Before Lilibet was crowned in 1953, 3 kings were eliminated to make way for her enthronement. King George V was given the poison cup; King Edward VIII was forced to abdicate, and King George VI was also given the poison cup.

King George V was a grandson of Queen Victoria and the second son of King Edward VII.

He was king during the terrible conflict called World War I and he was king when the Twins were born.

Prince George married Mary of Teck in 1893 and the couple had 6 children: Edward, Albert, Mary, Henry, George, and John.

Bertrand Edward Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of Penn, was the physician to the royal family and president of the Royal College of Physicians. He was responsible for the timely demise of King George V.

The DOCTOR is the most important person in a republic or a monarchy because he/she holds the power of life and death over the ruler.

On the night of January 20, 1936, Dr. Dawson gave the king 2 lethal injections so that the announcement of his death would be timed for inclusion in The Times of January 21.

Dawson did not want the announcement to appear first in the "plebeian" Evening Standard.

The funeral of King George V took place on January 28 and he was interred at Windsor Castle.

The reason for his action, which Dawson frankly admits in his diary, was to ensure that the announcement of the king's death should appear first in the morning edition of The Times and not in some lesser publication later in the day. To make doubly sure that this would happen Dawson telephoned his wife in London asking her to let The Times know when the announcement was imminent.

There was a little doggerel verse that was very popular back then:

Lord Dawson of Penn/ Killed many men./ That's why we sing/ 'God Save the King'.

After the timely demise of King George V, Edward, the Prince of Wales, was next in line to the throne.

1936 was the year of the 3 kings!!

1936 was indeed a fateful year for the British Empire because it was the year of the 3 kings. People are familiar with the tale of the 3 kings from the Christmas story but it was nothing like that.

In 1936, the new king of the British Empire, Edward VIII, abdicated his throne to marry Wallis Simpson–the MAN he loved.

Wallis lost nothing by the king's abdication because she/he was a "queen" already!!

When the Duchess was asked why she/he didn't have children, her reply was that "the Duke is not heir conditioned."

At precisely 10 p.m. on December 10, 1936, King Edward made his famous abdication speech. The 42-year-old king was the most eligible bachelor in the world and could have chosen any woman to be his queen.

The king told the British people via radio that he could not continue to be king without the "woman" he loved.

In reality, the 40-year-old Simpson could not pass the sex check examination to determine if she/he could produce heirs to the throne.

The king's abdication speech was broadcast via radio to the 4 corners of the flat earth.

Immediately after the abdication, the king settled his affairs in England and departed for Austria on the destroyer HMS Fury. From now on he would be known as His Royal Highness, the Duke of Windsor.

Albert, Duke of York, was next in line to the throne. He never dreamed that he would be king because he had serious mental and physical disabilities. He also had a very bad stutter and dreaded any kind of public speaking.

King George VI was the World War II king.

According to Marion Crawford, the Twins' governess, he liked to spend his evenings doing NEEDLEWORK!!

How could a man like that stand up to Churchill and Hitler?

Queen Elizabeth was the wife of King George and the mother of the Twins.

Here is a quote from a memoir of the Twins' governess:

The Duke and Duchess rarely dined out. At evening, the happy bath hour over, the children bedded and the day's work done, they would sit one on each side of the fireplace like any other young married couple, happy in each other, not requiring any outside diversion. The Duke was astonishingly expert with a needle. He once made a dozen chair covers in petit point for Royal Lodge. I remember he got rather tired of filling in the background, so I obliged and let him go on with the more amusing part of the design. (Crawford, The Little Princesses, p. 45).

Imagine Winston "Bulldog" Churchill walking in on him doing petit point in Buckingham Palace.

The last photo of King George VI was taken at Heathrow Airport on January 31.

The King was feeling fine and spent the next week hunting at Sandringham.

Here is a quote from an authorized biography of the Twins:

He died, suddenly and without warning, of a thrombosis in his sleep at Sandringham, just six days later, in the early hours of 6 February 1952. His daughter became Queen in Kenya as she sat on the platform of the Treetops Hotel in the branches of a giant wild fig tree watching and photographing the animals at the salt-lick. (Bradford, Elizabeth, p. 165).

Sir John Weir was the personal physician to several monarchs. He was the man most likely to prepare the poison cup for the king.

Sir John Weir was personal physician to the king and ideally situated to prepare the poison cup.

Sir Harold Campbell was the king's equerry and ideally situated to present the poison cup.

Lilibet was totally prepared for that event because her private secretary had the accession papers with him in South Africa.

Lilibet was expecting the timely death of the king and she never shed a single tear:

Queen Elizabeth's response to her father's death was remarkably controlled. When Martin Charteris reached Sagan Lodge on 6 February 1952 to start discussing the practicalities of accession, he found the couple alone together, with Philip lying back on the sofa, holding The Times over his face as a shield. The new queen's cheeks were a little flushed, but there was no sign of tears (Lacey, Monarch: The Life and Reign of Elizabeth II, p. 173).

After the customary year of "mourning" the king's death, Lilibet was crowned as Queen Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953.

The coronation of 25-year-old Lilibet took place in Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953.

Initially, the BBC was banned from filming the ceremony but that ban was lifted when they agreed that there would be no close-up filming.

Thanks to the communications revolution, the wedding was broadcast live via TV to the 4 corners of the flat earth.

Over 8,000 guests from all over the Empire attended the ceremony. General George Marshall, the U.S. Secretary of State who implemented the Marshall plan, represented the United States. The coronation was the first major international event to be broadcast live on television.