The Government could not afford to ignore the King's visit to South Wales. A 'wife and mother' observed in a letter to the Daily Mirror that although it was not the King's job to pay any attention to the suffering of the long-term unemployed, 'he had to do it before anything was done by the politicians.'73 Neville Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, felt obliged to alter a speech he delivered in Leeds on 20 November, a couple of days later, to acknowledge the problem of the Special Areas. The Government was continuously studying the situation in those areas, he insisted, and searching for new ways to help them. But he admitted that in South Wales, in particular, the situation was no better than it was when they had begun to look at the problem. He warned that the Government could not promise any 'spectacular plan which in a trice would solve one of the most obstinate, baffling problems that has ever faced a Government in this country.'74
On their own, Edward's democratic leanings might have been ignored. But combined with his massive popularity they were a cause of grave concern to the Government. Stanley Baldwin, the Conservative Prime Minister of the National Government, made it clear to a colleague that he was increasingly perturbed about 'the delicate situation created by the personality of the new King'.75 Clement Attlee, the leader of the Labour Party, noticed Baldwin's anxiety at a meeting of the Accession Council after the death of George V.76 Chamberlain had his own doubts about the new King. 'I do hope he "pulls up his socks",' he wrote in some notes, 'and behaves himself now he has such heavy responsibilities, for unless he does he will soon pull down the throne.' It was known, according to Montgomery Hyde, writing in his biography of Chamberlain, that he
drafted a memorandum for Cabinet circulation, urging that the King should 'settle down', wear conventional clothes, work at his 'boxes' and not make remarks in public, which were apt to be reported in the newspapers, about such topics as the slums and unemployment. It is also known that the Prime Minister thought it wise to suppress this memorandum.77
Geoffrey Dawson was horrified by the popularity of King Edward. He knew that he would have to take this into serious consideration when thinking about 'the possible value of publicity' in any campaign to force the King's hand on the matter of Mrs Simpson. On 12 November 1936, in the period leading up to Edward's visits to the Home Fleet and South Wales, Dawson noted in his diary that if 'newspaper criticism were to begin before these engagements it might be taken as an attempt to undermine HM's popularity in advance; if immediately after them, as an attempt to minimize his influence. It was a very difficult problem, on which SB [Stanley Baldwin] professed himself quite unable to give advice.'78
Many of the leading members of the Government belonged to a different generation from the King. In 1936 Edward was forty-two, whereas Baldwin was sixty-nine and Chamberlain sixty-seven. But it was not simply a matter of years. More importantly, it was a matter of experience: Baldwin's generation had not seen the horrors of the
First World War at first hand. Indeed, this generation would not have been so dominant in Westminster and Whitehall, had it not been for the deaths in battle of so many young men. 'It is only at times you notice it,' wrote the Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson in 1930,
but when you do it comes as a shock to realize that a whole generation has dropped out of the House of Commons. In the seats of the mighty in all parties are the men over sixty. The criticisms come from the under or early forties. And of the intermediaries, the men who should be bridging the generations there are just a scattered few, the survivors of the Great War.''
These survivors, all over Britain, were haunted by grief and terrible memories - of violent death, of the continuous and useless carnage at battles like Passchendaele, and of the dreary and terrifying reality of trench life. They had a comradeship and a shared knowledge that nobody else could ever understand.80
King Edward VIII shared in this comradeship - by reason of his war service, and by reason of his generation. 'You are our age, the age who's [sic] youth sacrificed during the Great War', said one letter to Edward in L936.81 'You mean so much to our generation,' insisted the writer of another letter, 'which shared with you as with no one else the danger and trials of the War, and for whose present problems you show such deep understanding and practical sympathy.'82 Nor was this appreciation of Edward limited to British war veterans. A French woman who had been an English interpreter during the war wrote from Paris to tell the King that he was 'loved by the World, especially we French people who have not forgotten those days of War.'83
The author Vera Brittain shared this sense of belonging to a generation blighted by war. She had been a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, nursing in France, and had been so horrified by the slaughter that she became an ardent pacifist. 'I belonged, like Edward VIII,' she said, 'to a generation which was still on the early side of middle age but had already seen almost more history than any generation could bear.'84 Brittain gave an account of her war experiences in her autobiographical Testament of Youth (1933). In Honourable Estate, a novel published in 1936, she described the many changes in manners and morals that had taken place since - and because of - the war. Bertrand Russell wrote in 1918 that, 'One sees how our generation is a little mad, because it has allowed itself glimpses of the truth, and the truth is spectral, insane, ghastly.'85
The brutality of the war had made many of Edward's generation long for a new kind of society, free of the social injustice that had characterized the pre-war world. 'The dark ages are past and the twentieth century rolls on!' declared one of Edward's subjects.86 'Your words and actions since you have been King have made us, and thousands of people like us,' wrote one woman,
