The Peoples King (44 page)
The fact that Edward wanted to
marry
Wallis, rather than simply keep her as his mistress, was taken up with interest by the English- speaking Japanese press. 'Even those who most deplore the abdication', commented the
Japan Times,
must recognize that if the King has committed an error it has been through excessive honesty and generosity. There have been cases before in which Kings have had private friends. But they have remained 'behind the screen'; they have not been seen at Court; they have been concubines but not wives.
Edward's behaviour towards Wallis was seen as reflecting an increase in the independence and freedom of women - 'This royal tragedy is, in its way, the most striking evidence the world has yet seen that the equality of woman is recognized, even in the highest places.' The article concluded that 'His Majesty has evidently refused to adopt a course which he considered would be unkind and, indeed, dishonourable to the lady whom he had chosen.'
11
References were made to the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act of 1928 in Britain, by which women had obtained the vote on an equal basis with men. In the
Japan Advertiser,
a suffragist called Mrs Shigeri Kaneko said she believed that the women of the world should be moved by the King's choice. 'Cannot the womanhood of the world feel greatly moved?' she asked her readers. 'The choice was between love and kingdom', she said, 'and the King took love. From the standpoint of a woman, nothing could be more joyous. That the younger generation in Britain should strongly support the King's action is very natural.'
12
Not only Edward and Churchill, but also the new King - George VI - and his advisers were making preparations for Edward's farewell broadcast. Sir John Reith, the Director-General of the BBC, had been planning to introduce Edward on air as 'Mr Edward Windsor'. The new royal administration was aghast: this meant that Edward would then have the right, like every other British citizen, to play a role in political life and stand for election to the House of Commons - a real possibility, they thought, given Edward's popularity with the public. In fact, it was not possible for him to be plain Mr Windsor because he was the son of a duke - and that gave him the right to sit in the House of Lords.
But for Edward to have any kind of role in political life would be highly embarrassing and was unacceptable to the court. In a memorandum annexed to his record of the abdication crisis, George VI set down a summary of a meeting held on the morning of Friday 11 December in which a solution was found. The meeting took the form of an interview with the Lord Chancellor's representative, Sir Claud Schuster, and was also attended by Lord Wigram.
'Now as to his name', said the King, 'I suggest H. R. H. D. of [Windsor]:
He cannot be Mr. E. W. as he was born the son of a Duke. That makes him Ld. E. W. anyhow. If he ever comes back to this country, he can stand and be elected to the H. of C.
Would you like that? S [that is, Schuster] replied No.
As D. of W. he can sit & vote in the H. of L. Would you like that? S. replied No. Well if he becomes a Royal Duke he cannot speak or vote in the H. of L. & he is not being deprived of his rank in the Navy, Army or R. Air Force.
13
In this way, by giving Edward a royal style, the new King made sure that Edward would never at any time be able to take part in British politics. In political terms, the former King had been neutered.
George VI had good reason to worry. The letters and telegrams being sent to his brother at this time show that many people were banking on the ex-king's return to public life through politics. They appealed to him to set up a new political party. One Londoner told him, 'the country would stand unitedly behind you, as America has stood unitedly behind President Roosevelt's New Deals, and would insist upon your being made Prime Minister.'
14
From a schoolgirl in Denbigh came the message that everyone at her school was for Edward, and that even if he did abdicate, 'I don't care. You'll still be our King.'
15
Another letter expressed the hope that 'you will return - perhaps not as king - but as the mainstay & hope of the working men of this nation.' It went on, 'you are our leader. Return to public life, don't waste your life; it can mean so much, to us you have the younger generation behind you if you try to give happiness to the miserable.'
16
A family in Middlesex firmly believed that it would not be long before Edward was back, working for the poor: 'we are convinced that your Majesty's action is NOT in accord with the Nation's wish, and we hope that in the not far distant future you will be back again with us to lead us out of the distress and despair into which we seem doomed to be plunged.' They added their sympathy for 'your good Lady', for the ordeal she had been through.
17
'We may admire your brothers', wrote a woman to Edward, 'but we don't love them.' In particular, she added in a postscript, 'I hate the thought of having a "Queen Elizabeth" - she would never be such a good monarch as her namesake! They never are.'
18
A woman writing at three in the morning on 10 December told Edward that, 'If only you could just wander around London and hear all that is being said - how sad and regretful we all are. If only you could have seen that large, silent, listless crowd that stood outside Buckingham Palace tonight.'
1
' The widow of a Coldstreamer killed in September 1916 wanted Edward to continue as King but also to find happiness in his private life to make up for the arduous tasks he had 'so faithfully' performed for his subjects.
20
For one Middlesex woman, 'The bottom dropped out of the whole world' when she heard that he was going to abdicate. She never saw a film of him without having 'a silent weep. It was sheer joy for me to join in with "God Save the King".' In the future, she said, whenever she sang the National Anthem 'it will be of you I am thinking for in my heart there never could be another King. I am only poor, but I would willingly go without food for a year if this could have been avoided, we all loved you so much sir.'
21
The farewell broadcast was made from Windsor Castle. Reith introduced the new Duke of Windsor to his listening audience as 'His Royal Highness Prince Edward'.
22
'At long last,' the Duke began, 'I am able to say a few words of my own. I have never wanted to withhold anything, but until now it has been not constitutionally possible for me to speak.' He explained that he had never forgotten the country or the Empire, which for twenty-five years he had tried hard to serve. But it had become impossible 'to carry out the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.' He said that the decision was his alone and that it had been made less difficult by the knowledge that his brother, 'with his long training in the public affairs of this country and with his fine qualities', would be taking over the role. He added, too, that 'The Ministers of the Crown, and in particular Mr Baldwin, the Prime Minister, have always treated me with full consideration. There has never been any constitutional difference between me and them and between me and Parliament.' He concluded,
I now quit altogether public affairs, and I lay down my burden. It may be some time before I return to my native land, but I shall always follow the fortunes of the British race and Empire with profound interest, and if at any time in the future I can be found of service to His Majesty in a private station I shall not fail. And now we all have a new King.
