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 King Edward VIII
Having occupied Britain and with the King George
VI having fled to Canada, the German occupiers re-install the previously
abdicated Edward VIII as a puppet King. Keen to ensure that he doesn't lose his
throne for a second time, Edward VIII takes a keen interest in General von
Klinkerhofen's anti-partisan operations, even going so far as driving down from
London to visit him at his Chartwell residence.
Historical Background
Early life
Edward VIII was born on 23 June 1894, at White Lodge, Richmond, Surrey,
England.[1] He was the eldest son of The Duke of York (later King George V), and
The Duchess of York (formerly Princess Victoria Mary of Teck). His father was
the second son of The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and The Princess
of Wales (formerly Princess Alexandra of Denmark). His mother was the eldest
daughter of The Duke of Teck and The Duchess of Teck (formerly Princess Mary
Adelaide of Cambridge). As a great grandson of Queen Victoria in the male line,
Edward was styled His Highness Prince Edward of York at his birth.
Edward of Wales Little David, photographed by his grandmother Queen AlexandraHe
was baptised in the Green Drawing Room of White Lodge on 16 July 1894, by Edward
White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury. Edward VIII was named after his late
uncle, who was known to his family as "Eddy" or Edward, and his
great-grandfather King Christian IX of Denmark. The name Albert was included at
the behest of Queen Victoria. His last four names – George, Andrew, Patrick and
David – came from the Patron Saints of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The
Prince was nevertheless, for the rest of his life, known to his family and close
friends by his last given name, David.
Edward's parents, The Duke and Duchess of York, were often removed from their
children's upbringing, like other upper-class English parents of the day. Edward
and his younger brother Albert were abused by one of the royal nannies. The
nanny would pinch Edward before he was due to be presented to his parents. His
subsequent crying and wailing would lead the Duke and Duchess to send Edward and
the nanny away. On the other hand, the King, though a harsh disciplinarian, was
demonstrably affectionate and Queen Mary displayed a frolicksome side when
dealing with her children that belies her austere public image. She was amused
by the children making tadpoles on toast for their French master, and encouraged
them to confide matters in her which it would have provoked the King to know.
Prince of Wales
Edward automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay when his
father, George V, ascended the throne on 6 May 1910. The new King created him
Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 23 June 1910, and officially invested him
as such in a special ceremony at Caernarfon Castle on 13 July 1911. For the
first time since 1616 (and the evidence for that ceremony is thin) this
investiture took place in Wales at the instigation of the Welsh politician David
Lloyd George, Constable of the Castle, who at that time held the position of
Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Liberal government. Lloyd George invented a
rather fanciful ceremonial which took the form of a Welsh pageant, coaching the
prince to utter some sentences in Welsh.
Military career
Edward during World War IWhen the First World War (1914–18) broke out Edward had
reached the minimum age for active service and was keen to participate. He had
joined the army, serving with the Grenadier Guards, in June 1914, and although
Edward was willing to serve on the front lines, the Secretary of State for War,
Lord Kitchener, refused to allow it, citing the immense harm that the capture of
the heir to the throne would cause.
Despite this, Edward witnessed trench warfare firsthand and attempted to visit
the front line as often as he could, leading to his award of the Military Cross
in 1916. His role in the war, although limited, led to his great popularity
among veterans of the conflict. As of 1911 he was also a Midshipman in the Royal
Navy, making Lieutenant in 1913. Edward undertook his first military flight in
1918 and later gained his pilot's licence. On his succession he became Admiral
of the Fleet in the Navy, Field Marshal in the Army, and Marshal of the Royal
Air Force.
Royal duties
HRH The Prince of Wales canoeing in Canada, 1919Throughout the 1920s the Prince
of Wales represented his father, King George V, at home and abroad on many
occasions. He took a particular interest in visiting the poverty stricken areas
of the country. Abroad, the Prince of Wales toured the Empire, undertaking 16
tours between 1919 and 1935, and in the process acquiring the Bedingfield ranch,
near Pekisko, High River, Alberta.