realise that you are far closer to the people in your aims and beliefs than any previous Sovereign. We admire your courage and honesty, your pacifism and your sympathy with the people in the Distressed Areas . . . And specially for disliking red carpets & all they stand for. You appear to us to belong to the Spirit of the Age.87
This spirit was contrasted with the decay and self-interest of the governing classes. 'England needs a good hoovering', wrote one woman to Edward, emphasizing her point by referring to the vacuum cleaner, which was starting to simplify housework in the homes of the better-off. But 'these politicians and folk of a previous generation', she added, 'refuse to see the grime and dust their antiquated hard brushes cannot cope with ... We feel that you are the hand with the Hoover and hope you will continue - we are with you.'88
The hearts of Baldwin and his Government must have sunk when they heard after the King's visit to South Wales that he was making plans to visit another Special Area - this time, the North-East. The King 'asked for big maps of Tyneside and the North-East districts', reported the Daily Mirror. 'Minister of Labour Brown was phoned for consultation several times,' it added, 'and officials were called to the Palace to help to arrange the programme.'89 The local press in Wales was delighted: 'The second Special Areas tour, we learn, will probably take place in February. And it may extend to Westmoreland and Cumberland.'90 Local dignitaries in the North-East region and the Tyne Improvement Commission in Newcastle rushed letters of enthusiasm to the Special Areas headquarters.91 It may have been Malcolm Stewart, the outgoing Commissioner for the Special Areas, who recommended such a visit to the King, during the royal dinner party at Usk on 17 November. Certainly Stewart had spoken more than once of the desirability of the King visiting the North-East.92 On 1 December, when Dawson was having lunch at the Travellers, he ran into Tommy Lascelles, a royal courtier. Dawson noted in his private diary that Lascelles 'looked thoroughly worn and told me that he was busily engaged in arranging another Royal tour . . . which he felt in his heart would never come off.'93
Nobody seemed to know whether the King was really making plans for another royal tour, or whether it was just a rumour. 'So far as I have yet been able to ascertain, the story about the King's visit to the North-East in the near future is nothing more than a Daily Mail stunt', replied an official at the Special Areas Commission to a letter of enquiry.94
But even a rumour must have horrified the Government. For although there would be opportunities in the North-East to show economic recovery, such a trip would have to include Jarrow - which had an unemployment rate as high as 80 per cent. In the very month before Edward's visit to South Wales in 1936, protesting jobless steelworkers had walked all the way from Jarrow to London, where they cheered King Edward in the Mall.9' The march had been organized by the local council, with the support of both Labour and Conservative councillors, and was covered sympathetically by the press and in newsreels. They're foot-slogging all the way, 280 miles,' reported the narrator of British Movietone's Jarrow Crusade, which was shown in cinemas on 8 October 1936. 'Everyone must sympathize', it added, 'with this orderly demonstration which has such a deserving object. Here's wishing them a happy march and good luck at the end of it!'96 The next report by British Movietone, Jarrow Marchers, told the story of their arrival in London. Ellen Wilkinson, said the soundtrack, was at the marchers' head, 'and marching with them is the dog that has joined the crusade. The demonstration has been most orderly. Their object - a petition to aid their town - a worthy one. So here's the very best of luck to them - every one.'97 Baldwin refused to meet the Jarrow marchers on their arrival in London. 'This is the way civil strife begins,' he said, 'and civil strife may not end until there is civil war."8 But the nation was deeply touched by the marchers' desperate plight.
It was certain that a visit by King Edward to the North-East would be given full attention by the media and the newsreels. Once again, cinema-goers would see Edward walking among the poor and work- less. Once again, he might say that 'Something must be done.' It was not an attractive prospect for Baldwin's Government or for any of the Establishment who were fearful of change.
4 'King to marry Wally'
The growing intimacy of Wallis and Edward was watched with apprehension by the small circle around the King. Concern started to grow that Edward might want to marry Mrs Simpson - and make her his Queen. This was not a welcome prospect. 'So long as you have a Queen,' observed Cecil Headlam, the Conservative MP for County Durham, 'she must be head of Society and no one really wants anyone in that position unless she is a lady.' Supposing then, he added,
the King had pitched upon some young woman of virgin purity, but with a cockney accent or something of that kind - it is ridiculous to suggest that she would have made a suitable Queen ... if you want a King and a Court, you must recognize the fact that it implies class distinctions and forms and etiquette - not social equality.'
However, there was little that anyone could do, from a constitutional point of view, to prevent an unacceptable marriage by the King. For Britain's monarch was free to marry anyone he liked, except a Roman Catholic. The Royal Marriages Act of 1772 gave him the power to prohibit the marriage of any member of the family, no matter what their age might be - but nobody had the legal right to prohibit his own marriage. The King was entitled to please himself.
