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An angry delegation marched to No. 10 Downing St. in the dead of night to protest to the Prime Minister that the doors of Westminster Hall had been shut against His Majesty's subjects at 3:42 a. m. They were reopened after the cleaners for whom they had been closed had swept up, and in all some 800,000 Britons paid to George V, "the best King who has ever reigned in England," their heartfelt tributes of extraordinary devotion.
Meanwhile British destroyers hurried back & forth across the channel escorting to England five kings, the President of France, two queens, four crown princes and a crown princess, 14 princes and ten Foreign Ministers. For one & all were fired salutes. Queen Maud of Norway, only surviving child of Britain's Edward VII, arrived with her tall King Haakon VII; Queen Alexandrine of Denmark with her even taller King Christian X. Sad Leopold III, widower King of the Belgians, came with his brother. Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria left his Tsarina in Sofia.
The "Horrible Hohenzollern," buck-toothed King Carol II of Rumania, put his Jewish Mistress Magda Lupescu aboard his Royal Train at Bucharest and rattled off to Paris where Magda alighted and remained. His Majesty was brought to Dover on the British destroyer Montrose, received a 21-gun salute from Dover Cas tle, was met in London by the heir to the Throne, the Duke of York, and took up residence in the house of a sister of one time U. S. Secretary of the Treasury Ogden Mills. Her husband, the Irish Earl of Granard, was Master of the Horse to King George and in the earl's house Carol II was styled officially a "guest of King Edward VIII," the explanation being offered that other foreign kings & queens were occupying all available suites in Buckingham Palace.
President Roosevelt was represented in the funeral procession which wound slowly this week from Westminster Hall to Paddington Station by grey & graceful little Ambassador-at-Large Norman Hezekiah Davis, to whom was assigned as Lord-in-Waiting moose-tall Lord Howard of Penrith, onetime British Ambassador in Washington. For Adolf Hitler walked owl-solemn Baron Constantin von Neurath, who is not a Nazi. For Benito Mussolini stepped spruce Crown Prince Umberto. Tsar Boris of Bulgaria had to make his legs twinkle to keep up with the long strides of Swedish Crown Prince Gustaf. For Joseph Stalin walked Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff. Only unexpected absentee was George V's particular friend and protege George II, the newly restored King of Greece (TIME, Nov. 18). His Majesty was detained in Athens because the former Greek Dictator, Field Marshal George Kondylis, threatened to lead a coup d'etat against the Throne if this week's election went against Kondylis. Against him it went.