George VI the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, J. H. Thomas. King George V had severe reservations about Prince Edward, saying "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months" and "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne." On 20 January 1936, George V died and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. In the Vigil of the Princes, Prince Albert and his three brothers took a shift standing guard over their father's body as it lay in state, in a closed
Saint George to the saint in England is a church at Fordington, Dorset that is mentioned in the will of Alfred the Great. Saint George did not rise to the position of "patron saint" of England, however, until the 14th century, and he was still obscured by Edward the Confessor, the traditional patron saint of England, until in 1552 during the reign of Edward VI all saints' banners other than George's were abolished in the English Reformation. Belief in an apparition of St. George heartened the Franks at the Battle of Antioch in 1098, which made a similar appearance the following year