The Peoples King (29 page)

The dominions - India - & the common people are united in the matter
considering that Mrs Simpson is an unsuitable person to occupy the English
Throne. Newsboys posters & Carmen are very blunt about it, describing the
lady as 'The American Whore'. Everyone in cafes & tea shops was agog with
the news .. . Tim came home with stories in rather bad taste from the club -
It's an appalling state of affairs.
⁵⁹

Suddenly it was permissible to enjoy sexual innuendo, even in polite
circles. 'There are a good many lewd limericks etc going round in male
circles', noted the Sussex farmer. 'We hear the new Cunard liner will
be named Mrs Simpson,' he added a few days later, 'because she is
slightly faster than the Queen Mary!'
⁶⁰

Lockhart thought he saw clear signs that Whitehall
wanted
the King
to abdicate. 'Lunched in the City at the Rothschilds - talked of nothing
but the King', he wrote. 'Gather that Whitehall wants King to abdicate
in any case - altogether too irresponsible.'
⁶¹
On the following day,
Lockhart 'Lunched with Harold [Nicolson] and Sibyl Colefax at
Boulestin's. Harold says bulk of House and of serious people in City
and Whitehall want King to go anyway; too irresponsible and now
his prestige damaged.'
⁶²
'Of course there yet may be some way out of
the impasse which will save abdication', wrote the Conservative MP,
Cecil Headlam, in his diary. 'I confess, however, that I can see no such
way - and I feel myself that it would be a pity to find one.' The King,
he said,

has shown himself so obstinate and unbalanced in this affair that it would be
a mistake in my opinion to let him get away with it - it would only mean some
other 'crisis' in the future. He is clearly not the right kind of man to be a
constitutional monarch and, unpleasant though all this business is, it may be
a blessing in disguise.

'The Yorks', he added, 'should do the job admirably.'
⁶³

Baldwin sent a telegram on 3 December to the Dominion prime
ministers: 'So far as I can tell from my informal conversations with
[the King] it is likely that he will decide to abdicate.'
⁶⁴
However,
the Prime Minister was evidently uncertain about this 'likelihood'.
Referring to a draft of the Abdication Bill, which was telegraphed at the
same time, he asked the Dominions for their cooperation in avoiding
public debate. 'We feel,' said Baldwin, 'and we hope that you will
agree, that in the circumstances of the case the less legislating, and
therefore the less opportunity for public discussion and debate, the
better.'
⁶⁵

Baldwin started to pressure the King and to bargain with him. When
Monckton urged an immediate decree absolute for Mrs Simpson,
enabling Edward to marry Wallis immediately if he abdicated, Baldwin
suggested to his Cabinet that it might be possible to pass special
legislation in order to arrange for it. But Duff Cooper pointed out to
Baldwin that as well as being somewhat amoral, this would lay the
Government open to the charge of wanting to get rid of the King. It
would be said, said Duff, that while they had been unwilling to pass
special legislation for a morganatic marriage in order to keep him,
they had been willing to introduce legislation which, according to
existing law, would legalize adultery simply to expedite his departure.
Cooper was so obviously right that the scheme was quickly dropped.
⁶⁶

Some people, including journalists, assumed that Blunt's speech was
a deliberate attempt to break the news of Edward's wish to marry
Wallis. Lady Rhondda told Mr Baldwin that 'in common with most
of Fleet Street I believed . . . that the public break of the news at the
moment when it occurred had probably been arranged for' (she added
that she saw no harm in this).
⁶⁷
Certainly, Baldwin had been encour­aged by some key figures to bring the news into the public domain.
Just days after Edward's tour of South Wales, Archbishop Lang had
told Baldwin that if there was to be any announcement, 'it should be
made as soon as possible'. Lang added that if this course were taken,
the King

must leave as soon as possible. It would be out of the question that he should
remain until the decree is made absolute. It is needless to dwell on this necessity
. . . Only the pressure of our common anxiety - and hope - can justify this
letter. It is written shortly and hurriedly. Forgive it.
⁶⁸

In the face of mounting suspicion about Blunt's reasons for men­tioning the King in his speech, the Bishop of Bradford became defens­ive. 'I studiously took care to say nothing with regard to the King's
private life,' he insisted, 'because I know nothing at all about it.'
⁶⁹
But
then, wondered some, why mention the King's private life at all? If it
was a breach of protocol to mention the monarch in parliamentary
debate, then surely, at the very least, it was odd to mention him at a
diocesan conference? Blunt explained that it had nothing to do with
Mrs Simpson - that when he had prepared his speech, nearly two
months before the conference, he had never heard of Mrs Simpson.
He acknowledged, though, that by the time he actually gave the speech,
he
did
know about her.'" Certainly it would have been surprising had
it not come up as a topic of conversation between himself and Dawson
on the weekend of 31 October, when he had gone on church business
to Langcliffe, in the West Riding of Yorkshire - for Dawson went
there too, to Langcliffe Hall, his country home. 'Then came a hurried
week-end visit to Langcliffe', wrote Dawson in his written account of
this period, 'for the consecration of our Churchyard extension by
the Bishop of Bradford, who was eventually to play so conspicuous,
if unintentional, a part in precipitating the crisis on to the public
stage.'
¹