He soon became the 1920s version of a latter-day movie star. At the height of
his popularity, he became the most photographed celebrity of his time and he set
men's fashion.
Romances
In 1930, King George V gave Edward a home, Fort Belvedere, near Sunningdale in
Berkshire. There Edward had relationships with a series of married women
including half-British half-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward, American
film actress Mildred Harris and Lady Furness (born Thelma Morgan) an American
woman of part-Chilean ancestry, who introduced the Prince to fellow American
Wallis Simpson. Mrs. Simpson had divorced her first husband in 1927 and
subsequently married Ernest Simpson, a half-British half-American businessman.
Mrs. Simpson and the Prince of Wales, it is generally accepted, became lovers
while Lady Furness travelled abroad, though Edward adamantly insisted to his
father the King that he was not intimate with her and that it was not
appropriate to describe her as his mistress.
King George V was disappointed in Edward's failure to settle down in life and
disgusted by his many affairs with married women. He was reluctant to see Edward
inherit the Crown. The King was quoted as saying of Edward: "After I am dead,
the boy will ruin himself in 12 months". He later said of Prince Albert's
daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, (whom he called "Lilibet"): "I pray to God
that my eldest son Edward will never marry and have children, and that nothing
will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne." Edward's relationship with
Mrs. Simpson further weakened his poor relationship with his father. Although
the King and Queen met Mrs. Simpson at Buckingham Palace in 1935, they later
refused to receive her. But Edward had now fallen in love with Wallis and the
couple grew ever closer.
Edward's affair with the American divorcée led to such grave concern that the
couple were followed by members of the Metropolitan police Special Branch, to
examine in secret the nature of their relationship. An undated report detailed a
visit by the couple to an antique shop, where the proprietor later noted that:
"the lady seemed to have POW [Prince of Wales] completely under her thumb." The
prospect of having an American divorcée with a questionable past having such
sway over the Heir Apparent caused some anxiety to government and establishment
figures at the time.
Reign
Royal Cypher of Edward VIIIKing George V died on 20 January 1936, and Edward
ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol
by watching the proclamation of his own accession to the throne from a window of
St. James's Palace in the company of the then still-married Mrs. Simpson. It was
also at this time that Edward VIII became the first Commonwealth monarch to fly
in an aeroplane, when he flew from Sandringham to London for his Accession
Council.
Edward caused unease in government circles with actions that were interpreted as
interference in political matters. On visiting the depressed coal mining
villages in South Wales the King’s observation that "something must be done" for
the unemployed coal miners was seen as directly critical of the Government,
though it has never been clear whether the King had anything in particular in
mind. Government ministers were also reluctant to send confidential documents
and state papers to Fort Belvedere because it was clear that Edward was paying
little attention to them and because of the perceived danger that Mrs. Simpson
and other house guests might see them.
Edward's unorthodox approach to his role extended also to the currency which
bore his image. He broke with tradition whereby on coinage each successive
monarch faced in the opposite direction to his or her prececessor. Edward
insisted his left side was superior to his right, and that he face left (as his
father had done).[30] Only a handful of coins were actually struck before the
abdication, and when George VI succeeded he also faced left, to maintain the
tradition by suggesting that had any coins been minted featuring Edward's
portrait, they would have shown him facing right.
On 16 July 1936 an attempt was made on the King's life. An Irish malcontent,
Jerome Brannigan (otherwise known as George Andrew McMahon) produced a loaded
revolver as the King rode on horseback at Constitution Hill, near Buckingham
Palace. Police spotted the gun and pounced on him; he was quickly arrested. At
Brannigan's trial, he alleged that "a foreign power" had approached him to kill
Edward, that he had informed MI5 of the plan, and that he was merely seeing the
plan through to help MI5 catch the real culprits. The court rejected the claims
and sent him to jail for a year. It is now thought that Brannigan had indeed
been in contact with MI5 but the veracity of the remainder of his claims remains
open.
