By Makayla Muscat for Daily Mail Australia

Published: 9:02 PM EST, March 3, 2024 | Updated: 02:44 EST, March 4, 2024

The King and I, from legendary theater composers Rodgers and Hammerstein, is another West End hit, this time starring Call The Midwife’s Helen George.

The story concerns Anna Leonowens, a widow who traveled to Siam in the early 1860s to teach English to the wives and children of King Mongkut of Siam.

Although the musical and subsequent film are set more than 150 years ago, they are considered so controversial in Thailand – as Siam became known in 1959 – that the musical has been banned there for more than 70 years.

(An earlier 1946 film adaptation of the book was briefly shown in Siamese cinemas. It was the more irreverent musical that caused the outrage).

The main reason for the ban is that the Thai monarchy was completely revered until recently.

Criticism of this was taboo and draconian laws punished anyone who openly criticized the royal family.

People knelt when a royal car passed by and when King Bhumibol died in October 2016, after a reign of 70 years and 126 days (88 days less than Queen Elizabeth’s), his people wore black mourning for a year.

The musical with its brightly colored account of the relationship between king and master would cause problems among his subjects.

We see Anna trying to introduce Western ideals and culture to the royal court, in conflict with the unyielding King Mongkut.

The tension between the two masks their growing passion. There is also passion between one of the king’s wives and her lover, a romance that Anna helps to conceal.

In reality, King Mongkut was scientific and deeply religious. He had spent the first half of his life as a Buddhist monk and founded a new Buddhist order as well as a temple in Bangkok.

He spoke Western languages ​​and after becoming king in 1851 at a time when European countries sought greater influence in the east, he skillfully maintained Siam’s independence by working with these dominant nations rather than against them.

In her diaries, Queen Victoria gives us a glimpse of how Mongkut’s diplomacy certainly won her over.

In November 1857, seven envoys from Siam presented her with a gift ‘consisting of an oriental crown of gold and enamel, with diamonds, emeralds and rubies, a gold collar, thickly studded with rubies, a large star, a massive ring set with various precious stones. , a gold belt with rubies, a state chair or throne, a rare and valuable white shell, entirely set with jewels – an agate cup and saucer, a state sedan chair, a state saddle and bridle, a number of umbrellas, covered with gold embroidery, solid gold , boxes and cups, silver embossed trays, a metal drum and various other valuable jewelry.’

Not surprisingly, she was able to say to the envoys, “I was very pleased with the presents,” although she was amused by the deference shown to her.

‘When saying goodbye, the envoys crawled backwards all the way out of the room – it was really very difficult to keep face.’

Mongkut was known for his tolerance and open-mindedness and for his determination to modernize his country, which earned him the nickname “The Father of Science and Technology” in Siam.

Having been celibate until he became king at the age of 47, he soon made up for lost time by acquiring 32 wives and, by the time of his death, at the age of 64, a total of 82 children.

The desire for the latter to be educated in the Western tradition was the reason for hiring Anne Leonowens, who taught the royal children and built a strong relationship with the eldest son, Prince Chulalongkorn.

Anna was at court for only five years and returned to England in 1867, the year before Mongkut died, after contracting malaria while attending a large gathering to celebrate the 1868 solar eclipse in Wakor, a remote spot in western Thailand, to watch.

Two years later, Anna wrote her memoirs about her time at the royal court.

It was greatly exaggerated and controversially portrayed as a tyrant. She also falsified details about her own background, claiming she was born in Wales.

In fact, she was of mixed race – her mother was English and her father Indian – at a time when she was lower class, and being half Indian would have made her a social pariah.

She wasn’t even a real governess, as she was only engaged to teach the royal children English rather than give them a well-rounded education.

Anna’s memoirs angered the Siamese court.

Thirty years after she left office, Leonowens was reunited with King Chulalongkorn when he came to London during his European tour.

Although the king kindly thanked her for her teaching, he nevertheless criticized her memoirs and asked, “Why did you write such a bad book about my father, King Mongkut?” You know you made a complete fool of him.”

The unrepentant Anna replied that she had written “the whole truth” and that Mongkut had indeed been “a ridiculous and cruel, evil man.”

The royal consternation continued well into the next century.

During a visit to the United States in 1960, the monarch of Thailand, King Bhumibol, while admitting that he had not seen the musical, nevertheless claimed that, based on what he had been told, Mongkut’s portrayal seemed 90 percent exaggerated. My great-grandfather was actually a very mild and kind man.’

