Daylight Upon Magic

19th-20th century royalty, art, history & more. // main account: george-the-good

[george-the-good]

King George VI on board HMS Renown, Plymouth, August 2, 1945 (British Pathé)

[daylight-upon-magic]

@george-the-good is my main account, focused on King George VI. Feel free to follow!

[daylight-upon-magic]

SPRINGWOOD at London’s Hampstead Theatre (2026)

Andrew Havill as King George VI with Robert Lindsay (Franklin D. Roosevelt) and Rebecca Night (Queen Elizabeth)

The play, written and directed by Richard Nelson (based on his 2012 film Hyde Park on Hudson), explores the meeting between the King and FDR, together with their wives, at the titular presidential retreat in Hyde Park, N.Y., on the eve of the Second World War.

[historicalroyalresearcher]

from George V’s diary

‘Young Prince George of Wales is said to be covered with tattooings of mermaids and dolphins’ and George wrote underneath this cut out from a newspaper: ‘How the devil do they know?’

[spiritundaunted]

“Do not lose heart. Life is a great adventure, and every one of you can be a pioneer, blazing by thought and service a trail to better things.”

King George VI, in a speech on Empire Day, May 24, 1939, from Winnipeg, Canada

[daylight-upon-magic]

The Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Gloucester, November 1982.

[7pleiades7]

The Black Brook (1908) by John Singer Sargent (American, 1856 – 1925), oil on canvas, 69.8 cm (27.4 in) x 55.2 cm (21.7 in), Tate Britain

[quelizabethii]

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and Princess Elizabeth (future Queen Elizabeth II) walking together in London c. 1951

[princesselizabethh-deactivated2]

Lady Pamela Mountbatten, lady-in-waiting, adjusts Queen Elizabeth's stole at the Royal Ball in Melbourne, March 1954

[spiritundaunted]

H.R.H. The Duke of York (later King George VI) with the Hon. Michael Bowes Lyon at Glamis Castle in 1935.

[daylight-upon-magic]

A box containing a piece of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s wedding cake.

The box is inscribed ‘A piece of our wedding cake’ with the date ‘3-VI-37’. The couple have both signed it ‘WE’ (Wallis & Edward).

The cake sold at Sotheby’s Windsor auction in 1998, fetching US$29,900 - making it the world’s most expensive slice of wedding cake. The auction brought in over $23 million and generated much publicity; there was even a Seinfeld episode about the cake!

[spiritundaunted]

12th September 1933 - Duke and Duchess of York (King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) landing at Kyleakin, on the Isle of Skye. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Kyleakin, 2026

[theroyalhistory]

Lady Maud Carnegie (Princess Maud of Fife; later the Countess of Southesk), 1924  

[spiritundaunted]

Memorial plaque in the floor of the Thistle Chapel at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh.

This was a surprise find for me - just stumbled across it! I always love to see beloved Bertie remembered!

🥹 🤴🏻

A little about the plaque:

It is set into the floor of the Thistle Chapel and was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II on 4 July 1962, ten years after her father's death in February 1952.

The plaque is a panel of granite with a bronze border and bronze lettering. The Royal Arms of Scotland in the middle are made from inlaid pieces of marble.

The designer was Esmé Gordon, a Scottish architect who knew the chapel well; he had published a guidebook to St Giles' and the Thistle Chapel in 1959.

St Giles’ Cathedral is the spiritual headquarters of the Order of the Thistle, Scotland’s highest chivalric order. George VI was Sovereign of the Order of the Thistle, so the chapel was the natural Scottish setting to commemorate him.

It was part of a wider commemorative effort for the King that included a plaque dedicated at Sandringham in December 1956 and a bust at Crathie Kirk near Balmoral in September 1957.

His permanent burial place at the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor wasn't dedicated until March 1969, so for years these remembrances, as well as the William McMillan statue of him on the Mall in London (unveiled by his daughter the Queen in 1955), were the main physical memorials to him.

The Chapel itself was dedicated by his father, King George V, in 1911.

The top of the Thistle Chapel, looking up from the King George VI memorial plaque. A beautiful setting.

When Queen Elizabeth II's coffin rested in St Giles' for the Vigil on 12–13 September 2022, it lay close to her father's floor plaque. 🥲💔

[rroyfamily]

Princess Elizabeth (Queen Elizabeth II) with her father King George VI, probably 1947

[spiritundaunted]

King George VI visiting naval ships in 1942.

Of one of the King's many visits to the Fleet, war correspondent Commander Anthony Kimmins described in a BBC broadcast:

"... when our King comes to visit his ships, we feel it is just a little bit different. Just a little bit extra. You see, to us he isn't only a very distinguished visitor; he isn't only our King. He's a sailor; one of us.

A man who has been through all our early Naval training, who has experienced all the hard discipline of the Naval College, who has weathered all the traditional leg-haulings and pitfalls of those first days at sea, and above all has had actual battle experience at Jutland.

Watch him coming down the steep ladders from the fore-bridge. There's no taking them backwards or grasping the hand-rails and cautiously picking his way down on his heels.

Oh no, it's a surefooted run down with a swing off the handrail at the bottom. Countless hours as a midshipman of the watch taught him that little trick. He moves like us and he speaks our language, so do not blame us if we feel just a little — what shall I say? — possessive."

quoted from Captains and Kings, The Royal Family and the Royal Navy, 1901-1981 by John Winton

[spiritundaunted]

Wearing goggles, King George VI, second from right, rides in a Bren gun carrier when he and Queen Elizabeth inspected a Canadian division stationed in England, May 18, 1942.

[daylight-upon-magic]

Jacqueline Kennedy and her sister Lee Radziwill, with their respective children, watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, May 13, 1965.