John Hubert Ward monarchs. He was appointed Equerry to King Edward VII 28 February 1902, and served until the King′s death in 1910. He was then an Extra Equerry to King George V 1910-1936, to King Edward VIII in 1936, and to King George VI from 1937 until the following year, when he died. Ward's engagement to Jean Templeton Reid (1884–1962) was announced in April 1908. She was the daughter of Whitelaw Reid, American ambassador to the United Kingdom, sister of Ogden Mills Reid, a New York publisher, the granddaughter of Darius Ogden Mills, an American financier, and the niece of Ogden Mills,
George VI desire to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. British prime minister Stanley Baldwin advised Edward that for political and religious reasons he could not marry a divorced woman and remain king. Edward abdicated to marry Simpson, and George ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor. During George's reign, the break-up of the British Empire and its transition into the Commonwealth of Nations accelerated. The parliament of the Irish Free State removed direct mention of the monarch from the country's constitution on the day of his accession. The following year, a new Irish constitution changed the