Strangely enough, even though the musical was banned in Thailand, Anna’s two volumes of memoirs have always appeared in print there, translated into Thai.

Leonowens’ time in Siam only became known with the publication of a 1944 biography by Margaret Landon called Anna and the King of Siam.

This became the basis of the 1951 musical that opened on Broadway to rave reviews for stars Yul Brynner and Gertrude Lawrence.

Two years later it moved to London in the coronation year of 1953, this time with Herbert Lom as Mongkut and Valerie Hobson as Anna.

It yielded no fewer than 926 performances. Princess Margaret visited several times and played the hits on her piano at Clarence House, later returning with the Queen Mother to see it again.

The film of the same name was released in 1956 and starred Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr.

There have been many revivals in Britain alone and the current show at the Dominion Theater is the sixth West End version of the musical, a testament to Rogers and Hammerstein’s truth-changing creativity.

It’s unlucky in love again for Billie Piper as she has reportedly split from her boyfriend Johnny Lloyd after eight years together.

The former Doctor Who star, 41, and the singer, 38, who share five-year-old daughter, Tallulah, decided to end their romance after lockdown had a major impact on their relationship, according to The Sun on Sunday.

It’s not the first relationship to seemingly turn sour for the actress; she’s been divorced twice and involved in a bitter custody battle with her ex Laurence Fox. 

She famously married her first husband Chris Evans back in 2001, after dating for six months, aged just 18, with the 16-year age gap between the pair sparking controversy. 

So, amid reports that the end of Billie’s relationship to Johnny was ‘very sad’ and they are ‘better off apart’, FEMAIL takes a look at the star’s complicated relationship history… 

CHRIS EVANS 

Fans of Billie Piper were shocked when it emerged that she and Chris Evans had tied the knot in a casual Las Vegas wedding in 2001 – with just six guests.

The couple has only met a year earlier when she appeared on his TV show TFI Friday in 2000 – the next day, he sent a £110,000 Ferrari filled with roses to her home (she couldn’t drive at the time). 

She was just 18, when she wed Chris who was 16-years old her senior, sparking controversy.

The duo married in a secret Las Vegas ceremony at the Little Church of the West for which she wore flips flops and a sarong. The groom was equally casual, donning an open-necked shirt.

An 18-month sabbatical followed as the couple travelled the world, before settling at Chris’ country estate in Hascombe, Surrey. 

The couple split three years later in 2004 and the divorce was finalised in 2007, they remained on good terms with Billie likening the marriage ‘to being in your university years’.

She did not request a single penny of his estimated £30million fortune, and although citing irreconcilable differences on their divorce papers, they remained close afterwards.

Billie previously recalled how she got ‘completely hammered for three years’ with her ex-husband when she was feeling burnt out from her teen pop career. 

Speaking on David Tennant Does A Podcast With… in 2020, Billie said she had an ‘amazing time’ with Chris and described the relationship as ‘very loving.’

And when Billie had a public ‘meltdown’ in 2006, it was no surprise that it was her estranged husband to which she turned. 

Suffering from stress over her forthcoming stage debut in the intense emotional drama Treats, she was seen making a teary mobile phone call close to the rehearsal rooms where final preparations were being made for the play’s opening night.

Minutes later, Chris appeared, accompanying her to a pavement café where he tenderly held her hand as she sobbed uncontrollably.

MATT SMITH

After her marriage broke down, Bille Piper was seem looking cosy with Matt Smith, who played Doctor Who – three years before he scored the role.

Meanwhile, Billie played the Time lord’s famous assistant since its 2005 revival, while he was an unknown actor propelled to fame when chosen to star in the BBC series. 

Pictured holding hands at a Surrey fete in 2006, the pair stroll together through the crowd, drinking Pimms and enjoying the sunshine.

At this point, the two actors had just been reunited on the set of ITV2’s Piper vehicle, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, in which Smith had a minor role. They had previously worked together on BBC drama The Ruby in the Smoke.

Although Smith and Piper never announced they were officially a couple, a friend who was with them on the day they visited the fete says their chemistry was unmistakeable.

‘They were very touchy-feely and seemed really at ease with each other,’ they said. ‘Everybody assumed they were a couple by the way they were acting.’

The friend added that the two actors did not go unnoticed by the crowd. ‘A lot of people were talking about how good they looked together,’ they said.

‘They were definitely having a great time. Obviously everyone knew who Billie was – but Matt wasn’t at all famous then. It’s amazing to think he has gone on to star in Doctor Who.’

