it was not known until recently that he had been deliberately euthanized by his chief physician, lord dawson of penn. dawson issued a bulletin with words that became famous: "the king's life is moving peacefully towards its close". dawson's private diary, unearthed after his death and made public in 1986, reveals that the king's last words, a mumbled "god damn you!", were addressed to his nurse when she gave him a sedative on the night of 20 january. dawson wrote that he hastened the king's death by injecting him with a lethal combination of morphine and cocaine. dawson noted that he acted to preserve the king's dignity, to prevent further strain on the family, and so that the king's death at 11:55 p.m. could be announced in the morning edition of "the times" newspaper rather than "less appropriate ... evening journals".