Gerard described the full panoply of events in a detailed, five-page afterwards. The Bolsheviks had murdered the King’s first cousin once removed, the last Russian czar, Nicholas II, in 1918. Sitting alongside him was the Soviet Foreign Secretary Maxim Litvinov. That the Soviets were there at all is remarkable and a testament to the importance of diplomatic considerations over personal factors regarding the royal family. The military men wore dress uniforms with feathered hats whereas Ambassador Gerard donned his specially tailored black breeches. Reports described the rousing cheers received by the American delegation and the splendor of their sartorial selections. Newspapers breathlessly reported on the ceremonies and associated pageantry. It is a flowery note written in a style that must have seemed antiquated even in 1937.įile copy of the President’s letter to King George VI, President’s Official File 48, folder Coronation, FDR Library. The President also sent his formal congratulations to the King, not through a diplomatic cable, but by hand directly from Ambassador Gerard to the King himself. The New York Daily News and the Buffalo News, both April 1937. Newspaper stories regarding budgets and breeches. More recently, Gerard had reviewed Mein Kampf for the New York Times, castigating Hitler, Nazi German anti-Semitism, and Hitler’s “hymn of hate.” He had also defeated FDR in the Democratic primary for US Senator in 1914. A prominent New York attorney, he was deeply involved in Democratic Party politics. Gerard was a particularly interesting choice. Pershing, General of the Armies Admiral Hugh Rodman, retired Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet and former Ambassador to Germany James Gerard. Instead, he sent ministers extraordinaire to represent the United States. To this day, no American President has attended a British coronation.
Roosevelt, January 5, 1937, PSF, Diplomatic Correspondence, Box 32, Great Britain, 1937-1938, FDR Library.įDR did not attend the coronation. Bingham, outlined the general view of the British Establishment (as well as his own) on the recent abdication crisis and the qualities of the new King and Queen in the first two pages of the letter below.
Our Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Robert W. George VI had assumed the throne upon the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII, who decamped for France in favor of life with the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. To many in the United Kingdom, the coronation was a welcome relief after the royal and constitutional tumult of 1936. In 1937, FDR was invited to the crowning of King George VI, the current king’s grandfather, the main event in four days of coronation celebrations. Saturday, May 6th, marks the coronation of King Charles III in London. King George VI (MO 1975.90a) and his wife Queen Elizabeth (MO 1975.90b) by Frank Ernest Beresford, 1937, FDR Library.
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