LAURENCE FOX 

Chris Evans was not Billie’s only husband – she also was married to Laurence Fox, who was famous for coming from an acting dynasty, and now for his political commentary work.

Billie first met Laurence in a theatre rehearsal room in 2006, they went on to marry a year later – she was granted a ‘quickie’ divorce from him in 2016.

She tied-the-knot with Laurence in a low-key parish church ceremony on New Year’s Eve in 2007, after a few drinks in the local pub.

They were married in a 50-minute ceremony at a village church near their £750,000 home in Eastbourne, West Sussex, with the actress wearing a formal, low-cut wedding dress in ivory with a flash of pink.

It was Billie’s former husband Chris and his new wife, Natasha Shishmanian, that made the guest list somewhat unusual.

The presenter was also the first person to visit the newly-married couple’s home, with the trio chinking glasses in a cordial toast before Chris drove to his own country pile, just a few miles away.

Laurence and Billie went on to welcome two sons, Winston, 12, and Eugene, eight.

However, the pair confirmed they had separated after eight years of marriage in 2016, and insisted that ‘no third parties involved’ in their split.

A post on his official Facebook account at the time read: ‘Laurence Fox and Billie Piper have separated. No third parties are involved. For the sake of our family we request and appeal for space and privacy at this time.’

The pair were granted a ‘quickie divorce’ in a court ruling that took just 50 seconds, citing unreasonable behaviour.

The actress, was not present when her request for a decree nisi from the actor was granted on the grounds that the marriage had ‘irretrievably broken down’ on the grounds of his ‘unreasonable behaviour’.

At the time of their split, they stated their intention to ‘co-parent their children with the utmost mutual respect for each other’.

But between 2016 and 2017, Laurence and Billie then became embroiled in a lengthy custody dispute over access to their children.

The proceedings concluded in the Family Division of the High Court in December 2017 and Laurence previously claimed that they drained his finances.

Actor Laurence revealed that he’s been forced to put his career on hold so that he can help their children cope with the aftermath of the split.

But rather than throwing himself head-first into his work, he’s had to become a full-time father to his two children.

Meanwhile Billie – who shares sons Winston, 12, and Eugene, eight, with her ex-husband Laurence Fox – told The Guardian: ‘I know about dysfunctional relationships. I know about what it costs to be a woman.’

JOHNNY LLOYD

Now Billie Piper has reportedly split from her boyfriend Johnny Lloyd after eight years together.

The former Doctor Who star, 41, and the singer, 38, who share five-year-old daughter, Tallulah, decided to end their romance after lockdown had a major impact on their relationship.

Sources told The Sun on Sunday that the end of their relationship was ‘very sad’ and they are ‘better off apart.’

A source told the publication that Billie and Johnny actually split last year.

They said: ‘It’s obviously very sad that the couple have gone their separate ways.

‘But the relationship ran its course and they decided they would be better off apart. Like many couples, lockdown was quite tough for them, so they have had time to really think about what they want their future to look like.

‘They will always treasure the time they had together and have many happy memories.

‘Now they are concentrating on co-parenting their daughter and their separate careers.’

MailOnline has contacted Billie’s representatives for a comment.

Former Doctor Who star Billie was previously married to DJ Chris Evans, who is 17 years her senior, and actor-turned-political activist Laurence Fox, 45, with whom she has two sons.

Billie and Johnny welcomed their daughter Tallulah in January 2019 after it was confirmed in July 2018 that Billie was expecting her first child with the rocker.

A source told the Mirror at the time: ‘Billie and Johnny are delighted. They can’t wait to welcome the new addition to their family.’

She revealed she would love to have more children back in February, 2018, admitting: ‘In my dream world I’d have loads.’

Elizabeth II always kept one of her favorite photos on her desk. It shows her father, King George VI, with the future Charles III on the young prince's third birthday.

Neither the queen nor her father realized at the time that the king was dying of cancer.

Seventy years later, we are experiencing a sea change in the way the royal family deals with sensitive health issues among themselves, and also in the way they communicate this to the rest of us.

There is even a huge difference in where the royal family undergoes medical procedures.

King Charles will of course be treated in hospital, but King George had his left lung removed at Buckingham Palace, where the Buhl Room was converted into a makeshift surgery.

It sounds like an amateurish operation, but staff at Westminster Hospital transformed the room (where Prince Charles was born) into a fully equipped operating room.

The operating table, made by the Genito-Urinary Manufacturing Co Ltd, was donated to the Science Museum in 1984, where a plaque 'records with gratitude the recovery of His Majesty King George VI after surgery'.

