The Peoples King

by Susan Williams

  Although Albert had worn splints on his legs as a child, he became a proficient horseman and a tennis ace, playing in the doubles of the 1926 Wimbledon championships;23 he was also 'particularly nimble' when dancing at Balmoral.24 He suffered from a stammer from childhood, but sought help for this in 1926, with the support of his wife.

  One important reason for Albert's favour with the court was the approval of his late father. 'You have always been so sensible and easy to work with and you have always been [so] ready to listen to any advice and to agree with my opinions about people and things', George V had written to Albert in 1923, 'that I feel that we have always got on very well together (very different to dear David).'25 The idea of the second royal son being more qualified to reign than the first had a precedent in the previous generation, for Edward VII's first son, Prince Albert Victor, known as 'Eddy', had been generally regarded as hopeless by the court. There was widespread relief when he died before his father, thereby making his brother - soon to be George V - the heir presumptive.

  Waiting in the last days of November to hear Baldwin's views on the proposed morganatic marriage, Edward consulted Samuel Hoare and Duff Cooper. These were the two men that he had wanted as witnesses to his previous meeting with the Prime Minister - a request that had been refused by Baldwin. Edward mentioned these friends again, and Baldwin agreed that the King could consult them on a private basis. Edward had been careful to observe the formality of this application, Duff later wrote, in the same way that he 'behaved with punctilious constitutional rectitude throughout the crisis'.26

  Edward first saw Hoare, who was sympathetic but not encouraging. He warned that any attempt to press the marriage plan would meet with a stone wall of opposition from the Cabinet. Duff Cooper took a different, more optimistic, view. He was determined that Edward should stay on the throne but strongly advocated delaying the marriage. He urged Edward to ignore the furore and go ahead with his coronation, staying away from Wallis in the meantime. People would then see, said Duff, that he had done his best to get on without her but found it impossible. He might then, as King, proceed to marry Mrs Simpson. But the King refused even to consider the suggestion of postponement - 'for a reason', said Duff, 'which did him credit. He felt it would be wrong to go through so solemn a religious ceremony as the Coronation without letting his subjects know what it was his intention to do. I could not argue against such scruples, but could only respect them.'2'

  Edward summoned his Prime Minister on 15 November and asked him whether he had considered Harmsworth's proposal. Baldwin replied that he was not yet ready to offer a considered judgement. But if the King wanted a 'horseback opinion', he added, it was his view that Parliament would never agree to pass a Bill allowing a morganatic marriage. He then asked the King if he wished him to examine the proposition formally. This, he said, would require putting it before the whole Cabinet and also before the Prime Ministers of the Dominions - Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Irish Free State.28 The Dominions were formerly British possessions that were now independent states, joined to the mother country by a common bond of allegiance to the Crown.

  Edward agreed to Baldwin's proposals. The Prime Minister left quickly; the meeting had been short, and an agreement swiftly reached. But it was yet another turning point in the crisis, even more significant than the Hardinge letter. As the door closed behind Baldwin, it dawned on the King that 'with that simple request I had gone a long way towards sealing my own fate'.29 For by submitting the issue as a matter for constitutional 'advice', he had put himself and his marriage into the hands of his Ministers. He had now bound himself to submit to whatever he was told - since the 'advice' would, in practice, take the form of an instruction from the Prime Minister to the King. If the Cabinet and the Dominion governments would not support a morganatic marriage, then the King would have no choice but to follow the 'advice'. In other words, Edward had put himself at the Government's mercy. 'The Battle for the Throne has begun', wrote Chips Channon in his diary, when he heard about the meeting.30

  Baldwin was acting correctly in considering the wishes of the Dominions. The Statute of Westminster of 1931, which followed the Imperial Conference of 1926, had formally recognized and defined the new concept of Dominion status, and declared in its preamble that any change in the royal succession, style or title required the assent of Dominion parliaments (neither Australia nor New Zealand had adopted the Statute by 1936, but they were expected to behave as if they had).31 Baldwin had a fair idea already of how at least one of the Dominions would respond, since he had discussed the topic at length with Stanley Bruce, the Australian High Commissioner, on 15 November. Bruce had made it clear to Baldwin that the Australian Prime Minister, Joseph A. Lyons, took the same view as himself - that marriage to Wallis was simply unacceptable.

