The King Who Had To Go: Edward Vlll, Mrs Simpson and the Hidden Politics of the Abdication Crisis

361 Pages·2017·4.28 MB·English

by  Adrian Phillips

THE KING WHO
HAD TO GO
Edward VIII, Mrs Simpson and the Hidden Politics of
the Abdication Crisis
ADRIAN PHILLIPS
To the memory of my parents: Alice and Julius
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Prologue

H S
IDDEN CANDAL
CHAPTER 1: The Boy Will Ruin Himself
CHAPTER 2: The Prime Minister and the Super-Civil Servant
CHAPTER 3: Almost Impossible to Appeal to Reason
CHAPTER 4: A Job Is Assigned to the Prime Minister

H C
IDDEN RISIS
CHAPTER 5: Provoking an Outburst
CHAPTER 6: A Real Jolt
CHAPTER 7: Queen or Nothing
CHAPTER 8: The Underworld Gangster Element
CHAPTER 9: The Battle for the Throne
O C
PEN RISIS
CHAPTER 10: A Fireside Chat
CHAPTER 11: Obsessed to Get Away
CHAPTER 12: A Pistol at His Head
CHAPTER 13: My First Blunder
CHAPTER 14: The Long and Sinister Shadow
CHAPTER 15: Sunday Morning at Hendon Aerodrome
CHAPTER 16: A Microcosm of the Cabinet

O T E
VER HE DGE
CHAPTER 17: Rather a Facer
CHAPTER 18: Mission to a Madhouse
CHAPTER 19: Beyond Recovery
CHAPTER 20: Lying Like a Gentleman
CHAPTER 21: A Court of Her Own
CHAPTER 22: Plenty of People Ready to Knock Her on the Head