The chance of recovery was even very small, as the king's right lung was also infected and he could have lived for a maximum of two years.

Ultimately it was a coronary thrombosis, which peacefully ended the king's life in his sleep on February 6, 1952.

The truth behind the king's illness was kept hidden from both the press and the public. A bulletin issued by the palace announced that the king had undergone a 'pulmonary resection'.

This perplexed many people, including opposition leader Winston Churchill, who questioned his doctor, Charles Moran.

He told him that the use of a bronchoscope during the diagnosis and the specialties of the surgeons meant cancer for him.

As was customary at the time, the patient himself was kept in the dark. The king's official biographer, John Wheeler-Bennett, writes: 'He was not told that he was suffering from cancer – and is never known to have known it.'

His family didn't know either. Princess Margaret told a friend that her father had died “just as he was beginning to get better” and the new monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, wrote to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who knew the king when he was commander-in-chief of the Allied forces. Europe: 'It is difficult to understand that he has left us; he was so much better, and so full of ideas and plans for the future.'

Perhaps she later regretted not being fully informed about the severity of her father's illness.

Interestingly, decades into her reign, she commemorated the link between her father's death and cancer on two important occasions.

On February 6, 1992, she marked the 40th anniversary of his death by visiting Tapping House, a hospice support group in Norfolk that cared for cancer patients.

Ten years later, on the same day, she marked the start of her golden jubilee year by opening the £1.2 million Macmillan Center at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn.

The Queen Mother underwent surgery for colon cancer in December 1966, but chose to avoid it for the rest of her life.

The first the public knew was when it was announced that she had gone to King Edward VII Hospital in Marylebone for 'observation'. Four days later, a bulletin claimed she had undergone a procedure for “the relief of a partial intestinal obstruction.”

A persistent myth is that she had a colostomy – a rumor that even appeared in her obituary in The Times in 2002.

Her official biographer William Shawcross wrote 'this was not true', although he added that nevertheless 'the cancer from which she had suffered was serious.' She of course made a full recovery, the cancer did not reoccur and she performed royal duties for another 34 years.

The public also remained in the dark about the declining health of the Duke of Windsor.

His impending death in May 1972 made daily headlines in the world press, but even 24 hours before Edward's death, his private secretary John Utter denied rumors that the Duke had cancer.

This was supposedly an attempt to protect the exiled king's privacy and after his death on May 28, it was made clear that he had indeed died of throat cancer.

King Charles' willingness to share his cancer diagnosis, even if its specific nature remains unclear, is not only a welcome sign of transparency in the way the palace communicates such sensitive news, but also highlights certain health concerns.

When it was announced in January that the King would undergo treatment for an enlarged prostate the following morning, the NHS website page on the subject was visited eleven times more than the day before, with a total of 16,410 hits.

If this and the announcement of cancer cause more men to contact their own doctors, and even one life is saved, then the king will at least be happy that he can be a force for good.

Winston Churchill was given the only state funeral of Elizabeth II’s reign, apart from that of her father King George VI and it was a sign of the respect not only she but the whole nation held him in. 

In what is the 150th anniversary year of Churchill’s birth, Ian Lloyd looks back on the extraordinary relationship between the Queen and her favourite Prime Minister

During her Silver Jubilee year the Queen was asked by a former courtier which Prime Minister she had enjoyed her audiences with the most. 

‘Winston of course,’ came the instant reply, ‘because it was always such fun.’

Three jubilees and a posse of PMs later, if asked the same question, her answer, without doubt, would have been exactly the same.

Churchill was 78 when Elizabeth became Queen at 25. He had entered parliament when her great great grandmother Queen Victoria was alive, and although an imposing figure to the young monarch he was one she had known all her life.

As far back as 1928 he was invited to Balmoral and encountered Elizabeth aged two.

 ‘She is a character,’ he wrote to his wife Clementine. ‘She had an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant.’

During the darkest days of the war the Churchills sent a bouquet to Elizabeth to mark her 15th birthday in April 1941. 

She sent him a handwritten note offering her sympathy for the ‘very worrying time’ he’d had of late.

Four years later on VE Day he was invited to join Elizabeth and Margaret, together with the King and Queen, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to acknowledge the cheers of a grateful nation.

Like everyone else he was shocked at the untimely death of George VI at the age of 56. In fact he was prostrate with grief and unable to write the speech he had to make.

With tears pouring down his face he told his private secretary, John Colville, his concerns at serving the new young monarch.

‘I don’t know her,’ he sobbed. ‘She’s a mere child. I knew the King so well.’