I wish Him, and you, His people, happiness and prosperity with all my heart.
God bless you all. God Save TheKing.
23
After the speech, the National Anthem was played.
24
'King Edward VIII broadcast his farewell message to us at 10 p.m. from Windsor Castle', a woman in Somerset recorded in her diary that night. 'Very Patriotic end to his short reign.'
25
Not everybody was able to hear the speech. A married couple from Cheshire told the King they did not have a radio. 'We shall be unable to listen in to your Broadcast tonight,' they explained, 'being Unemployed we haven't been able to buy one. We have a family and they must be fed.' But they hoped, they said, that 'when you return to us, and your country, to have the pleasure of hearing you and your future wife. I have a snap I took of you at Wembley some years ago, which I will prize more than ever ... we shall never forget, how you have worked for us, unemployed, and from the bottom of our hearts we thank you.'
26
But everyone who could, listened in. An ex-serviceman in Liverpool, who was the same age as Edward, listened in 'on the wireless at a friend's house to you tonight - having no wireless of my own.'
27
The freezing weather had developed into hail by the evening. 'There was complete emptiness', wrote Virginia Woolf in her diary. 'All the life had been withdrawn to listen, to judge . . . All the omnibuses were empty.'
28
On the night of the broadcast, recalled the writer Ronald Tree, 'we were dining at Blenheim. The radio was turned on and we listened to the King's last words before leaving the country. The men looked grim. Many of the women wept.'
29
Churchill, listening to the speech at Chartwell, was in tears.
30
Days later, he wrote to tell Edward that 'the broadcast was successful, and all over the world people were deeply moved; millions wept. The Government were grateful. They certainly ought to be.'
31
James Agate, who had been concerned about Baldwin's behaviour throughout the crisis, said he was reassured by Edward's generous words about the Prime Minister. 'The ceremony, for such it was,' he said, 'was moving. Baldwin came out of it very well. It entirely cleared my mind of any possible doubts as to the way in which this thing ought to be looked at.'
32
For the draper in Belfast, though, it was 'a great strain' to listen to Edward. 'He spoke so heart to heart-fashion', he observed, it must have been a terrific ordeal for him - his voice was greatly changed from the last time I heard him speak - now it is hoarse - aged - like his father's.'
33
'How profoundly touched my mother
&
I were at your wonderful message', wrote one woman. 'We know by all the people we have spoken to that England wished you to stay & marry Mrs Simpson ... we thank you for all you have tried to do for your country.'
34
One correspondent told Edward that,
Although you only spoke for seven minutes over the wireless the other night I hope I will never hear such another speech because the tears were running down my face. You said in your speech 'God bless you all' and I echoed 'God bless you' ... I read in the paper the other day that by abdicating you had given up your home in England. While I am alive you are never without a home and if I can ever help you I will be proud to do so.
35
'Thank you', said another message, 'for broadcasting to us all.'
36
'I sat alone in my car', said one man, heartbroken, 'and switched on the wireless to listen to your broadcast.'
37
It was a good speech, thought Lady Milner - 'but how lacking in control must a man be who does what he has done! And
talks
about it!'
38
Helen Hardinge noticed that in St James's Palace they were calling the speech 'very vulgar'.
39
Ramsay MacDonald was equally unimpressed and glad to see the end of Edward's reign. It was 'touching and pathetic and yet not appealing' he observed after the broadcast, adding that 'I perhaps am prejudiced by the immediate harm he has done, and when the future opens up I shall see, as indeed I believe, that it was all for the good. Still, one does not respect so much as be thankful for the tools of Providence.'
4
" By 'tools of Providence', MacDonald presumably meant Wallis Simpson.
Some of Edward's critics in the earlier days of the crisis were stirred by the words and tone of his speech. The 'final parting', said a London solicitor, 'was very restrained and dignified and sent one to bed feeling very sad.'
41
The bookseller at Barkers found it 'most moving & sad' and hoped that 'he will not live to regret the irrevocable step he has taken & that the woman of his choice will bring him the happiness that he hopes for. Many people doubt it particularly men - they think he is a young fool - not so very young either at 43. The men say that those very strong feelings do not last.'
42
Even the young Fascist who had been hostile to Edward was grudgingly impressed. 'It sounded pretty awful,' he commented. 'Still, it did convey a certain amount of pathos.'
43
The broadcast was relayed overseas. Wallis heard the speech in the South of France. 'Everyone in Lou Viei, including the domestic staff,' she wrote in her memoirs, 'gathered around the radio in the sitting- room. David's voice came out of the loudspeaker calmly, movingly.' She was overcome. 'I was lying on the sofa with my hands over my eyes, trying to hide my tears. After he finished, the others quietly went away and left me alone. I lay there a long time before I could control myself enough to walk through the house and go upstairs to my room.'
44
The speech had marked a watershed in Edward's life - but it was a turning point for Wallis, too. It told the whole world about his love for her and his utter, uncompromising devotion. 'Edward . . . may now go down to History as the greatest Lover ever known; and yet every word of his will have a greater power and meaning from now on', observed a spiritualist living in Bradford. She set down in her diary the thoughts that were going through so many people's minds at the time: 'Truth is stranger than fiction. A Beautiful Woman Who Shook an Empire.'
45