Read PEOPLE's exclusive excerpt from royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith's new book, George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy Simon Perry is a writer and correspondent at PEOPLE.

Albert's once close relationship with his elder brother deteriorated, and he was crowned King George VI on May 12, 1937, in Westminster Abbey. Two years later the Second World War broke out ...

Queen Elizabeth II's father never expected to take the throne—until a royal ruckus changed the monarchy forever. Our royal ...

KING George VI was the father of the late Queen Elizabeth ... his father King George V died in January of 1936. His older brother, King Edward VIII was next in the line of succession and began ...

LONDON, Feb. 6, 1952 (UP) - King George VI was born during the reign of a queen ... Albert Frederick Arthur George lived in the shadow of his elder brother Edward, the Prince of Wales.

As Duke of York and then as King, George VI took as his family doctor a homeopath, Sir John Weir, who had attended both his mother and elder brother Edward. A genial Scot with a sporran full of ...