The Voice, a newspaper in Hobart, Tasmania, bitterly regretted the loss of 'undoubtedly the most democratic King the world has ever known, "The Poor Man's King".' The editor, Mr Dwyer-Gray, who was Treasurer of the Tasmanian Government, argued that Edward had been forcibly removed - 'The Voice will not be silenced. This was as foul a plot as ever disgraced mankind. "Finance" did not want a radical King . . .' The 'Poor Man's King', it added, was given an ultimatum, precipitating a crisis where there was no need for hurry at all. 'Misrepresentations of Dominion opinion were used in London and misrepresentations of London opinion were used in the Dominions.108 The knuckles of Mr Dwyer-Gray were severely rapped. When he attended an official dinner to honour Lord Hartington, who was visiting Tasmania, Hartington 'spoke very plainly to him, and said that he was shocked to see such articles from the pen of a Minister of the Crown, and a Roman Catholic one at that.' Lord Hartington sent a copy of the offending article to Sir Harry Batterbee,109 who forwarded it to Sir Horace Wilson with the comment, 'You may be interested to see the enclosed - pretty disgusting!'"0
'This is sedition - putting a monarch off his Throne without consulting Parliament', accused Jack Beasley, the Labour MP for New South Wales."' H. V. Evatt, a distinguished lawyer and a Justice of the Federal Supreme Court of Australia, who later became leader of the parliamentary Labour Party, wrote to Churchill to express his gratitude that there was 'at least one man in the Parliament at Westminster who in a time of unexampled crisis, served his late Monarch so loyally and so well.' He regretted that no means had existed 'for ascertaining the guidance and extent of the "public opinion" (in the Dominions or England)': 'What a Whip triumph! That a Parliament with no Shadow of relevant popular mandate should effectuate such a charge! And what a triumph for Dictatorship! That a Government should carry through such an affair before any reference to Parliament was made!' All this, he observed, had passed into history. But would not history, he wondered, contrast the two men - 'the politician who by innuendo, by the over emphasis on personal friendship, and by downright misrepresentation, gave the Iago touch to the crisis and the man, the monarch, who was too great for the Parliament and too noble for the individuals who purported to speak for the Dominions.'"2
Sir Horace Wilson felt some anxieties, too. He wondered whether 'the historian of the future' might not criticize the Government for not starting soon enough to induce the King to change his mind. Baldwin told him not to worry, because the King had been determined to marry Mrs Simpson anyway."3
While the act of abdication continued to resonate in the lives of millions of people all over the world, Edward's own life underwent a swift and dramatic change. In just a few hours after his farewell broadcast, he would be sailing away from Britain. He did what he could for his staff. Bruce Lockhart heard a story that the King, on eve of departure for France, sent for Crisp, his valet. 'We're going abroad, Crisp. What about the luggage?' Crisp hesitated. He was married, didn't want to go. King saw at once. 'Never mind, I'll get you a job here.' Rings up his brother. 'Bertie, what about my valet - he's best authority on medals and decorations in the world.' King went without valet. Crisp now with King George VI.114
The Windsor family shared a final meal with Edward at Royal Lodge, in Windsor Great Park, after listening to the broadcast. The diners were Edward himself, Queen Mary, Albert, Harry, George, and his uncle and aunt, the Earl and Alice, Countess of Athlone, of whom Edward was very fond. The new Queen Elizabeth was not there. 'That last family dinner was too awful', she said years later to a friend. 'Thank goodness I had flu and couldn't go.115 Perry Brownlow, who had been summoned to Windsor from Cannes, witnessed the farewells. He told Diana Vreeland that Edward went up to his mother, Queen Mary, 'and kissed her on both hands and then on both cheeks. She was as cold as ice. She just looked at him.116 Lady Iris Mountbatten observed in her unpublished memoirs that Queen Mary 'actually seemed unchanged by the great loss of her eldest son. I could see no outward sign that she had been tormented by heartbreak.' This brought home, she added, 'a sense that I have always had, that my family was not motivated by love or human emotions.117 Queen Mary's life, observed Janet Flanner, 'has been one of inhuman self- control.118