  Max Beaverbrook returned to London from his truncated trip to North America on the following day, the 26th, and drove straight to the Fort. He was appalled at the rapid turn of events and strongly urged delay. Baldwin's offer to consult the Cabinet and Dominions would carry great risks for the King, he argued, and should be stopped immediately. But Edward felt unable to do so: he feared that this would involve him 'in a long course of seeming dissimulation for which I had neither the talent nor the appetite.'32

  Beaverbrook resigned himself to the inevitable. He later attributed Edward's weak strategy - indeed, absence of any viable strategy at all - to his lack of political nous:

  His interests were never political. They were social in both senses of the term. They were social in the sense that he liked sports, parties and the company of brisk and lively people. They were also social in the sense that he was deeply interested in conditions of ordinary life and work, and in the expansion of British export trade in the markets of the world.

  But now, said Beaverbrook, he was facing 'a grave political problem quite unprepared for the task'. He had shown the same lack of political savoir faire in his dealings with the court. It was not that King Edward was inexperienced, rather that the kind of experience he had gained was of no use to him in dealing with political men. 'He had mixed more freely with the people than any Heir Apparent had ever done before,' wrote Beaverbrook, 'but he had hardly mixed at all with politicians ... he had friends in coal-mines, but not in the Cabinet.'33

  Baldwin and Chamberlain were not allowed to forget about these 'friends in coal mines', once Edward's visit to South Wales had taken place. On 26 November, during Oral Answers in the House of Commons, questions were put to Ernest Brown about the usefulness of what was being done in the Special Areas. These questions made implicit references to the King's recent visit to Wales and used the phrase 'something must be done'. 'As this matter has been in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman and his Department for the last 15 months,' asked the Labour MP George Hall, 'is it not time something were done?'34 Even though it was not permissible to refer directly to the King, for constitutional reasons, the radical Glasgow MP, David Kirkwood, was determined to mention directly the King's tour of Wales. 'Seeing that the right hon. Gentleman was in such close contact with the King,' he asked Brown, reminding the House in this way that Brown had accompanied the King to South Wales, 'did not the King suggest that the means test should be done away with?' The Speaker admonished Kirkwood with the reminder that, 'The hon. Member must not bring in the King's name',35 but Kirkwood had successfully used the King's visit to draw attention to the Government's failure on unemployment. He had also given weight to the policy of the opposition by associating with it the name of the King.

  Despite his left-wing politics, Kirkwood had been a staunch supporter of the King for many years, ever since he had been summoned by Edward, when Prince of Wales, to give an account of his political views. 'I have never talked to any man in my life', he said after the meeting,

  who was more eager to know just what the workers were thinking ... We were two British citizens talking about our land and our people. A man's a man for a' that. It was as if we were on a
ship in a storm, when class and creed and caste are forgotten.

  Kirkwood added that he felt he had 'been in the presence of a man who had a big job to do, and is earnest, and determined to do his job well.'36

  The King's visit to Wales had led to increased concern outside the House of Commons about the Special Areas. In the week that followed, the New Statesman sent some journalists to South Wales to investigate conditions there. 'What is to be done about it?' they asked.'Something ought to be done at once . . .'37 'The people want something done', observed John Rowland at the Welsh Board of Health, 'and they think the King is out to help.'38 The Seaham Weekly News, a local paper in the impoverished region of County Durham, made the same point. Referring to the dreadful conditions which were being allowed to continue in South Wales, Durham and other distressed areas, it argued that, 'What is needed is action, immediate and stern, not columns of words, with much promise and little performance.'39 Fear was expressed, too, that the anger of the unemployed would erupt in serious unrest. Edward himself, as Prince of Wales, had warned the American Ambassador, Robert Bingham, of this risk in 1934. There had to be change in conditions in Britain, he said, and a correction of social injustice among the English people which would relieve poverty and distress - 'that this must come and that it would come either wisely, constructively and conservatively, which would save the country, or it would come violently, which would destroy it. . .'40

