upon the earth, and promotes a new kind of noblesse oblige centered on concern for the natural world and social harmony."

"Oh, the little grovelling bastard."

"[I]f we’re going to jeer at North Korea for being a de facto monarchy, we must also acknowledge the main advantage of such a system: no divisive squabbling over who has the right to rule. On my book tour for “The Cleanest Race” I used the example of my British mother: a firm supporter of the monarchy with different estimations of the various royals. She doesn’t like the idea of Charles becoming king, but accepts that it will and must happen."

"Non, j'aurai des maîtresses."

"I hate painting, and poetry too! Neither the one nor the other ever did any good."

"There are kings enough in England. I am nothing there. I am old and want rest and should only go to be plagued and teased there about that Damned House of Commons."

"If he is mad, so much the better; and if he is mad, I hope to God he’ll bite some of my generals."

"Who is this Pope that I hear so much about? I cannot discover what is his merit. Why will not my subjects write in prose?"

"Every thing in his composition was little, and he had all the weaknesses of a little mind, without any of the virtues or even the vices of a great one. He loved to act a King, but mistook the part, and the Regal dignity shrunk into the Electoral pride... Avarice, the meanest of all passions was his ruling one, and I never knew him deviate into any one generous action. His first natural movements were always on the side of Justice and truth, but they were often warped by Ministerial influence, or the secret twitches of Avarice."

"He was generally reckoned illnatured, which indeed he was not. He had rather an unfeeling, than a bad heart; but I never observed any settled Malevolence in him, though his sudden passions, which were frequent, made him say things, which in cooller moments he would not have executed. His heart always seemed to me to be in a state of perfect Neutrality, between hardness and tenderness."

"He had a very small degree of acquired knowledge; he sometimes read History, and as he had a very good memory, was exceedingly correct in facts, and dates. He spoke French and Italian well, and English very properly, but with something of a foreign accent: He had a contempt for the belles lettres which he called trifling. He troubled himself little about Religion... Upon the whole he was rather a weak than a bad Man or King. His Government was mild as to Prerogative, but burthensome as to taxes, which he raised when, and what degree he pleased, by corrupting the honesty, and not by invading the privileges of Parliaments."

"He had the haughtiness of Henry the Eighth, without his spirit; the avarice of Henry the Seventh, without his exactions; the indignities of Charles the First, without his bigotry for his prerogative; the vexations of King William, with as little skill in the management of parties; and the gross gallantry of his father, without his goodnature or his honesty:– he might, perhaps, have been honest, if he had never hated his father, or had ever loved his son."

"I trust in God that my life may be spared for nine months longer, after which period, in the event of my death, no Regency would take place. I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the Royal authority to the personal exercise of that young lady [Princess, later Queen, Victoria], the heiress presumptive to the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me [Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent], who is surrounded by evil advisers and who is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the station in which she would be placed. I have no hesitation in saying that I have been insulted grossly insulted by that person, but I am determined to endure no longer a course of behaviour so disrespectful to me. Amongst other things, I have particularly to complain of the manner in which that young lady has been kept away from my Court; she has been repeatedly kept from my Drawing Rooms, at which she ought always to have been present, but I am fully resolved that this shall not happen again. I would have her know that I am King, and I am determined to make my authority respected, and for the future I shall insist and command that the Princess do upon all occasions appear at my Court, as it is her duty to do."

"Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy."

"Mgr. l'Electeur est pleinement persuadé qu'en establissant dans Sa maison la succession à la couronne, on n'a jamais pensé à rendre la couronne elective puisqu'on a nommé Madame Sa Mere uniquement par la raison qu'Elle est la plus proche dans la ligne protestante, ce qui est un aveu formel du droict hereditaire qu'on reconnoist dans cette ligne. Mais comme cette ligne a esté apellée à la succession par des actes du Parlement qui ont declaré les Princes Papistes incapables de regner, S. A. E. laisse à considerer s'il ne seroit pas à propos que ceux qui se declarent pour le droict hereditaire, evitassent de le faire d'une maniere absolue, et adjoutassent toujours "dans la ligne Protestante, Et à l'exclusion des Princes Papistes", en conformité des actes du Parlement."

"His Highness the Elector is fully persuaded that in establishing the succession to the crown in His house, no thought was ever given to making the crown elective, since Madam His Mother was appointed solely for the reason that She is the nearest in the Protestant line, which is a formal admission of the hereditary right recognised in this line. But as this line has been called to the succession by acts of Parliament which have declared the Papist Princes incapable of reigning, His Highness leaves it to be considered whether it would not be proper for those who declare themselves for the hereditary right to avoid doing so in an absolute manner, and always add "in the Protestant line, and to the exclusion of the Papist Princes", in conformity with the acts of Parliament."

"It was perhaps still more remarkable, and an instance unparalleled, that sir Robert governed George the first in Latin, the king not speaking English, and his minister no German, nor even French."