Edward then said goodbye to Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and to Prince George, Duke of Kent, both of whom broke down in tears. He finally approached the new King, reported Lord Brownlow, 'who completely broke down. "Buck up, Bertie!" the Duke said. "God save the King!" And with that, he turned, walked away, and that was it.119 That evening he left England, as a private citizen. He was bound for Austria, to be the guest of the Baron and Baroness Eugene de Rothschild at Enzesfeld Castle, near Vienna. At two o'clock in the morning of 12 December 1936, wrote Edward in his memoir,
HMS Fury slid silently and unescorted out of Portsmouth Harbour. Watching the shore of England recede, I was swept by many emotions. If it had been hard to give up the Throne, it had been even harder to give up my country . . . The drawbridges were going up behind me.120
13 'Rat Week'
Once Edward had gone, the nation was able to settle down again to life as it had been lived under King George V. That week's British Movietone newsreel, Amen: The End of a Tragic Chapter in British Imperial History, reminded viewers of the highlights of King Edward VIII's short reign, especially his trip to South Wales the month before.1 But there was a sense of anticlimax, and many people felt jaded. 'Another day in bed - very bad headache', wrote a Sutton Coldfield headmistress in her diary, '& I think the reason has been the fearful happenings of this week - it has seemed one shock on top of another. The affairs of the Royal Family. The abdication of King Edward. The sorrow & sympathy for him. The rejoicings for the New King & Queen etc etc.'2 Geoffrey Dawson's wife, Cecilia, developed a bad cold with a high temperature, confining her to her bed for days, while Geoffrey himself slept for ten to eleven hours 'without opening an eye'.3 Nothing, said the Liberal MP Robert Bernays, 'seems to have happened since the King's abdication and nothing seems likely to happen again. The nation has sunk back into a sort of coma. Parliament was quite lifeless the last fortnight and the newspapers are empty of everything except the test matches.'4
On Saturday 12 December, George VI was proclaimed King of Britain and its Dominions and Emperor of India. 'Fiji islands was supposed to be the first place - 5.15 a.m.,' noted the saleswoman in the book department at Barkers. 'At Singapore it was proclaimed in 4 languages.'5 Many of London's streets were closed for the proclamation, and it was bitterly cold. Lucy Baldwin, feeling sorry for Edward, wrote sadly in her diary, 'The new King George VI was sworn in by the Privy Council today. - I decided to go out, I just hadn't the heart for it. - Evening had a telegram of thanks for my letter from King Edward now his HRH the Duke of Windsor.'6 Some people were angry at the turn of events, including Lloyd George, who turned down an invitation by the Governor of Jamaica to attend the proclamation ceremony in Kingston.7 'Are we downhearted?' asked Lady Houston on the cover of the Saturday Review. 'YES' was given as the answer, in huge bold type, followed by this poem:
Goodbye - Goodbye We cry with a sigh Driven away
By a law that's a lie
Great King and True Lover
For you we would die.8
'Got home', muttered Geoffrey Wells, 'just before the Proclamation at Carfax', in the centre of Oxford. ' "All this bunkum", as one bus driver, held up by it, said.'9
Two days after the abdication, Queen Elizabeth wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury in her new role as the wife of the Sovereign. 'I can hardly now believe that he [George VI] has been called to the tremendous task,' she said, 'and (I am now writing to you quite intimately) the curious thing is that we are not afraid. I feel that God has enabled us to face the situation calmly.. . When we spoke together at Birkhall only three months ago,' she added, 'how little did I think that such drama and unhappiness was in store for our dear country . . . We were so unhappy about the loss of a dear brother because one can only feel that Exile from this country is death indeed.' She felt that Edward
had been ruined by Mrs Simpson and believed that he had lost the love of the people: 'We were miserable, as you know, over his change of heart and character during the last few years and it is alarming how little in touch he was with ordinary human feelings - Alas he has lost the "common touch" .. . We pray most sincerely that we shall not fail our country,' she ended the letter, 'and 1 sign myself for the first time & with great affection Elizabeth R."°
