Royal Family: Years of transition by Theo Aronson

Author:Theo Aronson [Aronson, Theo]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2020-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

King Edward VIII had made his decision two days before. On Sunday 5 December, the Prime Minister was formally told that the King would abdicate. One by one the various schemes for a way out of his dilemma had collapsed. Neither the British government nor the Dominion governments would hear of a morganatic marriage; the Cabinet turned down the King’s request for a broadcast to the nation; wisely, King Edward would have no truck with the formation of a ‘King’s Party’; nor was he prepared to play for time. A suggestion that he postpone the marriage until after his Coronation, the King refused to consider. For all his unconventionality, Edward VIII was too conscious of the majesty of his position, and of the solemnity of a Coronation, to think of being crowned while the question of his marriage remained unresolved.

The Coronation, he argued, ‘is essentially a religious service. The King is anointed with holy oil; he takes the Sacrament; as Defender of the Faith he swears an oath to uphold the doctrines of the Church of England, which does not approve of divorce. For me to have gone through the Coronation ceremony while harbouring in my heart a secret intention to marry contrary to the Church’s tenets would have meant being crowned with a lie on my lips …’[46]

One thing only weakened his resolve to abdicate: Wallis Simpson’s urgings for him not to do so. In the course of a helter-skelter, journalist-hounded drive through France, and from the home of her friends in Cannes, she was in constant touch with him. Time and again, over an appalling telephone line, she assured him that his popularity would carry the day; that he should fight for his rights. In this she showed a profound misunderstanding of the monarchy: she imagined that the man was more important than the institution.

When she could not change his mind about abdicating, she tried renouncing him. He would not hear of it. She next agreed to someone’s suggestion that she withdraw her divorce petition. It was too late for that now, countered the King. She would flee, she threatened, to China. He cut her short. ‘I can’t seem to make you understand the position,’ he bawled down the mouthpiece. ‘It’s all over. The Instrument of Abdication is already prepared.’[47] Only then was she convinced.

Just how seriously Wallis Simpson meant to give up King Edward VIII has since been questioned. There is a theory that her sacrifice was not as selfless as she pretended: that, between them, she and the King had decided that she would appear in a better light if it were to become known that she had made an offer to renounce him. It would help to dispel the widespread impression that she was simply a hard, scheming, self-seeking adventuress determined, at any cost, to land a king. It would make her look noble, tragic, self-sacrificing.

Be that as it may, it was too late for any such gesture. On the night of Tuesday 8 December

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