Former king, say, repeatedly upset about soldiers (6)
I believe the answer is:
george
'former king' is the definition.
'George' can be an answer for 'king' (eg King George VI). I'm unsure of the 'former' bit.
'repeatedly upset about soldiers' is the wordplay.
'repeatedly' shows that letters should be duplicated.
'upset' becomes 'ge' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'about' is an insertion indicator.
'soldiers' becomes 'OR' (military abbreviation for other ranks).
'ge' duplicated is 'gege'.
'gege' placed around 'or' is 'GEORGE'.
'say' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for george that I've seen before include "England's patron saint" , "Patron saint of England" , "Best Actor Oscar winner 1970, for 'Patton'" , "Automatic pilot (sl.)" , "-- Michael; -- Formby" .)