On Sunday 13 December, the day after the proclamation, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang, spoke to the nation on the radio. In a speech entitled 'The Pity of It,' he criticized the former King Edward VIII for having 'sought his happiness in a manner inconsistent with the Christian principles of marriage, and within a social circle whose standard and way of life are alien to all the best instincts and traditions of his people.' Sternly, he warned, 'Let those who belong to this circle know that today they stand rebuked by the judgement of the nation which had loved King Edward.' The Archbishop of York then spoke in a similar vein, though less strongly. Baldwin, Reith, Lord Salisbury and Queen Mary wrote to Archbishop Lang to congratulate him on his speech." Baldwin's letter, written in his own hand, warmly praised the speech 'as the voice of Christian England'.12
The Times, predictably, ran an approving article - 'Social Circle Rebuked'. Many agreed. 'The Archbishop's address over the wireless last night was magnificent', enthused one woman: 'each word so well chosen - each phrase so beautifully dovetailed in to convey an exact meaning. He spoke of all King Edward had been to us in the past - of the new King George & his stability of character - He said King Edward had unwise friends - Oh the Pity of it - the pity of it.'13 A Bristol doctor thought that the broadcast address by the Archbishop was 'splendid'. Earlier that day, at the cathedral, he had heard 'a good sermon from the Bishop on the crisis', and even the singing was 'better than usual'.14 George Trevelyan was delighted with Lang's message. 'I'm glad the Archb[isho]p said what he did about "the King's friends" ', he wrote in a letter, adding that
It wanted saying. I was very glad to find that the feeling of decency about not taking away other people's wives was so general and so strong in the country, after 40 years of writing down marriage by half the principal literary folks, Wells, Shaw, Bertie Russell and all the 'modern' chatter about it.15
But there was also widespread disgust at Lang's speech. A contrast was drawn between his vengeful and unforgiving tone and the direct simplicity of the Duke of Windsor's broadcast. At a Foyle's literary luncheon in London on 15 December, the playwright and actor John Drinkwater strongly expressed his criticism of the Archbishop. 'My ancestors came from Canterbury,' he said, 'but thank God they were only publicans!'16 Lang's speech produced a wave of anti-clerical feeling - not only in the weekly reviews, but even in Establishment papers such as the Daily Telegraph. John Gunther observed that after a tale of 'perfect propriety by everyone', these archbishops had added 'a vulgar note when it was all over'.17 Lang was sent a torrent of critical or abusive letters from outraged individuals - about two hundred and fifty in the first couple of days.18 The author Gerald Bullett wrote a scathing quatrain on the broadcast. Playing on Lang's title, 'Can- tuar' (which is the standard abbreviation of Cantuariensis, the Latin word for the Archbishopric of Canterbury), his verse quickly became popular on both sides of the Atlantic:
My Lord Archbishop, what a scold you are!
And when your man is down, how bold you are!
In Christian Charity how scant you are!
How Lang Oh Lord, how full of Cantuar!"
Lord Brownlow, regarding himself as one of Edward's closest friends, immediately sent an indignant letter to the Archbishop.20 He received some letters of sympathy for his position from the public. 'We strongly condemn Primate's address as uncharitable and unchristian and causing gross insinuations', cabled a well-wisher to Lord Brownlow on 17 December.21 Walter Monckton said he had not much enjoyed 'the comments which have reached me attributing the Archbishop's rebuke to myself.'22
Cecil Headlam was appalled, even though he shared much of Lang's antipathy to Edward. 'We did not think it a very happy effort; it was pontifical and unctuous and snobbish', he wrote in his diary after the broadcast, adding:
Disliking Edward VIII (as one knows he did), he did not refrain from rubbing it in. I fancy that a good many people will disapprove of this: once a man is down, it never does any good to kick him and people may well ask (unfairly perhaps) why if the Archbishop felt so strongly about the King and his entourage he did not speak out long ago.23
Some of those who had been eager for the abdication were suddenly made mindful by the Archbishop's unkind words of the terrible dilemma that Edward had faced: 'Prayed for "Edward up to now our King",' wrote a retired engineer in his diary.24 Alan Turing condemned the hypocrisy of the Archbishop, I consider his behaviour disgraceful', he told his mother. 'He waited until Edward was safely out of the way and then unloaded a whole lot of quite uncalled-for abuse. He didn't dare to do it whilst Edward was King. Further he had no objections to the King having Mrs Simpson as a mistress, but marry her, that wouldn't do at all.'25 Edward himself had been aware of Lang's lack of visibility during the period of crisis. 'He stood aside', recalled Edward later, 'until the fateful fabric had been woven and the crisis was over. Yet from beginning to end I had a disquieting feeling that he was invisibly and noiselessly about.'26
