The King's Speech

By: Mark Logue and Peter Conradi

If you watched the 2010 Academy Award Winner for Best Picture of the year The King's Speech and liked it you should read this book, it's 100 times better with 100 times more information.

It's a story of a royal and a commoner.  A patient and his speech therapist.  But, most important an odd couple of friends.

Lionel Louge was an Australian born man with a knack for speaking in public.  When he was in his teens he was already cast in plays and giving speeches much to the delight of the Aussie crowds.  When it came time for him to decide what he wanted to do with his life he decided that he wanted to help people speak  who had problems speaking.  He was very good at his job.   He and his wife moved to London so he could expand his business in England.

Prince Albert, Duke of York was the second child of  George V, King of the United Kingdom, British Dominions, and Emperor of India.  The second child of a king can live a life of relative obscurity, while they are in fact usually second in the line of succession the limelight is not thrust upon them as it is with the heir to the throne.  Prince Albert grew up not knowing his parents very well and in the care of an abusive nanny.  He and siblings were the subject of spankings for no reason from the nanny.  Once he was about eight it became clear that something was wrong with his voice, he would stutter or stammer especially when he got nervous.  His father became King in 1910 with the death of Albert's grandfather King Edward VII.  From then on his life changed he was expected to do more than just simply be the second son of the heir to the throne.  He and his older brother Edward both enlisted in the Royal Navy as we expected they do.  Both hated their time and were often the butt of jokes because of who their father was.

After the military Albert married Elizabeth Boyls-Lyon and the were created by the King the Duke and Duchess of York.  Since the Duke  was now second in line to throne he was expected to carry on more duties of a royal.  That would be fine for someone who didn't have  a problem speaking, but his stammer it made talking in public a painful experience. 

In the 1920's the Duke heard (it's not clear from whom) about Lougue and his speech therapy.   The Duke had tried most of the hokum of the time and none of it worked.  He thought Lougue's  training would be much of the same.  He went to the appointment and started almost instantly seeing results.  He became more confident in his speaking and started to actually enjoy his royal duties more.

In 1936 George V died, which was hastened by his Doctors by overdosing him on pain medicine in order to allow the news to be broken in the early morning instead of in the evening papers.  His son, Edward VIII became king.  Edward VIII did not enjoy his royal duties nearly as much as his younger brother.  He felt bothered by them. 

Edward VIII was in love with an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson who was married at the time of Edward's Accession, but in the process of getting a second divorce.  This relationship was looked down upon because of the King's role as head of the Church of England and their ban on marrying more than once.  The government told the King that if he married her they would resign and a constitutional crisis would ensue.  To avoid that Edward VIII abdicated not even a year after he ascended.  His brother, Albert, Duke of York became king under the name George VI in order to honor his father .

His coronation date was set to be the same date as his brothers was to be.  Which meant there wasn't as much time to prepare.  A coronation has a very strict procedure for how it is to happen and the King's responses must be exacting.  George VI enlisted the help of his friend Lougue to help with the coronation.  For his help before and after his accession the king made Lougue a member of the Victorian Order which is the only order in the empire that is for personal service to the King.  The coronation, as well as the speech afterwards went off without a hitch.

The cloud of World War II was starting to come upon Europe and the King had to give  speeches  to the empire a lot.  Most of the time Lougue would be summoned to whatever palace the king was to speak at and walk thru the speech with him as well as make edits to the speech to avoid words the king might stumble upon.  The wartime speeches proved as a great morale boost for the entire Allied war effort. 

After the war the King and Lougue kept in contact thru letters.  When the King had to attend the state opening of Parliament he would enlist the help of Lougue .  George VI died in 1952, before his time I would say.  He smoked heavily and the stress of the war was too much for his body.  Lougue died in 1953 at age 73.

The friendship these two men had was the biggest thing I took from the book.  The letters quoted between them showed a real friendship.  Lougue of course treated the king with the upmost respect but they were friends.  One of the stories of a radio broadcast that struck me as after the speech was done Lougue went out of his way to pat the King on the back. That is something you don't do. You don't touch the king  but both men were so close it didn’t seem to matter.

This book was great I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested at all in British history.

256 Pages