  In May 1926, just ten years before the King's visit to Wales in 1936, a General Strike had almost brought the nation to a standstill. It had been sparked by an attempt by coal owners to cut wages and extend working hours in the pits, which was firmly resisted by the miners. The workers of Britain had rallied to the miners' cause, in a national strike that was seen by the Government as a serious threat to stability. 'Constitutional government is being attacked', warned Baldwin, the Prime Minister. The General Strike, he added, 'is a challenge to Parliament, and is the road to anarchy and ruin.'41 Those who identified themselves with the position of the Government - the ruling classes - rushed to take over the running of essential services. Most of these volunteers had never done any menial work in their lives before, commented the Illustrated London News:

  Armoured cars escorted convoys of lorries carrying food through the London streets and a battalion of the Grenadier Guards marched into the docks. Young men from Oxford and Cambridge poured into the capital to volunteer as bus drivers, train drivers and special constables.

  'We feel that the heart of England must be sound', added the magazine, 'when we read that Mr C. E. Pitman, the Oxford stroke, is driving a train ... the Headmaster of Eton . . . and about fifty of his assistant masters have enrolled as special constables . . . Lord Chesham is driving a train and the Hon. Lionel Tennyson is a special.'42

  After only nine days, the General Strike was brought to an end. The miners stayed out until December, with little support apart from nearly a million pounds sent to the Miners' Relief Fund from the trade unions of Russia. The miners were eventually forced back to work by cold and starvation, having to accept both longer hours and lower wages. Baldwin then introduced the Eight Hours Act to lengthen the seven-hour day officially. It was swiftly followed by the 1927 Trades Disputes Act, which made any repetition of a general strike illegal. The disaffection of the people continued to fester, especially after the Depression of 1929. Just after the creation of the National Government in 1931, the men of the Atlantic Fleet at Invergordon refused duty in protest against cuts in the pay of the ratings - some lost more than 10 per cent. The Board of Admiralty responded swiftly to reduce the cuts, but the nation was shocked by this naval mutiny. It was one of the reasons for the suspension of the Gold Standard, and it contributed to the climate of concern that led to the Special Areas Act in 1934. In the Areas themselves, social unrest grew.

  Protests against the Government became increasingly common, especially hunger marches from the Special Areas to London. In one of the largest marches, in 1934, there were eighteen main contingents of Scottish, Welsh and English unemployed people. Before reaching London they had slept in 188 towns and marched through many hundreds of other towns and villages.43 When they finally arrived in the metropolis, conflict broke out: police charged the crowds, and fighting between them and the marchers broke out in and around Hyde Park.44 This intrusion annoyed Chips Channon. I walked to the House of Commons,' he wrote in his diary on 10 November, 'as we had been warned not to bring cars.' The lobbies were full of hunger marchers, he complained,

  come to protest against the new unemployment regulations, the so-called Means Test. . . Later, I went out into the lobby and found it full to suffocation with marchers, who were being incited by Communists. Many of them wore red shirts and ties. At the door was a queue singing the Red Flag. It really seemed as if trouble must break out. But it didn't, and about 8.30 I took the last look at these unfortunate people who have been goaded and misguided by their leaders into walking from Lancashire and South Wales.45

  'These marchers are a public nuisance and a public danger,' warned the Daily Telegraph on 29 October 1936.46 Demonstrations were held locally, too. In February 1935, thousands of people in Merthyr, including women with prams and young children, stormed the office of the Unemployment Assistance Board, breaking windows and destroying records. Next day, the unpopular benefit scales that had been introduced by the Board were suspended.47 The anger of the poor and unemployed was making itself felt.

