Mirabel, do you not find it an irony that the character George V condemns to a single, childless life is one of his own creation. I would never deny that he was a good man, solid and dependable, he knew his duty and did it - he was also a narrow minded bigot! This was a man who boasted that he "would make damn sure his children were afraid of him." I believe he suceeded in that beyond his own (limited) expectations - and to whom do these frightened children turn for comfort? Well, certainly not the mother who "always had to remember that their father is first their King" Any boys born of this unfortunate alliance are quite likely to arrive at adulthood lacking in confidence,hooked on anything which "makes it feel better"-drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex. Some will follow a straight line only b ecause they don't have the confidence to do other than whilst others wll do whatever it takes to rid themselves of it and the memories it evokes. All in all these men will be pretty hopeless characters who most definately will be made or marred by the women they marry. This is indeed what transpired. The pretty, fluffy Elizabeth very gently and lovingly hauled her Bertie up by his bootstrings. It was she who cured his speech impediment, well, she found a man who could! She made him believe in himself, no mean feat when someone has had a lifetime of emotional abuse, but there was so much more to Elizabeth than a dainty exterior-there needed to be, she had taken on the challenge of a lifetime!-inside was pure steel which she used to first recreate the damaged man and then create the King. Poor David had much less going for him, For starters, expectations of him had always been so much higher and he was never going to live up to them-his father's treatment of him made quite certain of that and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that George and Mary knew that there was at least a questionmark about whether David would ever be able to father children. I believe Ziegler looks at this in his bio. David and Bertie both caught mumps at the same time, Being in their early teens both were pretty poorly but whilst Bertie recovered David had orchitis which in a boy who has yet to attain sexual maturity is VERY bad news for the future, to say nothing of the dreadful pain the poor boy must have suffered at the time.Did this illness, which struck at THE very worst possible time for a developing male retard his sexual development thus rendering him sterile? We will, of course never know the answer to that, but if we look at the adult David we see a tiny figure, smooth skin, face and body devoid of hair, boyish looks into middleage, lack of maturity in his thought processes and according to Ziegler somewhat undeveloped genitalia. We also have Wallis's own assertion that "David is not heir conditioned
I will reiterate that I believe she did England THE most enormous favour by removing him from us, she MAY have earned a title for that alone!!! Nonetheless my heart aches for all that generation of little Windsors, especially David. Good, wise and diligent monarchs they undoubtedly were but as parents, IMO George and Mary leave much to be desired.