Years later, the Bishop of Bradford informed Geoffrey Dawson's
biographer that neither on 31 October, nor on any other date, did he
exchange a word with Dawson on the royal matter.
⁷²
This would have
required tremendous restraint on Dawson's part, however, since by
the end of October he was so preoccupied by the crisis that he seemed
to be always talking about it - with Chamberlain, with Baldwin, with
Violet Milner, with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with Alexander
Hardinge.

Dawson said that he had first found out about Blunt's speech on
1
December, when he returned to his office after dinner and found on
the table a report of the address. With the report, he added, was a
long quotation from the leader to appear in the next day's
Yorkshire
Post.
Assuming that the Rothermere and Beaverbrook organs would
not explode with the news about Wallis Simpson, and with assurance
from Lord Camrose regarding the
Telegraph
and from H. A. Gwynne
regarding the
Morning Post,
he 'felt pretty confident now that the
whole London Press was safe'. He therefore decided to wait until the
next day before taking any action in
The Times,
restricting himself on
1
December to printing the full text of the bishop's address. He also
printed 'a prophetic leading article on the wonderful reception' of
Albert and Elizabeth, the Duke and Duchess of York, in Edinburgh:
⁷³

Two of King George's four surviving sons have found their brides in ancient
Scottish families to the general satisfaction of the nation; and that loyalty
which has always been part of the fiercest pride of Scotland, and which
overflows so spontaneously from the Sovereign to all his kind, is combined
with a special affection for the Prince in whose posterity another race of
Scottish descent may some day be called to the Imperial Throne . . . Neverthe­less this visit of the HEIR PRESUMPTIVE to the great fortress that now
stands aloft as a symbol of indissoluble union .
. .
encourages the speculation
whether a time may not some day come when these historic 'Honours' may
be used again, with the free consent of the Scots, in the crowning of a King of
Scotland on the Stone of Destiny.
⁷⁴

Beaverbrook later described this report, as well as some earlier
statements in
The Times,
as part of a campaign by Geoffrey Dawson
against the King, 'almost in secret code'. To anyone who could read
the code, he said, the message was clear - that 'The King was causing
scandal, that he could count on support from no Party in Parliament,
and there was a popular Heir Presumptive waiting in the wings.""
John Gunther had also detected this 'secret' code. In an 'otherwise
meaningless editorial', he wrote,
The Times
had uttered a curious
warning on 30 November, the day before Blunt's speech. 'The Com­mons', the editorial had declared, 'may well prove itself what the
country has often required in similar times ... a Council of State [to
govern] in any crisis, foreign or domestic."'
¹
On the next day, 'as if by
prearranged signal,' said Gunther, 'the Bishop of Bradford struck
against the King.'
⁷
' It was his opinion that there had been some kind
of arrangement between Blunt and Dawson.

Edward was doing everything he could to protect Wallis from the
press. Robin Barrington-Ward, the assistant editor of
The Times,
promised Walter Monckton that the paper did not intend to publish
the 'full life' of Mrs Simpson in the next issue. But this was an implicit
threat to publish such an article at a later date. It was said in Fleet
Street, commented Beaverbrook later, that the 'full life' would carry
photographs of her two former husbands, her mother's boarding
house and other illustrations. A promise to refrain from publication
for the 'next issue', therefore, said Beaverbrook, 'was regarded as a
cat-and-mouse game, and the King was the mouse. Torture.'
⁷⁹

Dawson and Baldwin understood the power of the press, both to
intimidate Edward and to influence the public. They met together
twice on 2 December and agreed that the story of Wallis and Edward
needed careful presentation - 'The idea that the King might marry her
must now be broached, but
only as unthinkable
.' Later that day,
Baldwin phoned Dawson, telling him that the King had asked him to
stop any attack on Mrs Simpson in the press. 'In vain,' commented
Dawson in his diary, 'SB had explained that the Press in England was
free and that he had no control over
The Times
or over any other
newspaper.' However, Baldwin asked to see the leader so that he could
inform the King of its contents: 'by this time . . . the paper was just
going to press; but towards midnight I sent a proof of the leader by
messenger to Downing Street and heard no more about it. SB - with
Tommy Dugdale and all the other faithful staff who were supporting
him - was able at last to go to bed.'
⁸⁰