 Colville, who had been Elizabeth’s Private Secretary from 1947-9, reassured him. ‘You will find her very much the reverse of being a child.’

There was more emotion from the elderly premier at London airport the following afternoon as Elizabeth descended the steps of a BOAC Argonaut. 

Churchill, once again with tears rolling down his face, was there to greet her with other senior politicians and her uncle the Duke of Gloucester.

Elizabeth was at first overawed by her Prime Minister. On his first visit to Balmoral later that year, the mostly young house party were, according to one who was there, ‘petrified’ at having to entertain the war hero, but the visit was a great success. 

They soon developed a mutual admiration and Prince Charles would liken it to the strong bond felt by the young Queen Victoria for her first premier, Lord Melbourne.

The new queen continued George VI’s tradition of meeting the Prime Minister on Tuesday evenings. Churchill would dress in old style frock coat and top hat and the meetings, originally scheduled to last 30 minutes grew and grew to two or three times the length.

When Colville asked him what they talked about, all he was told was an evasive ‘Oh – racing.’ 

His daughter Mary Soames later recalled, ‘they spent a lot of the audience talking about horses.’ 

Bizarrely after one meeting he revealed, ‘she asked me about my pig-sticking days on the North-West Frontier…’

But the audiences were about more than that and the Prime Minister was impressed by Elizabeth’s conscientiousness and grasp of detail: ‘What a very attractive and intelligent woman,’ he said after one of their meetings.

He was less euphoric when once, he failed to read two very important telegrams from the British ambassador in Iraq during a Middle Eastern crisis. 

‘I was extremely interested,’ said the Queen, ‘in that telegram from Baghdad,’ and went on to list three or four points that she had elicited from it. 

The shamefaced PM made sure he read every vital telegram before his audiences after that.

Elizabeth’s Private Secretary Tommy Lascelles recorded in his diary: ‘I could not hear what they talked about, but it was, more often than not, punctuated by peals of laughter, and Winston generally came out wiping his eyes. 

‘”She’s en grande beauté ce soir,” he said one evening in his schoolboy French.’

According to biographer Elizabeth Longford, soon after her accession, the Queen told a friend. 

 ‘I no longer feel anxious or worried. I don’t know – what it is but I have lost all my timidity somehow becoming the Sovereign and having to receive the Prime Minister.

Churchill, always a royalist, developed almost an infatuation with the young Queen. 

Within a year of her accession he confided in his doctor, Lord Moran: ‘All the film people in the world, if they had scoured the globe, could not have found anyone so suited for the part.’ 

Anthony Montague Browne, Colville’s successor as private secretary recalled: ‘My most vivid memory of the Prime Minister’s feelings for the Queen is seeing him gazing with great tenderness at a charming photograph she had given him, with a warm inscription.

‘It showed her laughing and happy as she returned from the State Opening of Parliament. “Isn’t she a winner?” he said.’

Not that it was all plain sailing between the monarch and the statesman. Asked by a former courtier at the time if Churchill treated her indulgently the Queen’s reply was revealing.

‘Not at all. I sometimes find him very obstinate.’

This obstinacy became apparent just twelve days after the death of the king. Queen Mary had heard that the Duke of Edinburgh’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten, was boasting, somewhat chauvinistically, ‘that the House of Mountbatten now reigned.’

Determined that the House of Windsor, the name of the dynasty chosen by her husband George V in 1917, should remain, Mary summoned Churchill’s private secretary to see her. 

The PM and the Cabinet backed the old lady and the Queen was forced to issue a proclamation that she and her descendants would bear the name of Windsor.   

Prince Philip was devastated. ‘It hurt him; it really hurt him,’ said his cousin Patricia Mountbatten years later.

Although he was no fan of Philip’s, it was Churchill who, in March 1955, first proposed to the Queen that her husband should be given the title of Prince of the United Kingdom, in recognition for his services to the country, a decision that was formalised two years later, long after the PM had retired.

Churchill was also obstinate about where the Queen would reside. Having only moved into the redecorated Clarence House in 1949, she and the Duke were reluctant to leave.

Someone suggested they continue to live there and to use Buckingham Palace as an office. 

‘She was delighted with the idea,’ recalled Mike Parker, Philip’s Private Secretary. Churchill had other ideas.

 For over a century the palace had been the centre of the empire and at the heart of the monarchy.

‘To the palace they must go,’ harrumphed the old warhorse. Parker drove with the royal couple on their last commute from Clarence House: ‘and I can assure you that there was not a dry eye in that car.’

