The Duchess Of Windsor, page 35
Nicolson continues: “The ‘Hear, Hears!’ echo solemnly like Amens. His papers are in a confused state . . . and he hesitates somewhat. He confuses dates and turns to Simon, ‘It was a Monday, was it not the 27th?’ The artifice of such asides is so effective that one imagines it to be deliberate. There is no moment when he overstates emotion or indulges in oratory. There is intense silence broken only by the reporters in the gallery scuttling away to telephone the speech paragraph by paragraph. I suppose that in after-centuries men will read the words of that speech and exclaim, ‘What an opportunity wasted!’ They will never know the tragic force of its simplicity. ’I said, to the King . . .’ ‘The King told me. . . .’ It was Sophoclean and almost unbearable. Attlee felt this. When it was over, he asked that the sitting might be adjourned until 6 P.M. We file out broken in body and soul, conscious that we have heard the best speech that we shall ever hear in our lives. There is no question of applause. It was the silence of Gettysburg.”34
That evening, David consulted with Bertie at Fort Belvedere, a meeting which was to prove a source of great contention and resentment between the two brothers for the rest of their lives. Six other men, all financial and legal advisers, were also present: Sir Ulick Alexander, keeper of the privy purse under Edward VIII; Sir Edward Peacock, serving as the King’s private financial adviser; Lord Wigram, the former private secretary to King George V, who was advising the Duke of York; Sir Bernard Bircham, the Duke of York’s personal solicitor; George Allen, the King’s solicitor; and Walter Monckton.
There were two principal issues discussed that evening: the dispersal of the private royal estates of Sandringham and Balmoral and their contents and what financial settlement the soon-to-be-former King could expect to receive after the abdication.
Both Sandringham and Balmoral were owned by the royal trustees; Edward VIII, according to the terms of his father’s will, held a life tenancy in both properties. When he died, the properties would pass to any children he might have. Clearly, the Duke of York believed that the two estates were inalienable from the Crown even if, by law, they belonged to his brother. David had little interest in keeping them for himself; he only wished to return to the Fort. Therefore, an agreement was worked out whereby the two properties and their contents would be sold to the new monarch and thus remain within the Crown.35
Edward VIII possessed a large private fortune. From 1910 to 1936, he had received the revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall; these had been quite substantial, amounting to £70,941 in 1936. In his years as Prince of Wales, these had been increased through prudent investment, and by the time David came to the throne, they amounted to almost a million pounds.36
However, there were other financial considerations. As king, David had spent large sums from this private fortune buying jewels for Wallis and improving and restoring the Fort. He was actually in debt when he abdicated, as the annual revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall and Lancaster were not due until the middle of 1937. He had therefore borrowed money from Baring Brothers Bank in London in order to meet his routine household expenses, such as salaries and pensions. He had also given Wallis some £300,000 as a cash settlement to ensure that no matter what happened, she would have the means to remain comfortable. Although she would return nearly all of this money after the abdication, in December 1936 it remained an outstanding debt against the King’s fortune.
In addition, as Prince of Wales and as sovereign, David had not paid income tax. If and when he returned to England, however, this would likely change. His tax then would be the standard rate of 22.5 percent, with an additional top rate of surtax due on any income over £20,000. In short, this would amount to an additional 47.5 percent, making any potential income-tax payments on his return nearly three-fourths of his entire income.37
An agreement in principle had already been reached whereby the King would surrender both Sandringham and Balmoral in return for £25,000 a year, payable for the duration of his life. No one knew who would pay this money, and there was some thought that indeed Parliament would vote it into consideration for the civil list for the new reign. Both Monckton and Allen had been assured by Sir John Simon, the home secretary, and the chancellor of the exchequer, Neville Chamberlain, that there did not seem to be any reason why Parliament would refuse to support the former King. This evening, however, the Duke of York promised to pay his brother the agreed upon sum if the government did not.
At midnight on Thursday, December 10, the Instrument of Abdication took effect, and Edward VIII ceased to be King, replaced by the Duke of York, who took the name George VI. On the eleventh, Monckton met the new King at No. 145 Piccadilly to again discuss the former King’s titles. “I pointed out,” Monckton recalled, “that the title ‘His Royal Highness’ was one which the Abdication did not take away, and one which would require an Act of Parliament for its removal. The King, for himself and his successors, was renouncing any right to the Throne but not to his Royal Birth which he shared with his brothers. The Duke saw the point and was ready to create his brother Duke of Windsor as the first act of the new reign.”38
David had finally received permission to address his subjects that Friday evening. Before this, there was a family dinner at Royal Lodge with Queen Mary, the Princess Royal, the royal brothers, and Queen Mary’s brother the Earl of Athlone and his wife, Princess Alice. David left at half-past nine to go to Windsor to make his speech. The dinner itself was fairly cheerful, Athlone recalled. Contrary to the popular myth that he was utterly confused and unprepared for his new role, the new King promptly took charge of the situation. He waited for his older brother to leave, then turned to his younger brothers and said, “If You Two think that, now that I have taken this job on, you can go on behaving just as you like, in the same old way, you’re very much mistaken! You Two have got to pull yourselves together.”39
At Windsor Castle, David prepared himself for his speech. At ten o’clock, Sir John Reith, director of the British Broadcasting Corporation, announced in a deep voice, “This is Windsor Castle. His Royal Highness, Prince Edward.” The former King then read his speech to the nation:
At long last I am able to say a few words of my own.