Afterword
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
Plates
Copyright
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THIS BOOK HAS taken an unusually long time to write as it gradually evolved
from one focused on the top-level machinery of British government in the
1930s to one that examines a single episode, so I owe my thanks to a
correspondingly long list of individuals and organisations who have helped
me on the way.
Professor Nick Crowson of Birmingham University took me on as
graduate student and shared his immense knowledge of the period as well as
introducing me properly to the study of history. The late Sir Martin Gilbert
provided limitless inspiration and encouragement when I pursued my research
into Sir Horace Wilson. Professor Eunan O’Halpin of Trinity College, Dublin
and Professor George Peden of Stirling University guided me through the
higher reaches of the British Civil Service. Michael Jago steered me through
the intricacies of Labour Party politics. John Campbell shared his huge
knowledge of David Lloyd George as well as his generous support and
hospitality. Julian Hardinge (Lord Hardinge of Penshurst) very helpfully
challenged some of my early preconceptions. My former colleague Bernard
(Lord) Donoughue explained clearly the importance of power geography at 10
Downing Street. The opinions and judgements expressed in the book are, of
course, entirely my own.
I am especially grateful to a number of individuals who have allowed me
access to papers still in their personal possession: Lord and the late Lady
Crathorne, who received me most hospitably at Yarm; the Honourable Lady
Murray, her son Alex and her nephew Lord Hardinge for the diary of Helen,
Lady Hardinge; and Mrs Annie Pollock, who very kindly showed me the
papers of her grandfather, Sir Warren Fisher.
My thanks go to everyone at the following archives who assisted me in my
research: the Churchill Archives Centre, most especially Andrew Riley, who
has been unstinting with his time, efforts and advice; the BBC Written
Archives Centre, with special thanks to Jeff Walden; the Cadbury Research
Library: Special Collections at the University of Birmingham, in particular
Sue Worrall and Ivana Frlan; the Reuters archive, practically synonymous
with John Entwistle; the Bank of England Archives with special thanks to
Rachael Muir; Balliol College, Oxford, in particular Anna Sander; the Local
Studies Library at Aberdeen in the person of David Oswald; the National
Archives at Kew; Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; The House of Lords Record Office:
Special Collections at the University Library, Cambridge; and the RAF
Museum, Hendon. Terry Mace’s help was invaluable for the photo of the
King’s aeroplane.
The following individuals and institutions have kindly granted me
permission to use material under their control: Lord Norwich for his father’s
diary; Lord Crathorne for his parents’ papers; the Honourable Lady Murray
and Lord Hardinge for the papers of Helen, Lady Hardinge and her Loyal to
Three Kings; the BBC Written Archives Centre for Sir John Reith’s diaries;
the Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, the University of
Birmingham for Neville Chamberlain’s papers; and the Parliamentary
Archives for material from the Beaverbrook papers. The quotations from the
writings of Sir Winston Churchill are reproduced with the permission of
Curtis Brown, London on behalf of the Estate of Winston S. Churchill. © The
Estate of Winston S. Churchill. Every effort has been made to trace copyright
holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The
author apologises for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be
grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future
reprints or editions of this book.
Mrs Jackie Holland sang to me most beautifully the snatch of playground
doggerel about Mrs Simpson that she remembered from 1936, and her
daughter, Jane Holland, very kindly transcribed it. Mrs Vanessa Donegan
made good my ignorance of tactics in contract bridge. Mme Gautier of the
Domaine de Candé provided me with the programme of music played at the
Duke of Windsor’s wedding to Wallis Warfield (as she had very briefly
become again) and M. Proust of Tours Cathedral introduced me to the
splendours of the Skinner organ at Candé and explained the intricacies of
playing it.
Laurie De Decker, my editor at Biteback, whipped my manuscript into
shape and introduced me to the previously unfamiliar world of the comma.
She and everyone else at Biteback gently guided me through the process of
bringing my first book from outline to publication.
Lastly, this book would not have been possible without the help of my wife
Sheila, whom I wish to thank for her advice, patience and support.
PROLOGUE
ON THURSDAY 10 December 1936, the British Prime Minister Stanley
Baldwin was hurrying to prepare for one of the most important speeches
of his political life and one of the most vital speeches ever delivered to the
House of Commons. He had to explain how and why King Edward VIII was
abdicating after a reign of only eleven months. In January, Edward had
become King in the midst of hopes that this glamorous, charming and
handsome figure would usher in a new style of monarchy in Britain. After the
Victorian-era austerity of his father, George V, he had appeared open and
modern. Instead, there had been a worldwide scandal and finally an agonising
crisis that had played out in semi-privacy for months before the British press
had broken its self-imposed silence the previous Wednesday, catapulting the
affair into the full glare of public knowledge and concern. For a week, the
whole country had stared into the abyss of a constitutional crisis.
Time was short for Baldwin because the King’s final and irrevocable
decision had only been taken late the evening before. More for the sake of
form than anything, the Cabinet had sent the King a message imploring him to
reconsider his intention, but he had not and had signed the Instrument of
Abdication that morning at his private house, Fort Belvedere, in the grounds
of Windsor Castle. Now Baldwin had to give final confirmation to Parliament
and the world beyond, that what had been rumoured and feared for months,
weeks and days had finally occurred. Even that morning the newspaper
headlines in London had only spoken of the possibility of abdication. Baldwin
had to find a way of presenting the bitter reality in a way that minimised the
damage and somehow overcame the hurt of those traumatic days. The
monarchy was the sacred institution that bound the people of Britain and
cemented an Empire that spanned the globe, but its sovereign had decided that
he could not carry on because he was not permitted to marry the woman he
loved. If Baldwin were to say the wrong thing, the results might be
catastrophic. Few had questioned his handling of the crisis whilst it was in
progress, but now that it had culminated in the terrible conclusion of
abdication, there might be deep and savage recriminations and aftershocks.
The leader of the opposition Labour Party had had to fight down the
temptation elsewhere in his party to make tactical capital out of the crisis, and
Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists had campaigned to keep Edward
on the throne.
Baldwin worked on his speech entirely alone. The one thing he had to
guide him was a log of the day-to-day events of the crisis prepared for him by
his civil service right-hand man, Sir Horace Wilson.1 A modern Prime
Minister would have an army of expert advisers analysing every syllable of
such a speech, and modern technology would prepare an immaculate text that
could be disseminated around the globe at the push of a button. Baldwin relied
solely on his own judgement for the words to achieve the near impossible, and
scribbled his thoughts on untidy slips of paper. Even by the standards of the
day, they did not look impressive; Harold Nicolson, a fastidious and
aristocratic government MP, thought they were like pieces of toilet paper ‘…
more squalid than a young Labour candidate would dare produce at a
Wapping by-election’.2 It was not just the appearance of the notes that
betrayed the stress of the moment. As Baldwin moved around 10 Downing
Street in distracted concentration, he dropped some of the slips in the
passageways. When he finally set off for the House of Commons, he
completely forgot to bring the notes with him, and his parliamentary private
secretary, Tommy Dugdale, had to dash back to retrieve them.
Beneath the bluff exterior of a member of the traditional, unreflecting Tory
squirearchy that he cultivated assiduously, Baldwin was a highly strung and
nervous man, and this was all too obvious to the people around him and who
knew him well. It was especially acute before he had to make a major speech.
At the other end of the scale, one of his Cabinet ministers told the story of a
French woman, who did not know who Baldwin was or what he did, and who
had instantly assumed from his demeanour that he was an actor.3 He had an
actor’s focus on the upcoming performance and the same irrational dread of
actually delivering it. Baldwin had operated at the top level of politics for a
decade and a half, and he was an accomplished speaker, who cloaked his art in
apparent simplicity. He knew that it was a great gift and that he would need it
for his speech that afternoon. It would help him accomplish one last act of
public service, with which he could draw the curtain on his career in politics.
Baldwin had a strong but usually well-hidden tendency towards self-
dramatisation, but it was very much in evidence that day. ‘This is making