The Queen was solicitous about Churchill’s health. Amazingly his stroke during the Coronation summer of 1953, when he was still in office, was covered up from the press and public and Elizabeth was one of only a few people aware of it. 

Ten weeks after he had the stroke, she sent an invitation to the PM and his wife to watch the St Leger race day at Doncaster on 11 September from the royal enclosure, before joining her on the royal train for a break at Balmoral. 

‘It was a target and a test,’ wrote his daughter Mary Soames.

‘Everyone from the Queen and her family downwards made much of them.’ The Queen told a friend that the improvement in his health was ‘astonishing.’

Elizabeth venerated her first minister in a way she would never repeat during her reign. 

In 1952 she commissioned sculptor Oscar Nemon to make a bust of Churchill which is still on display at Windsor Castle. 

The following year she made him a Knight of the Garter, the only PM to receive the honour while in office. For his 80th birthday in 1954 she sent him a set of silver wine coasters and some flowers for his 90th.

The Queen was genuinely saddened when Churchill retired in April 1955. On the 4th he hosted a dinner at 10 Downing Street attended by the Queen and Duke. When he visited the palace to formally resign the following day, she came out on to the landing to meet him before escorting him in to her study. 

He left, once again, in floods of tears.

Shortly afterwards Elizabeth wrote to him from Windsor to say how much she missed him and that none of his successors, ‘will ever, for me, be able to hold the place of my first Prime Minister, to whom both my husband and I owe so much and for whose wise guidance during the early years of my reign I shall always be so profoundly grateful.’

Winston Churchill suffered a cerebral haemorrhage on 15 January 1965. The Queen who was staying at Sandringham House for her New Year holiday asked to be kept informed about his condition.

The end finally came on 24 January, and later the same day the Queen wrote to Lady Churchill to tell her that Winston’s death had ’caused inexpressible grief to me and my husband.’

Elizabeth’s suggestion of a state funeral had actually been made in 1958 after Churchill suffered a bout of pneumonia. 

‘It was entirely owing to the Queen that it was a state funeral,’ recalled Mary Soames. 

‘She indicated that to him several years before he died, and he was gratified.’

 It would be the only non-royal state funeral of Elizabeth’s reign – Margaret Thatcher’s was a ceremonial funeral as were those of Princess Diana, the Queen Mother and Prince Philip.

 (The two types are very similar. The main difference is that the Earl Marshal and his team of Heralds organise a state funeral and the hearse is drawn by naval ratings as they were at the funeral of Elizabeth II).

Shortly before the funeral the Queen and Duke, accompanied by Princess Margaret and her husband, Lord Snowdon, attended the lying in state, in Westminster Hall. 

They stood dressed in black before the catafalque for five minutes, unseen by the line of public mourners snaking its way through the hushed building. Both royal ladies were seen to turn and whisper to their husbands before leaving after five minutes.

The Churchill family was allowed to use some of the Queen’s carriages for the funeral procession through the streets of London, with rugs and hot-water bottles thoughtfully added.

The Queen broke with precedent before the service by arriving before members of the Churchill family – giving them the place of honour. 

According to Mary Soames Elizabeth also instructed them ‘not to curtsy or bow as we passed her, because it would have held everything up.’

After the private family committal at Bladon in Oxfordshire, two wreaths were placed on the grave – one from the statesman’s family. The other bore the handwritten message ‘From the Nation and the Commonwealth.

 In grateful remembrance. Elizabeth R.

Royal governess Marion Crawford claimed that young Elizabeth's name for her beloved grandfather, King George V, was 'Grandpa England'.

Princess Margaret later denied this, claiming that 'we were far too afraid to call him anything other than Grandpa.'

George was a gruff former naval officer who ruled his sons with an iron rod.

His much-quoted comment to the Earl of Derby (although possibly apocryphal) is telling: 'My father was afraid of his mother, I was afraid of my father, and I'm going to do damn well to make sure my children are afraid as I am. .'

There is no doubt that he adored his eldest granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth, and that she in turn revered him.

In the spring of 1927, Elizabeth's parents made an extended tour of Australia and New Zealand, leaving the baby with both sets of grandparents.

In March, George V wrote to the Duchess of York: “Your dear little daughter now has four teeth, which is quite good at eleven months.”

The following spring, the King and Queen asked Bertie and Elizabeth if their baby could stay at Sandringham as they wanted more time with her.

When she finally returned to London with her nanny, the king wrote to his son: “I miss your dear baby more than I can say, breakfast and tea are very different without her.” He thought the Norfolk atmosphere agreed with her because “she's made a lot of progress.”

