Deeply devoted to the old Army, he worked with Queen Victoria to defeat or minimise every reform proposal, such as setting up a general staff.

[1][2] His father was Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, the seventh son of King George III and Queen Charlotte.

[2] In February 1854, at an early stage in the Crimean War of 1853–1856, he received command of the 1st Division (Guards and Highland brigades) of the British army in the East.

[1] In December 1854, owing to illness, the Earl of Cardigan returned first to Malta and then to England: before the conclusion of the Crimean campaign he was back in London.

Field Marshal Viscount Hardinge, the serving general commanding-in-chief since 1852, was forced to resign in July 1856 on grounds of ill-health.

[11] In that capacity he served as the chief military advisor to the Secretary of State for War, with responsibility for the administration of the army and the command of forces in the field.

[7] Early in his term he encouraged the army to trial various breech-loading carbines for the cavalry, one of which—the Westley Richards—proved so effective that it was decided to investigate the possibility of producing a version for the infantry.

A year's good behaviour would return them to the first class, meaning that only a hard core of incorrigible offenders tended to be flogged.

[18] Cardwell succeeded in pushing through a number of reforms, including one that made the commander-in-chief nominally report to the secretary of state for war.

The Duke of Cambridge strongly resented this move, a sentiment shared by a majority of officers, who would no longer be able to sell their commissions when they retired.

[1] A number of reformers opposed to the Duke banded together, including Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Lord Lansdowne, the Liberal and Conservative Secretaries for War between 1892 and 1900.

[22] Historian Correlli Barnett blames British failures in the Second Boer War of 1899–1902 on the Duke, stressing the Army's "[l]ack of organization, ignorant and casual officers, inferior human material in the ranks" as well as "soldiers drilled to machine-like movements [versus the Boer] with a rifle working on his own initiative.

[24] On 22 November 1909 the reforms to which Haig, as Director of Staff Duties was a part, abolished the post of Commander-in-Chief which the Duke had made his own.

[25] It is believed, according to Roger Fulford, that William IV, who had been his godfather when Duke of Clarence, had George brought up at Windsor in hope of an eventual marriage to his cousin Princess Victoria of Kent, who was two months younger.

This prospective match was favoured by George's own parents, but was forestalled by Victoria's maternal uncle Leopold I of Belgium.

He secured Victoria's betrothal to his nephew, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which became formal after she acceded to the British throne.

"[26] George was one of a range of suitors considered by Victoria, the most prominent of whom, Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, was openly favoured by William.

Sarah Fairbrother (whose stage name was Louisa)[28] had been an actress since 1827, performing at Drury Lane, the Lyceum, and Covent Garden Theatre.

The Duke was a very weak man where women were concerned, and it seems likely that he had been cajoled into marriage by Sarah (then pregnant for the fifth time), she herself obtaining the licence.

[47] The Duke is today commemorated by an equestrian statue standing on Whitehall in central London; it is positioned outside the front door of the War Office that he so strongly resisted.