19th February, 1952

Dear Hubert,

I have sent you a copy of the Times in which the death of the King was announced, from which you will see that when our King dies we take practically no thought for the rest of the world.

I wish I could convey to you somehow what the death of our King means to us. In some ways it is like the death of a relative or dear friend and quite unlike the death of a statesman, even one so great as Churchill. He is the personal King of each one of us, the symbol and chief guardian of our way of life and the upholder of our inherited freedoms as embodied in our unwritten constitution.

George VI was a specially good king because he did all this, but also because he maintained the highest standards of dignity, decency and duty in public life, while in his private life he was essentially a family man - and all sane people realise the family to be the unit of civilised life.

He was in many ways what most of us try to be; an ordinary, well-balanced man, doing our job to the best of our ability, not shirking the unpleasant or dangerous duty when it is presented to us, and trying to be a good husband and father. He was not brilliant, which is perhaps one reason why we like him, for the British distrust brilliance, preferring the man who is honest and well-intentioned. He found it hard to be a king; by nature rather shy, cursed with a stammer and not possessing an aptitude for the limelight, he yet did his best and what he felt to be his duty and by doing just those two things he won our hearts, for no man can do more...

I have a feeling, Hubert, that the death of George VI and the accession of Elizabeth II will do much to explain to you those curious people the British with their sense of history, their adherence to an unwritten constitution, their feeling for pageantry and their complete inability to imagine a world without their power and influence.

Since I wrote the foregoing I have seen the King's funeral. To call it impressive and moving is an understatement. I stood for three hours (with Susan and a girl friend of hers) in Hyde Park where there were 100,000 silent people. It was cold, but the sun shone fitfully. Personally I am opposed to the typical pageantry of funerals, in private funerals at least, but this was a national occasion and I think we can claim to having a gift for pageantry on public occasions.

This was a Royal funeral and not an affair of the people so that the ordinary elements of public life, with which the King is not specially connected were not represented. Even the Cabinet Ministers were not in the procession, though they were at the interment at Windsor. But the King is head of the Navy, Army and Air Force and, of course, of his household. So the procession began with representative contingents of the forces, marching in slow time to their bands with muffled drums. Among them were three Field Marshals, Montgomery, Ironside and Alanbrooke. Then, after a space, came the cortege headed by the Duke of Norfolk who is hereditary Earl Marshal of England and as such responsible for royal ceremonies like this one. Then the King's household and retainers, including his personal valet, who incidentally was the one who found him dead in bed. Then the gun carriage, pulled by a team of sailors, marching in dead regular ranks with perfect rhythm. The gun carriage itself was a thing of quite incredible beauty to which no photograph can do justice. Draped over the coffin was the gold and scarlet Royal standard and on it, glittering in the sunshine, the crown, sceptre and orb, together with the Queen Mother's wreath of white flowers fluttering gently in the breeze. You and I, Hubert, understand something of symbolic design and here was a perfect example.
It was a worthy centre and climax to an array of colour and form in uniforms and carriages, all of which made up a sombrely magnificent spectacle which you would have appreciated as a living work of art. Incidentally, the superb horses would have gladdened your Texan eye. I specially remember the Commissioner of Police mounted on a wonderful 15 or 16 hand grey with long tail and mane, followed by two mounted policemen on a matched pair of greys.

Behind the gun carriage, the eighteenth century coach in which one could see veiled black figures and make out, on the side where I stood, the Queen and Princess Margaret. Then followed on foot the four Royal dukes, the late King's two brothers, Windsor and Gloucester, the Duke of Edinburgh and the young Duke of Kent. Then the foreign kings, presidents and representatives in a series of groups and a great array of uniforms. More troops, the police and the fire service and so the end.

The slow moving, solemn, spectacular procession passing in perfect order and dignity between the still, bareheaded ranks of the King's mourning subjects, the throb of the muffled drums, the measured beat of the funeral marches and, behind in the park, the minute by minute boom of guns, made an unforgettable memory. A pageant of death if you like, but of a King's death and of a King beloved by the millions who watched.

I have seen in my time many State processions. I saw the Jubilee of George V and Queen Mary, the funeral of George V, the funeral of Earl Haig, (the coffin followed by Foch and Pershing), the funeral of Queen Alexandra, the driving of George VI and Queen Elizabeth to St. Paul's Cathedral to give thanks for the ending of the war, the great Victory Parade of all arms, the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh; these are outstanding among many, but none have been quite so moving and impressive as this.

When we started to write to one another, Hubert, you said we should get to know one another better as an American and an Englishman because by so doing we should do a little to bind our two countries together. It is with this end in view that I have specially tried in this letter to convey to you what I have seen and felt over the death of a King and the accession of a Queen. My experiences and feelings are those of the British people in general; of that I am quite sure.