In the fall of 1928, George contracted blood poisoning and nearly died. The following spring his doctors prescribed sea air and he and the queen went to Bognor to recuperate. Baby Elizabeth arrived, in the words of biographer Harold Nicolson, as “a soothe for jaded nerves.”

She walked next to his wheelchair along the sea and baked shortbread in the garden.

One day the Archbishop of Canterbury arrived to find the king on all fours on the carpet playing horse with his granddaughter, who was leading him by his beard.

George was less interested in Elizabeth's education than Queen Mary, but he did have one request from Marion Crawford.

He said to her, “Teach Margaret and Lilibet to write decent handwriting. That's all I ask of you. None of my children can write well.'

George V died when Elizabeth was three months away from her tenth birthday. She and Princess Margaret had spent Christmas 1935 with their grandparents, but as the King's health deteriorated over the New Year, it was thought better that the young girls return to London on 17 January, three days before his death.

Elizabeth was taken by her mother to witness the historic wake of the princes, when her father and his three brothers briefly stood guard at King George's coffin at 12.15pm on January 28.

In retrospect, it was a poignant moment, as both George VI and the late Elizabeth II, eyewitnesses to this event, were also said to lie in state at the same spot.

Later that same day, the Princess attended Grandpa England's funeral at St George's Chapel, Windsor.

There are more than passing similarities between George V and Elizabeth in the way she came to view her role and how she handled specific situations.

During both governments, the monarchy became more accessible to the people.

Over the years, George and Mary visited the industrial heartlands of the North, the Midlands and Wales. 'Away days' and longer tours were also a staple of Elizabeth II's reign. She crisscrossed the United Kingdom more than any previous monarch.

Elizabeth II, like her grandfather, considered herself a trustee of the monarchy. Both were keen to see it continue beyond their own time.

By the time of his death in January 1936, George was already worried about his successor, Edward VIII.

“After I die,” he said prophetically, “the boy will ruin himself within twelve months.”

Another comment from the King-Emperor – or one he is said to have made – is even more prescient:

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

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will keep his job despite not telling Joe Biden he was having surgery and would be away for five days.

The top Pentagon official did not tell the White House about a planned surgery that left him hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on New Year’s Day due to complications.

The 70-year-old Austin is just below Biden at the top of the US military’s command structure, and his duties require him to be available at a moment’s notice.

A Pentagon spokesperson told DailyMail.com that Austin “resumed full duties from the hospital” Friday evening, and that he was still in the hospital Sunday morning but “recovering well.”

Despite a barrage of criticism from members of Congress over his mysterious disappearance, White House aides have said Politics that his job is not in jeopardy.

Several also highlighted Biden’s deep personal bond with Austin, thanks to the former four-star general’s close friendship with the president’s late son, Beau Biden.

But aides couldn’t say what led to the bizarre situation: what Austin’s surgery entailed, what the medical complications were or even his current condition.

Some officials who spoke to Politico on condition of anonymity said a senior Pentagon official is likely to lose his job because of the chaos.

“Someone needs to roll their heads,” said a former defense official.

“Someone decided not to make it public,” another ex-official agreed. That person will probably be gone soon.”

‘I won’t tell [White House], Congress or the media that he is sick, and then telling the Pentagon staff that he is working from home is the next level. This is a problem.’

Some officials also noted that Alabama-born Austin was close to Beau Biden after they served together in Iraq and attended Catholic services side by side.

Lower-level assistants, including Sasha Baker and his deputy Kathleen Hicks, have replaced Austin in the interim. Hicks was reportedly on vacation in Puerto Rico but had to attend to some duties.

Five days after the top national security official disappeared from the radar, Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder offered a limited explanation for his absence.

“On the evening of January 1, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center due to complications following a recent elective medical procedure,” Ryder said.

“He is recovering well and expects to resume full duties today. The Deputy Minister of Defense was at all times prepared, if necessary, to act on behalf of the Minister and to exercise the powers of the Minister.”

Just a day earlier, Ryder gave a televised news briefing that conveyed a sense of business as usual at the Pentagon, offering Austin’s condolences to ally Japan after the New Year’s Day earthquake, for example.

But the past week has been anything but normal for the Pentagon, with US forces in the Middle East grappling with the regional fallout from the unfolding Israel-Hamas war and launching a US retaliatory strike in Baghdad on Thursday.

The Defense Department’s handling of Austin’s hospitalization contrasts with the State Department’s handling of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s prostate surgery on December 15, 2003.

