Stuttering and shy, Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George “Bertie” was named after his great-grandfather, Prince Albert. As a child, he was nervous and sickly, facing numerous physical limitations. The one thing he longed for was affection from his stoic, and emotionally distant parents. In 1913, Bertie began serving in Royal Navy, even serving at the Battle of Jutland (the largest naval engagement in World War I), but chronic gastric troubles and a painful ulcer sent Bertie home where he became bedridden in Buckingham Palace. Despite the pain, the on-call doctor was dismayed to find minimal affection from Bertie’s parents toward their suffering son.
After the war, Bertie spent a year studying at Cambridge University. He then fell into an affair with a married Australian socialite, Lady Loughborough, but his father persuaded him against pursuing marriage with this mistress (any more affairs with married women would surely bring scandal upon the…
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