I'm John Bachelors with my colleague and friend Gregory Coppley, editor and publisher of Defense and Foreign Affairs,

who's an Australian, a member of the Commonwealth.

And I have seen photographs over the years of King George V

in wartime, in uniform, with his beautiful mustache.

And I've seen photographs of King George's sixth in wartime in his uniform.

Often I believe it was a Navy uniform, if I'm remembering his father wore the Army uniform with the cavalry boots, very trim-looking, both of them.

The beautiful mustache and beard of King George V.

What is the role of the king in wartime, Gregory?

The scene that I have in my mind is when Churchill came to the palace and presented his papers in May, what is May of 1940.

What is the role?

Well, the sovereign is commander-in-chief of all the armed forces.

The armed forces swear allegiance to the crown,

which is the same as in the United States where they swear allegiance to the Constitution

which is essentially the crown of the United States.

So the King embodies the nation and the values of the nation and therefore the respect of the armed forces

and about it so it's above politics when the role of the armed forces becomes overriding as in times of formal conflict, then the role

of the sovereign comes to the fore even more.

And even now, even in peacetime, you see the sovereign and other members of the royal family in their

military uniforms.

We just saw the Duke of Kent, for example, retiring because he's in his 90s

retiring as the

Colonel and chief of the

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