The then-State Department spokesman issued a statement in the morning disclosing that Powell, a retired four-star general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, underwent surgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and remained there for several days would stay. before returning home.

It also said Powell would have a reduced schedule while he recovered from the surgery. Then-State Department spokesman Richard Boucher subsequently provided details of Powell’s operation in his daily briefing.

Contacted by Reuters on Friday, Boucher said the main question regarding disclosure was whether Austin was under anesthesia or incapacitated.

“Was there a point in the process when he could not function as Secretary of Defense?” he asked. “If you’re walking around and you have information and you have assistants in the next room and you can make split-second decisions… then there’s probably no public need to make this public.

“The only necessity is to get you thrown out,” he added.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has admitted he made a mistake in concealing a serious illness that sent him into intensive care from the White House.

In a statement released Saturday, Austin said, “I also understand the media’s concerns about transparency and recognize that I could have done a better job of ensuring the public was properly informed. I am committed to doing better. But it is important to say: this was my medical procedure and I take full responsibility for my disclosure decisions.”

Austin has not disclosed the nature of his illness, which, according to the Associated Press, was caused by complications during a minor procedure at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland. The administrative staff thought he was on vacation.

It was reported on Saturday that the Pentagon – which Austin heads – had not informed the White House of his condition for three days. Shockingly, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks was on vacation at the same time, leaving the department rudderless. A Pentagon spokesman said Hicks could work remotely from Puerto Rico.

Such secrecy, at a time when the United States is facing a host of national security crises — as well as the Israeli-Hamas conflict and the war in Ukraine — runs counter to normal practice by which the president and other senior U.S. officials and Cabinet members be the first. be informed.

Austin, 70, remains in the hospital after complications from a minor medical procedure, his press secretary said.

His statement continued: “I would like to thank the wonderful physicians and nursing staff at Walter Reed for the exceptional care they provided me and for the personal warmth they showed my family. I also appreciate all the help and good wishes from colleagues and friends. Charlene and I are very grateful for your support.

“I’m very happy that I’m doing better and I look forward to returning to the Pentagon soon.”

Austin was last seen in public on December 20 when he visited the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford in the eastern Mediterranean to personally thank crew members for their service.

Those working at the Pentagon had no idea what was going on, thinking Austin had been on a weeklong Christmas vacation.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder has since said the White House and Joint Chiefs of Staff were notified of Austin’s hospitalization, but did not reveal when they first heard of the news.

Some U.S. officials said Saturday that many of the Pentagon’s top brass did not know Austin was in the hospital until Friday at the earliest.

Officials said President Joe Biden and other senior White House staff had been notified, but officials were closely monitoring the information about when they were told.

Ryder said members of Congress were notified late Friday afternoon, and other officials said lawmakers were notified after 5 p.m.

In a statement, Ryder said Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks was at all times “prepared to act for and exercise the Secretary’s authority as necessary.”

It was not clear when key senior members of Austin’s staff were notified, but across the Pentagon many employees found out when the department released a statement about Austin’s hospital stay just minutes after 5 p.m.

Ryder said Saturday that Austin is recovering well and returned to full duties from his hospital bed Friday evening.

When asked why the hospital stay was kept secret for so long, Ryder said it was an “evolving situation” and that the Pentagon was not disclosing Austin’s absence due to privacy and medical concerns.

Ryder declined to provide further details about Austin’s medical procedure or health.

The Pentagon Press Association, which represents media members who cover the Defense Department, sent a letter of protest Friday evening to Ryder and Chris Meagher, the assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs.

“The fact that he has been at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for four days and the Pentagon is only now alerting the public late on a Friday evening is an outrage,” the PPA said in its letter.

“At a time when there are increasing threats to U.S. military personnel in the Middle East and the U.S. plays a major national security role in the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it is especially critical that the American public is informed about health status. and the decision-making capabilities of its top defense chief.”

Austin’s hospitalization comes as Iranian-backed militias have repeatedly launched drones, rockets and missiles at bases where U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq and Syria, prompting several pushback from the Biden administration.

These attacks are said to have involved sensitive discussions and decisions at the highest levels by Austin and other key military leaders.

The US is also the main organizer behind a new international maritime coalition using ships and other assets to patrol the southern Red Sea to deter continued attacks on commercial vessels by Houthi militants in Yemen.

Furthermore, the administration, and especially Austin, has been at the forefront of providing weapons and training to Ukraine, as well as communicating regularly with the Israelis about their war against Hamas.