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.

King James VI & I has long been traduced as an effeminate, slobbering fool. But 400 years after his death, history is being ...

In PEOPLE's exclusive excerpt from royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith's new book, George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy, the last crowning of a king is revisited Simon ...

He was the second son of King George V who was never supposed to be crowned King, so when Prince Albert, Duke of York (the future King George VI), wed the Hon Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon on 26 April 1923 ...

On the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in December 1936 he was proclaimed King and took one of his middle names, George, on succeeding to the throne. The coronation of George VI and Queen ...

Or his grandad, Bertie, who became George VI at ... was still king in Ireland until he lost the Battle of the Boyne. You think that's the end of the story? Oh, you sweet summer child.