#i'm starting a debate on which king saved the monarchy

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

Like it or not, the one who saved and modernized the monarchy was King George V, not king Edward VII, and this is an undisputed fact that all historians would agree with. After all, It was during the reign of King George V that 13 European Monarchies crumbled to the ground while the british monarchy survived. And it survived because of George V, because of his leadership, his modern statesmanship, his will to embrace and encourage changes, his popularity and the respect that his nation had for him, while he led his country to victory during WW1. He was the FIRST Monarch that brought monarchy close to people, hence why he was nicknamed the People's Monarch or the Citizen Monarch. George reigned during the most difficult times in the history of monarchy and of mankind, but he managed to save his monarchy and to modernize it, setting the path for a Constitutional Modern Monarch*. Your bias cannot change it, because facts dont give a damn about your opinions. A pity that you cannot uplift Edward VII without bringing George down. George wasnt dull, he was quite the character. He was genuine, funny, reproachable, a lover of books and cinema, and most importantly he was a SERIOUS LEADER, who acted exactly as a modern head of state is suppsed to act. Oh and he was a FAITHFUL Husband, he was devoted to his wife and loyal to her throughout their entire marriage. Something that can never be said of Edward VII who was unfaithful and over-indulgent in everything ( Im sure his mistresses would have preferred Handsome George though). If being faithful and family-oriented makes a man dull, than give me dull everyday. Queen Alexandra would've been happy to have married a man like George who never embarrassed and humiliated his wife

Oh my, where does this come from? lmao. Tbh, I deserve this kind of message when it's about Wilhelm. I'm totally biased regarding this rascally young fop (Alexander III said it first!). Badmouthing him is one of my favourite pastime. But George, come on! I never been too harsh with him? EXCEPT, perhaps, when it comes down to the Romanovs, but what can I say? When you don't have a backbone, you really don't…

Yet, I'm a tad puzzled by your message because we are talking about George V right? The one who in April 1905 hadn't seen his children for three months. The one who used to shout at his second son "Get it out" when the poor soul was suffering from stammer. The one who in 1917, while on a stroll in the grounds of Sandringham complained to Nora Wigram that his children always avoided him. Nora retelling this story in one of her letters to her parents said how Mary, David and Bertie became "quite cheerful & entirely flippant, writing their names in the snow" when George and Mary had gone home on said stroll. However, do you know who was ACTUALLY a good father? his cousin *whispering* Nicky.

Faithful yes but let me remind you that their marriage was far from smooth sailing. They lived seperately for months on end. You also must have forgotten the countless letters from George trying to apologise for shutting down, being rude or cold towards May. + May's letters complaining on how he would shut her out. The man was unable to articulate his feelings which led to endless misunderstanding. May who once wrote to George while in Paris : "I quite understand about yr not wishing to come to Paris & am not angry, I only thought it wd be nice change as I find life in general very dull- unless one has a change sometimes." She had wanted him to join her but had received a rebuff instead. May who wrote to his brother in 1900 while she was stuck in the gloomy York Cottage: "It is so dull here & I feel very low & depressed tho' Im pretty well on the whole" (alright she was pregnant at that time, but guess where George was?… out shooting birds).

Led his country to victory during WW1? Hmmm, you really mean George V who was described in 1918 by the Viscount Esher in those terms: "he seems virtually a recluse, steadily devoting himself to good purposes and little works of a good kind, but with not conspicuousness, no assertiveness of the King's position." / "making himself a nonentity" ? While May wrote on 19 november 1916 to her son David about the hospital visits: "They are "assomant" (tiresome) & I dislike them more than words can describe!" and then proceeded to explain how much she enjoyed her shopping trips at Goode's.

I'm teasing because OF COURSE I think George V was a good ruler and perhaps he was the kind of ruler the country needed at that time. He was a great arbitrator and was able to adapt and change despite having conservative views and being very much uneducated. How he dealt with the Irish question is a stellar example! He was an ordinary man who disliked society and suffered from bouts of depression. There is a sentence that struck me in Ridley's book which in my opinion sums up George : "He was a man of disconnected feelings".

I could write PAGES about Bertie's shortcomings and how his shenanigans damaged the monarchy. Yet he was a gifted ruler, very much in tune with his time.

So I guess anon, it comes down to... preference. If you are more into shooting birds and collecting stamps, you do you! I, on the contrary, have a soft spot for cosmopolitan kings with a string of scandals.

Now if you'd excuse me, I'm off painting the town red with Bertie!