On the very day that King George V died, 20 January 1936, Stanley Baldwin had summoned Duff Cooper to 10 Downing Street to discuss Edward's 'relations' with Mrs Simpson. Baldwin told Duff that 'if it becomes generally known the country won't stand it.' If she were 'what I call a respectable whore', he said, then he wouldn't mind. By this, observed Duff in his diary, he meant somebody whom the Prince occasionally saw in secret but didn't spend his whole time with. 'I think the Prince's staff are very much against him', added Duff.2
On 13 February 1936, just a few weeks after the start of Edward's reign, Ramsay MacDonald went to Buckingham Palace and noticed the courtiers' disapproval of the King. He recorded in his diary that he 'found the folks there not happy. Mrs Sfimpson]: Belvedere arriving at 3 a.m. & so on.' Lord Wigram, who had been Private Secretary to George V, told MacDonald that Edward 'wants [to] marry & get rid of her husband; in this his mind seems to be made up.'3
However, Edward's affair with Mrs Simpson was not the only source of friction between the King and his courtiers. He did get on well with his own staff, such as his cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten, his equerry Charles Lambe, and Ulrick Alexander, who was the Keeper of the Privy Purse and who was devoted to him. But he was treated with suspicion and distrust by the courtiers who were loyal to the styles and values of his father, George V. 'Clearly King G.'s men are not for King E.', observed Cecil Headlam in his diary entry for 18 November 1936, the day on which Edward began his tour of South Wales.4 In an article entitled 'Palace battle', the intellectual magazine This Week observed that those members of the court who in the last reign had occupied positions in which they could influence the throne were bitterly disappointed that this power had come to an end.5
Lord Wigram, who initially served the new King as Private Secretary, soon resigned, to be replaced by Major Hardinge. 'Before very long,' wrote Sir Horace Wilson, Chief Industrial Advisor to the Prime Minister, 'we knew from Lord Wigram and others that there was grave doubt' that any hopes for the King's reign would be fulfilled. Before Wigram went, said Sir Horace, he told Baldwin of his fears and made it clear that, in his view, this was a case where it was almost impossible to appeal to reason and judgement.6 There were regularly used channels of communication between the top levels of the civil service, the royal household and government. These were augmented by the multiple connections knitting Society together - Wigram's wife was Neville Chamberlain's daughter, for example.
Edward had begun to replace some of his father's courtiers, a process that was customary for any new monarch. This did not please the old guard. When Lord Cromer agreed to stay on as Lord Chamberlain, he did so, he said, out of a sense of duty rather than desire - because he knew 'that war was in effect declared against the old gang'.7 Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been a long-standing intimate of George V and a key figure in his court, took the same view. 'There is not only a new reign, but a new regime,' he lamented. 'I can only be most thankful for what has been, and for what is to be, hope for the best.'8
Charles Lambe was aware of a 'great deal of whispering and secrecy', with 'one courtier always bleating, a centre of discontent. Another - ancien regime - outraged, pompous and ineffectual.'9 Edward was evidently not able or not willing to take control and manage his royal staff. Lambe observed that from the start of Edward's reign, the organization seemed wrong:
The nominal Executive Head was the Lord Chamberlain but inside the Palace there was no Chief of Staff. Consequently the good old atmosphere of competition for the King's Ear prevailed, as it must always have done in history. A really big understanding man could have made the system work by earning not only the loyalty of his own department but of all the many others who, while trying to co-operate, owed him no direct allegiance in a disciplinary sense.10
If Edward had managed to take charge, he might have secured the court's backing and support. Even Wigram could not help liking him. He 'confessed' to Hilda Runciman, the wife of the President of the Board of Trade, that the King
was quite irresistible in spite of being very trying and annoying to a secretary]: . . . Wigram said he took care to avoid a quarrel. .. just changed the subject, but of course he has to tell him his duty and he only wishes he had had him younger!"
But in any case, Edward - as Prince of Wales, and then as King - found many aspects of court life absurd. One of these was the 'coming out' of girls during the London season, when Society girls were presented to the monarch personally. Contemporary newsreels show how bored he was by these occasions: at a Palace garden party in July 19 3 6 he was seen to give each girl a hurried nod and then, when it began to rain, he abruptly brought the ceremony to a close.12 At the State Opening of Parliament on 3 November 1936, he arrived in a Daimler and wore a cocked hat, as Admiral of the Fleet. This angered many members of the court, who expected him to travel in a gilded coach drawn by a team of eight horses and to wear a golden crown.13 Edward's dress was a further source of annoyance - he preferred comfortable clothes, rejecting the starched shirts and rigid dress conventions favoured by his
father. At a formal meeting at the Jockey Club he caused a minor sensation by appearing in a lounge suit and straw hat, when his official hosts had donned morning coats and top hats in his honour.14 His brother Albert did not approve of these sartorial innovations. In a letter to Lord Londonderry about what decorations to wear at small dances, he said,
I will have a talk about it with my brother this coming week ... I know you will not repeat this, but he is rather difficult on these matters & has different ideas about them from anyone else. We ought to conform to what he does, really, but this is often difficult knowing that he is in the wrong, or at least out of order with what has been done on a similar occasion previously.15
The Peoples King Page 9