Much is being made today in Britain about the Queen becoming the longest reigning monarch. The official time is "around 5.30 p.m." which is very convenient as the main TV evening news broadcasts start at 6.00 (BBC One) and 6.30 (ITV). It may be a bit too convenient and it is not the first time that the time of death of a previous monarch has been manipulated.
The timing today depends on when you take the time of the death of George VI, the Queen's father on February 6, 1952 at the age of 56. The pressure of WWII and his smoking had taken a terrible toll on his health. He had a cancerous lung removed the previous year and was also suffering from vascular disease. On January 31, against doctor's advice, he had seen the then Princess Elizabeth off from London Airport on a trip to Commonwealth countries. She had been undertaking official duties on his behalf. The miserable weather probably had an bad effect on his health. On the morning of February 6, he was found dead in his bed having suffered a coronary thrombosis in his sleep. We can therefore never know precisely when he died and therefore when precisely Elizabeth became Queen. For the sake of the record, Buckingham Palace has stated that it was "around 1.30 a.m.", thus setting the timing of the longest reign at 5.30.
That is perhaps not as egregious as the events surrounding the death of George VI's father, George V. On January 20, 1936 he was dying of bronchitis. His attending physician, Lord Dawson, decided to hasten his end, recording in his diary
At about 11 o'clock it was evident that the last stage might endure for many hours, unknown to the patient but little comporting with the dignity and serenity which he so richly merited and which demanded a brief final scene. Hours of waiting just for the mechanical end when all that is really life has departed only exhausts the onlookers and keeps them so strained that they cannot avail themselves of the solace of thought, communion or prayer. I therefore decided to determine the end and injected (myself) morphia gr. 3/4 and shortly afterwards cocaine gr. 1 into the distended jugular vein
Dawson also admitted that his decision was to ensure that the death could be announced in the morning papers, particularly The Times, rather than the news being broken in the evening newspapers which he saw as "lesser publications". He had even phoned his wife to get her to advise The Times that an announcement was imminent before he administered the lethal injections.
Dawson's professional arrogance was to manifest itself later when he opposed the legalization of euthanasia in the House of Lords. He asserted that such action "belongs to the wisdom and conscience of the medical profession and not to the realm of law". The prohibition continues in the UK but this week Parliament is due to consider the "Assisted Dying" bill which would allow those with less than 6 months to live to ask a doctor to help them die. A letter of support from several senior clinicians in the Guardian supports the bill explaining that it would regularize what often happens in practice. Doctors do not hesitate to administer drugs to relieve suffering, knowing that they will almost certainly shorten life.