[trhor]

What was your initial inspiration for your story? What idea came first, the plot or the characters?

Hi Anon, thanks for the question. I did in fact ramble and so to save everyone time, it's under a read more.

I've always been a fan of history and English history has always been a point of interest for me. It's amazing how one small island in the northern Atlantic can have such a messy history with so many twist and turns. I can see how GRRM took inspiration from the War of the Roses when he was dreaming up A Song of Ice and Fire. English history in many ways is very sanitized, a similar issue when we're trying to talk about American history. Which means further research is always needed to develop a fuller picture. So I started digging into the very tension relationship between Scotland and England and there's so much that's either not really touched upon or is just explained in a single line before moving on somewhere else. Same issue with Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall, that's without even talking about England's colonization of half the world and the nightmare that was the English imperial empire.

I'll find the point and explain it soon but a little more background. I have been actively and passively following the on goings in the royal simblr tag for about two years. I thought it was amazing that so many people were finding a new way to play the game, that I had loved such I was a little girl in the early aughts that had lost it's spark for me because of the lack of depth with the gameplay. So seeing all the amazing stories happening gave me a spark of inspiration but I didn't necessarily engage with right away. For a while, I didn't have an idea worthy of sharing and so I let the idea collect dust in my mind till something better happened.

So back to that point, I started doing more research on Scottish/English history and there was this one fact that just really stuck with me. Let's talk about St Edward's chair and the Stone of Destiny.

The Stone of Destiny is an ancient symbol of Scotland's monarchy, used for centuries in the inauguration of its kings. Seen as a sacred object, its earliest origins are now unknown. In 1296, King Edward I of England seized the stone from the Scots, and had it built into a new throne at Westminster.

It should be noted this isn't the only stolen item that has been used in ceremony and regalia of the British Monarchy, but for my purpose this is the one I'm focusing on. It's obvious or at least to me, that Edward though the stone held power beyond being a trophy that proved he had defeated the Scots. No, this wasn't any stone it was the only that had been used to inaugurate Scottish Kings for centuries. Maybe Edward seeing the power in the stone believed that by using it in his own coronation, it would prove that by the divine rights of kings he was a ruler chosen by god. That's honestly just my theory, so take it with a pinch of salt.

So the idea that snowballed this whole thing was the idea that a Scottish person really should be the one on the throne if you believe in the divine rights of kings, because that stone belongs to Scotland. Yes, I know there was the brief Stuart dynasty but Charlie I, was such a bad king he started a civil war and died. His son was the King of Partying, but left a mess behind and so I'm not using them as inspiration. Sorry Stuart fans ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I rambled, sorry back to the point of this whole thing. I really liked the idea of what if Scottish person took the English throne and never gave it back. What would that mean and all the trappings that come with it

Right, so as an American the idea of Monarchy has always been a fascinating one from an outsider's perspective. In the real-world context, it’s debatable. Monarchy as a narrative device provides so many possibilities and it’s one that I wanted to explore and so here we are. It depends, sometimes I have a really good idea and the characters pop into life to fill in the space and other times, it's the muses that appear first and I have to build a world for them to exist.

In this case, Theo showed up first. I had been tossing around the idea of starting a royal simblr but I had no plot and so I hoped into CAS and started playing around trying to create my lead. The Theo, I have now is not the original Theo I started with. That one is still in my library but as I started really thinking about the story, she didn't spark joy and so I went back to the drawing board and looked through sims I had made before. And I found her again, this particular sim to me was the prettiest randomly generated sim I had ever seen and I had used her when I was farting around with Cottage Living. There was something about her and so I used her as a jumping off point.

This is where I call myself out, I'm not really a generations player. Thanks to my ADHD, playing a legacy challenge is a real challenge because it doesn't often hold my attention for every long. And I also get overly attached to my sims and have this desire to keep them young adults forever. It's the main reason, why I think I get burned out because I get stuck in my old ways. So because of this fun fact, I had to build several generations for scratch through genetics using this new Theodora as a jumping off point. I wouldn't recommend this way of doing things because I have to rely heavily on my own imagination to create this characters instead of just playing with them. I've made a few interesting choices that I'm not sure were the smartest but we'll have to see how they pan out.

So I've rambled a lot at this point and I hope it was a thrilling read and if anyone made it to this point cool cool. The great thing about this whole royal simblr thing is that I'm just one fish in an incredible diverse lake. If my story, doesn't resonate with you that's cool there are so many great ones that deserve your attention. So if you decided to stick around that's fantastic and if not I hope you find the story that's right for you.