  Behind the strikes and hunger marches, as well as the growing influence of the Labour Party, the classes of wealth saw the spectre of Communism stalking Europe. 'These Stay in Strikes are a product of Russia,' wrote Lord Wigram to the Viceroy in June 1936, 'and without doubt Russian influences have been at work both in France and Spain.' He added, 'One cannot help admiring Mussolini.'48 The ruling class feared that 'the Labour Party might at any moment turn red as rapidly as a lobster in a kettle of boiling water', commented the novelist Sir Compton Mackenzie49 - and that the anger of the unemployed would erupt in revolution.

  South Wales was seen as a flashpoint. The Spectator warned in September that South Wales was 'ripe with atheism, and ripe for revolution'. It argued that although Communism was making slow headway in South Wales (not more than thirty seats out of many hundreds had been won on Borough and County Councils by the Communist Party), the influence of Communism was growing, fanned by measures of social injustice such as the Means Test.50 In a leaflet entitled 'The People Can Save South Wales!', a militant socialist stated that

  The struggle against the Means Test and the New Regulations can be ten times more effective by challenging the whole policy of the National Government towards South Wales . .. Today the flag of revolt needs to be raised to new heights to save the people of South Wales from destruction.51

  Many of the unemployed in Wales regarded the National Government as a government of capitalists whose interests were directly opposed to those of the working class. The South Wales Slave Act Special, published by Lewis Jones for the South Wales National Unemployed Workers Movement, made this point clearly. The Government, it said, 'is supported in Parliament by 196 company directors who hold between them 836 directorates, 33 landowners, 144 high society people, 136 Army, Navy and Air Force officers, and 135 lawyers to put them right when they go wrong . . . SUCH A GOVERNMENT MUST BE BROUGHT DOWN.'52 In this climate of popular disaffection, the King's visit to Wales in November - drawing attention to the poverty of the unemployed and insisting that something must be done - was most unwelcome to the Government. It was yet one more example of a series of episodes in which he seemed to side with the working class against those in power.

  In every way, in his public life and in his private life, King Edward VIII was a headache for the Establishment. Baldwin decided to throw his energies behind the easier problem: the King's wish for a morganatic marriage to Mrs Simpson. On the morning of Friday 27 November, he summoned a meeting of the Cabinet in his room at the House of Commons. The press was informed that the Cabinet wa
s going to discuss the gravity of events in Spain. But although the conflict there was certainly grave, it was not on the agenda. Instead, for the first time in Cabinet, Baldwin raised the marriage crisis. Armed with press cuttings from American magazines and newspapers, he brought Ministers up to date and told them he believed the King to be passionately in love. He also reported on Edward's proposal of a morganatic marriage, saying that he would not ask Cabinet for a decision that day. It was clear, though, that nearly everybody shared the Prime Minister's opposition to the idea. Only Duff Cooper pleaded on the King's behalf, arguing that he should be crowned as planned in May 1937 - and that only then should the marriage question be brought forward.53

  Baldwin explained that he would need to consult the Dominion prime ministers, and it was agreed that Chamberlain, Simon, Hoare and Sir Thomas Inskip, as well as himself, would help Malcolm MacDonald, the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, to draw up telegrams to send to the Dominions.54 The discussion was kept secret from Edward, even though, as head of state, he was supposed to receive the papers relating to Cabinet meetings. The following day, he was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the usual red box of official documents, expecting to see the minutes of the meeting. 'But the solitary paper that I found inside, purporting to describe the momentous discussions of that day,' he found to his disappointment, 'was blank except for a perfunctory paragraph relating to the carriage of arms to Spain.'55

  Telegrams were sent from Baldwin to the prime ministers of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa at 12.15 pm - the next day, 27 November. No telegram was sent to the Irish Free State; instead, a message was taken to Dublin personally by Sir Henry Batterbee, the Acting Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. The leaders of five overseas nations were thus being informed about a British problem that was still unknown to most of the people of Britain. Baldwin set out the background to the crisis and presented three choices: