King George V

George V changed the family's name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in 1917 and refused asylum to his own cousin the same year. Born in 1865, he was a second son and a career naval officer for fifteen years, which suited him — he was happiest with routine, uniforms and his stamp collection, which became one of the most important in the world. His elder brother died of influenza in 1892, and George inherited the position, the fiancée and eventually the throne in 1910. He came to it in a constitutional crisis. The Lords had rejected the budget, and George gave a private undertaking to create enough peers to force the Parliament Act of 1911 through if a second election confirmed the government, which ended the Lords' veto permanently. He then had the Irish crisis, the war, the general strike and the Depression. The Romanov decision was his. The Provisional Government offered to send the Tsar's family to Britain in 1917, the cabinet was willing, and the king's private secretary pressed the government to withdraw the invitation because a Russian autocrat in England would inflame republican feeling during a war; they were shot in Yekaterinburg the following year. He also opened parliament in Belfast in 1921 with a speech pleading for reconciliation that helped produce the truce. He was the first monarch to broadcast a Christmas message, in 1932, written for him by Kipling. He died in 1936, his end hastened by his doctor to catch the morning papers. The name Windsor was chosen from a list that included Tudor-Stewart and Fitzroy, and the Kaiser is said to have remarked that he was off to see a performance of The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. It has been the family's name ever since.

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