Tuesday, December 13, 2005
A fortnight ago, I went to see A Twist of Fate at the Esplanade Theatre. It is billed as “The Original Murder Mystery Musical Comedy”. It was absolutely splendid. Easily the best local production I’ve ever seen and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
The story is in 1937 and takes place entirely in the house of Lim Chin Boon who is 60 years old and dying fast. His only surviving wife (his second wife) expects to inherit his fortune but her plans are disrupted by the sudden arrival of Emma West, an English girl claiming to be the long lost granddaughter of Lim Chin Boon and his first wife.
At one point in the musical, Emma encourages Alice (Lim’s daughter from his second wife) not to give up her love for the house servant boy, Ah See. Emma cites King Edward VIII’s abdication from the throne of England the previous year to marry the woman he loved as a beautifully romantic example of how love can be more important than even a kingdom.
It set me thinking again about Edward VIII’s abdication. The woman he gave up the throne to marry was Wallace Simpson, an American divorcee. When my parents first told me the story as a child, it was portrayed in that same romantic way – the King was not allowed to marry a divorcee but he loved her so much that he gave up the throne to marry her. As I grew up however, I began to think that it was a disgraceful dereliction from duty on the part of Edward VIII to have demoralized his country by abdicating when Britain and Nazi Germany were on an obvious collision course, heading towards war.
After watching A Twist of Fate, I decided to find out more about the true circumstances of the abdication. As it turns out, papers belonging to Sir Walter Turner Monckton (King Edward VIII’s personal lawyer during the abdication crisis) were released by the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 2003 and they paint a shocking picture of extra-marital affairs, sexual domination, a constitutional crisis and rumours of Nazi sympathies. Hardly the stuff of a romantic story at all!
The Charming Prince
Edward VIII was a handsome, charming and publicly popular Prince of Wales in his youth. He was the toast of London society in the roaring twenties and his life was an endless procession of parties. The young Prince never lacked attention from women but apparently, he was known to have developed a taste for affairs with married women in particular.
On 20th January 1936, King George V passed away and Edward succeeded him to the English throne, becoming King Edward VIII. That same year, Simpson and her husband agreed to a divorce and Edward announced to the royal family and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin his intention to marry Simpson as soon as her divorce was finalized. Both the royal family and the PM disapproved of the match.
The Royal Family’s Objections
Stanley Baldwin’s Political Manoeuvres
To do that, the PM first informed the King that if he married Simpson against the government’s wishes, the entire cabinet would resign en masse. When pressed, the PM next told the King that he saw only 3 possibilities:
1. They have a royal marriage and Simpson becomes Queen;
2. They have a morganatic marriage and Simpson receives a courtesy title without becoming Queen; or,
3. Edward abdicates from the throne of England to marry Simpson.
The PM told the King that he would seek the opinions of the King’s other Prime Ministers in the British Commonwealth on which option they preferred. The suggestion was that if the other Prime Ministers disagreed with Baldwin, he might change his mind and consent to the marriage.
1. The King wanted to see the PM at 6 that evening;
2. The PM wanted to be able to tell King that the Cabinet did not consider a morganatic marriage practicable.
3. The Leader of the Labour party (in opposition at that time) had already confirmed to the PM that not a single Labour MP would vote for such legislation.
4. The Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada and South Africa were also against legislation for a morganatic marriage (in addition to a marriage where Simpson becomes Queen).
The Prime Minister of New Zealand thought a morganatic marriage might be acceptable given the King’s popularity with the people. Baldwin appears to have taken care of that because the Minutes then show a handwritten addition by the Cabinet Secretary, Maurice Hankey, that the New Zealand PM would nevertheless defer to the opinion of the Government of the United Kingdom.
The only outright exception was that of Prime Minister Eamon de Valera of Ireland. He took the position that since Anglican Protestanism allowed divorce, the King should be allowed a royal marriage with Simpson becoming Queen. This may have been a mischievous dig against Protestanism on the part of de Valera since Ireland was a Roman Catholic country which did not allow divorces. Baldwin appears to have taken care of that as well because the Minutes then record that Sir Harry Batterbee of the Dominions Office met with de Valera who soon “found himself placed in a very awkward position [and] had been rather staggered when he discovered that if the King were to abdicate and this was rendered possible by legislation in every other part of the Empire, he would be left with King Edward VIII still as King”!
Whilst Baldwin managed to corner de Valera, the fact that de Valera supported a royal marriage on those grounds suggests to me that Baldwin may not have shared with the other Commonwealth Prime Ministers the Special Branch reports that Simpson was a Nazi sympathiser. It is hard to imagine de Valera being in favour of a Queen who had Nazi sympathies. In any event, Baldwin was able to report to the King that neither the Cabinet, nor the Labour opposition nor any of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers (save de Valera) supported a royal marriage or even a morganatic marriage.
The King’s Proposed Speech
“I could not go on bearing the heavy burdens that constantly rest on me as king unless I could be strengthened in the task by a happy married life; and so I am firmly resolved to marry the woman I love, when she is free to marry me … It has taken me a long time to find the woman I want to make my wife. Without her, I have been a very lonely man. With her I shall have a home and all the companionship and mutual sympathy and understanding which married life can bring … Neither Mrs Simpson nor I have ever sought to insist that she should be Queen. All we desired was that our married happiness should carry with it a proper title and dignity for her befitting my wife … Now that I have at last been able to take you so fully into my confidence, I feel it is best to go away for a while, so that you may reflect calmly and quietly, but without undue delay, on what I have said … Nothing is nearer to my heart than that I should return …”
Despite its subtleties, Baldwin grasped the true meaning of the King’s draft speech – the King intended to marry Simpson and remain King of England despite the objection of the British Government and all the Commonwealth Prime Ministers (save de Valera). The King sought to achieve this by appealing to the people directly through his speech and thereby hopefully whip up sufficient public support to force Baldwin and the other Prime Ministers to back down. That’s what the King intended when he proposed to say “Now that I have at last been able to take you so fully into my confidence, I feel it is best to go away for a while, so that you may reflect calmly and quietly, but without undue delay, on what I have said.”
The PM’s Countermeasures
To prevent the crisis from challenging the Government of all the Commonwealth Countries, Baldwin had to act fast. Upon reading the draft speech, the PM told the King that he would not approve the speech in those terms. He immediately returned to Downing Street and telegrammed his counterparts in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Baldwin suggested all the Prime Ministers should agree that as a matter of Constitution, there was a "fundamental difference" between the position of the King and that of a private person. In the King's case, his every utterance had to be approved by Ministers because of his constitutional position as the figure uniting the nations, Empire and Commonwealth. This agreement amongst the Prime Ministers was then communicated to the King.
Next, to prevent the King from addressing the people in defiance of the Government’s wishes, the Prime Minister’s office contacted the Director General of the BBC, Sir John (later Lord) Reith. Reith gave his assurance that the BBC would reject any proposal by the King to make a public address without the prior approval of the Government.
The Abdication
Within 24 hours, Baldwin had the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, the constitutional experts and the BBC on his side and thus succeeded in completely out manoeuvring the King’s last ditch attempt to marry Simpson and keep his throne. A week later, on 10th December 1936, witnessed and attested to by his 3 brothers, the King signed the Instrument of Abdication which was drafted by Sir Walter Monckton and read:
“I, Edward the Eighth, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Emperor of India, do hereby declare My irrevocable determination to renounce the throne for Myself and for My descendants, and My desire that effect should be given to this instrument of abdication immediately.”
The Duke & Duchess of Windsor
Stanley Baldwin’s tarnished legacy
One Letter Missing
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