I have never wanted to withhold anything, but until now it has not been constitutionally possible for me to speak.
A few hours ago I discharged my last duty as King and Emperor, and now that I have been succeeded by my brother, the Duke of York, my first words must be to declare my allegiance to him. This I do with all my heart.
You all know the reasons which have impelled me to renounce the Throne, but I want you to understand that in making up my mind I did not forget the Country or the Empire, which, as Prince of Wales and lately as King, I have for twenty-five years tried to serve.
But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King, as I wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love, and I want you to know that the decision I have made has been mine and mine alone. This was a thing I had to judge for myself. The other person most nearly concerned has tried, up to the last, to persuade me to take a different course. I have made this, the most serious decision of my life, only upon the single thought of what would in the end be best for all.
This decision has been made less difficult to me by the sure knowledge that my brother, with his long training in the public affairs of the Country, and with his fine qualities, will be able to take my place forthwith without interruption or injury to the life and progress of the Empire, and he has one matchless blessing, enjoyed by so many of you, and not bestowed on me, a happy home with his wife and children.
During these hard days I have been comforted by my Mother and by my Family.
The Minister 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. Bred in the constitutional tradition by my Father, I should never have allowed any such issue to arise.
Ever since I was Prince of Wales, and later on when I occupied the Throne, I have been treated with the greatest kindness by all classes wherever I have lived or journeyed throughout the Empire. For that I am very grateful.
I now quit 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 The King.40
That evening, everyone at Villa Lou Viei gathered around the radio in the drawing room to listen to the King’s abdication speech. Wallis sobbed openly as David spoke. When the speech was over, one by one, they fled the room, leaving her alone, curled on the sofa, crying uncontrollably.41
After completing his speech, David returned to Royal Lodge to say his goodbyes. His brother George stood crying in a corner of the entrance hall, saying over and over, “It isn’t possible! It isn’t happening!”42
The Princess Royal was in tears as her brother bid her farewell. The only member of the Royal Family who appeared utterly unmoved was Queen Mary. “Edward,” Lord Brownlow recalled, “went up to Queen Mary and kissed her on both hands and then on both cheeks. She was as cold as ice. She just looked at him.”43
The former King returned to the Fort, where the last of his personal luggage was being packed and loaded. At midnight, he finally climbed into his Buick and left his beloved house. Driven by George Ladbrooke, the car raced through the darkness to Portsmouth. They were delayed by the heavy rain, and Ladbrooke had to pull the car to the side of the road several times before he could continue on. Originally, the former King was to sail on the Royal Navy’s Enchantress, but after realizing the ironic implications of the name, the ship was changed to HMS Fury. The car got lost along the docks, and they had to drive back and forth several times before Ladbrooke found the correct berth. Finally, they pulled up to the pier and, joined by Major Ulick Alexander, keeper of the privy purse, and by his new equerry, Sir Piers Legh, David boarded the ship. At two in the morning, in heavy seas and blowing winds, HMS Fury slowly steamed out of the harbor toward the open sea.