Bruce Lockhart spent most of the morning of 14 December writing a paragraph for the Evening Standard attacking the Archbishop of Canterbury. He had been astonished that Lang had not only rebuked the ex-King, but also called on the nation to rebuke Edward's friends. Many of those friends were people from the 'best' families, observed Lockhart:
The people who were closest to him during his reign were: Duff and Diana Cooper, Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, Lord and Lady Brownlow, Euan and Barbara Wallace, Mr and Mrs Fitzgerald, Lord Dudley, Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. Not heavy-weights, but certainly no more deserving of Archbishop's rebuke than ninety per cent of the population!27
'There has been a perfect storm of anger', wrote Churchill to the Duke of Windsor, 'raised against [Lang] for his unchivalrous reference to the late reign. Even those who were very hostile to your standpoint turned round and salved their feelings by censuring the Archbishop. All the newspapers were inundated with letters of protest.'28 Lloyd
George's former chief of staff and political adviser said that the King was 'now the victim of the malice of gossips, the hypocritical righteousness of the Bishops, and even, I am afraid, of the Non- Conformist conscience at its most nauseating sanctimoniousness.' This, he said, 'is a great score for the Church, for Morality and for organized Puritanism; and the whole business makes me want to vomit.
Baldwin received letters about the Archbishop's words. One 'ordinary honest working man' believed that the Archbishop had every right to speak his mind on 'the truth about that section of society gamblers who have caused this most terrible loss to us & "roped in" our beloved King.'30 A woman in Devon, who kept a little shop selling papers and books, said that she heard in her customers' conversations 'all people's views expressed & since your last triumph tis [sic] wonderful to hear so many changed opinions now expressed - No one but "Stanley Baldwin" could have done such marvellous tasks .. . God bless you always.'31
But a woman in Leeds sent a furious letter to Baldwin, holding him responsible for slander. She was 'horrified', she said, by the Archbishop's speech. 'You said you were [Edward's] friend in the House of Commons', she reminded him, then issued this reprimand:
Well! I ask you to prove that friendship to its limits. What is friendship worth if it cannot defend one who cannot - may not - or will not - speak for himself? Since the heartbreak of December ioth the people of England seem to have gone mad . .. Since the Archbishop of Canterbury's broadcast last Sunday -1 have not met one man, woman or child who has not made some terrible accusation against Edward VIIIth . . . Has not the nation had its 'pound of flesh'?
She quoted to Baldwin some of
the ugly comments about Edward that her teenage daughter had brought home from school, and implored: 'Mr Baldwin, I beg of you most humbly and earnestly to please do something! Please repudiate publicly the people who utter these vile slanders ... I am so incensed at this evil thing in our midst, that I will leave no stone unturned to get this matter righted, but I have sufficient confidence in you and your sense of Justice.'32
A number of people sent letters to Churchill, complaining about the Archbishop. One man was worried that Edward might believe that the people had turned against him. He suggested that 'some form of testimonial might be arranged through you to Prince Edward, to show him what the Country really thinks of him, and not what the Archbishop of cant and the Prime Minister of humbugs think.'33 'I am writing to you,' said one woman, 'because you were with our dearly loved Duke of Windsor, only a few hours before he bade us farewell! . . . our hearts are still heavy with sorrow, that he is not in the land of his birth, the country he loved.' She bitterly resented the Archbishop's speech and - not realizing that Queen Mary had actually written to congratulate him on his words - asked, 'What must have been the feelings of our dear Queen Mother, and all the Royal Family? In more humble ranks, too, certain reflections on any section of the community, especially by radio, make it seem unsportsmanlike! The victim or victims cannot reply! Moreover, the Church should be above this.'34
The Peoples King Page 30