23
Rat Week
WITH TOUCHING SIMPLICITY,” wrote Arthur Bryant of the King’s abdication in the Illustrated London News, “he made his renunciation, and nothing in his whole brilliant and generous career of service became him like the leaving it.”1
Not all opinion, however, was as generous. The abdication was a great shock. Only a week earlier, almost no one in England outside of government, aristocratic, and court circles had known who Mrs. Simpson was. A few individuals with friends and relatives on the Continent or in America had read news clippings outlining her story, but the great majority of the King’s subjects remained ignorant of the relationship. The feeling of loss and betrayal, therefore, was all the greater when they learned that their beloved King had abandoned them. It was even worse that he had left owing to his desire to be with a twice-divorced woman he could not live without. The lower and working classes on the whole supported the King and would likely have remained loyal to his cause had the issue come to its divisive head; the middle classes, however, opposed the relationship on moral and religious grounds. To them, Wallis, in the words of Caroline Blackwood, “symbolized sex and evil.”2
The aristocracy and members of the court greeted the abdication with relief. They owed their allegiance not to the sovereign but to the continued existence of the throne; it is no surprise that they readily abandoned the King for his brother. As Harold Nicolson noted on December 9: “What is so tragic is that now the people have got over the first sentimental shock, they want the King to abdicate. I mean opinion in the House is now almost wholly anti-King. ‘If he can first betray his duty and then betray the woman he loves, there is no good in the man.’ “3
The American consul in Plymouth reported to the secretary of state that it was not a question of Wallis being an American or even “the inherent distate for divorce” that turned the British people against the marriage. Rather, he declared, “the people here consider the proceedings leading up to the second divorce were too much of a farce for them to endure.” It was “the middle class, which includes the dyed-in-the-wool non-conformists and the greater part of the Church of England adherents” who had objected most strongly. Many of the latter “stated openly that it would be quite all right if the King were to follow the example set by some other Kings in the past, and make Mrs. Simpson his mistress. They appeared incapable of realizing the hypocrisy of this view, and find no difficulty in saying, almost in the same breath, that the King must set a moral example for his people.”4
Public acclaim seemed to fall to Baldwin. After the abdication, Alan Lascelles wrote to the Times that “the King had no more loyal and devoted subject than Mr. Baldwin then or at any other time.”5 And Sir Eric Mieville, the private secretary to the Duke of York, recalled: ”It is totally unfair and untrue to say that Baldwin had stage managed the whole thing to get rid of the King. A sentimental man, he was just as upset as everyone else. He hated every minute of it.”6
Abroad, the reaction was mixed, and many believed that the abdication might have been forced on the King. Certainly, this was the view in Germany. On January 2, 1938, Ribbentrop reported to Hitler that “Edward VIII had to abdicate, since it was not certain whether, because of his views, he would cooperate in an anti-German policy.”7 Hermann Goering told his wife that Mrs. Simpson had only been used as a pretext for getting rid of the King.8 Hitler thought the “real reason for the destruction of the Duke of Windsor was . . . his speech at the old veterans’ rally in Berlin, at which he declared that it would be the task of his life to effect a reconciliation between Britain and Germany.”9
In America, copies of the abdication speech were being sold at a rapid pace, but there was a curious prohibition of sales in England. John Gunther wrote: “It is somewhat shocking . . . that a country which traditionally prides itself on free speech and fair play should submit to the stupid censorship which prevented phonograph records of this speech being bought anywhere in England. Of course, the ruling classes, trying desperately to ’build up’ the Duke of York, did everything possible to bury Edward and his memory at once.”10
Novelist Upton Sinclair was unstinting in his praise for the King: “You have, by one magnificent gesture, done more to dignify womanhood and give woman her rightful place, than many great people have been able to do by long and laborious effort.”11
America was enraptured by the Romeo and Juliet quality of the story, the romance of a King giving up his throne for love; and the fact that Wallis was an American. Crowds watching newsreels of the participants the week of the abdication at the Embassy Theatre in Times Square in New York City reportedly made their feelings quite clear, as a writer from Time magazine noted: “Prince Edward (cheers); Mrs. Simpson (cheers); her first husband Commander Spencer, U.S.N. (boos); her second and present husband Mr. Simpson (cheers and boos); the Archbishop of Canterbury (boos); new Crown Princess Elizabeth (boos); new King George and Queen Elizabeth (boos); Prime Minister Baldwin (prolonged catcalls and boos); King Edward and Mrs. Simpson bathing in Mediterranean (cheers).”12
Among those who had known Wallis, reaction to the abdication was also mixed. Chips Channon wrote: “I really consider that she would have been an excellent Queen.... She has always shown me friendship, understanding, and even affection, and I have known her do a hundred kindnesses and never a mean act. There is nothing sordid or vulgar in her make-up, but she is modern certainly . . . . She would prefer to be grand, dignified and respectable, but if thwarted she will make the best of whatever position life gives her.”13
Others were not as supportive. In London, Emerald Cunard and Sir Philip Sassoon, among others, quickly backed away from their former friends; even before the abdication, this disreputable flood began. On December 9, Harold Nicolson noted of Lady Cunard: “She came to Maggie Greville and said, ‘Maggie darling, do tell me about this Mrs. Simpson—I have only just met her.’ “14
In February 1937 the Winston Churchills were present at a dinner party given by Chips Channon. Clementine Churchill, who had disagreed with her husband over support of the King, shared, however, his view of those who now turned their backs on the former sovereign. Chips wrote: “Lord Granard tactlessly attacked the late King and Mrs. Simpson to his neighbour, Clemmie Churchill, who turned on him and asked crushingly, ‘If you feel that way, why did you invite Mrs. Simpson to your house and put her on your right?’ A long embarrassed pause followed. . . .”15
The most famous chronicle of this disassociation was a small poem written by Osbert Sitwell. Called “Rat Week,” the verse was a stunning indictment of these former friends and supporters and began:
Where are the friends of yesterday
That fawned on Him,