By October it was becoming clear that the new King planned to marry Mrs.
Simpson, especially when divorce proceedings between Mr. and Mrs. Simpson were
brought at Ipswich Crown Court. Preparations for all contingencies were made,
including the prospect of the coronation of King Edward and Queen Wallis.
Because of the religious implications of any marriage, plans were made to hold a
secular coronation ceremony not in the traditional religious location,
Westminster Abbey, but in the Banqueting House in Whitehall.
Abdication
On 16 November 1936, Edward invited Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to Buckingham
Palace and expressed his desire to marry Wallis Simpson when she became free to
re-marry. Baldwin informed the King that his subjects would deem the marriage
morally unacceptable, largely because remarriage after divorce was opposed by
the Church, and the people would not tolerate Wallis as Queen.
Edward proposed an alternative solution of a morganatic marriage, in which
Edward would remain King but Wallis would not become Queen. She would enjoy some
lesser title instead, and any children they might have would not inherit the
throne. This too was rejected by the British Cabinet as well as other Dominion
governments, whose views were sought pursuant to the Statute of Westminster
1931, which provided in part that "any alteration in the law touching the
Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require
the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament
of the United Kingdom." The Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada and South
Africa made clear their opposition to the King marrying a divorcée; the Irish
Free State expressed indifference and detachment and New Zealand, having never
even heard of Mrs. Simpson before, vacillated in disbelief. Faced with this
opposition, Edward at first responded that there were "not many people in
Australia" and their opinion didn't matter.
The King informed Baldwin that he would abdicate if he could not marry her.
Baldwin then presented Edward with three choices: give up the idea of marriage;
marry Mrs. Simpson against his ministers' wishes; or abdicate. It was clear that
Edward was not prepared to give up Mrs. Simpson. By marrying against the advice
of his ministers, he would cause the government to resign, prompting a
constitutional crisis. He chose to abdicate.
Edward duly signed the instruments of abdication at Fort Belvedere on 10
December 1936, in the presence of his three brothers, The Duke of York, The Duke
of Gloucester and The Duke of Kent. The next day, he performed his last act as
King when he gave royal assent to His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act
1936, which applied to the United Kingdom. The provisions of the Statute of
Westminster required that the parliaments of the United Kingdom and the
Dominions each pass a separate Act allowing the abdication. In Canada the
granting of Royal Assent to the Succession to the Throne Act by Governor General
Lord Tweedsmuir ended Edward's reign as King of Canada. Similar legislation was
enacted in the other Dominions either the same day or, in Ireland, one day
later. The Irish Free State passed the External Relations Act, which included
the abdication in its schedule, on 12 December. Thus, legally, for one day he
was King in the Irish Free State but not the rest of the Commonwealth.
On the night of 11 December 1936, Edward, now reverted to the title of Prince
Edward, made a broadcast to the nation and the Empire, explaining his decision
to abdicate. He famously said, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy
burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to
do without the help and support of the woman I love."
After the broadcast, Edward departed the United Kingdom for Austria, though he
was unable to join Mrs. Simpson until her divorce became absolute, several
months later. His brother, Prince Albert, Duke of York succeeded to the throne
as George VI, with his elder daughter, The Princess Elizabeth, first in the line
of succession, as the heiress presumptive.
Duke of Windsor
On 12 December 1936, at his Accession Privy Council, George VI announced he was
to make his brother Duke of Windsor, and also re-admit him to the highest
degrees of the various British Orders of Knighthood. He wanted this to be the
first act of his reign, although the formal documents were not signed until 8
March of the following year. But during the interim, Edward was universally
known as the Duke of Windsor. The King's decision to create Edward a royal duke
ensured that he could neither stand for election to the House of Commons nor
speak on political subjects in the House of Lords.[50]
However, letters patent dated 27 May 1937, which re-conferred upon the Duke of
Windsor the "title, style, or attribute of Royal Highness", specifically stated
that "his wife and descendants, if any, shall not hold said title or attribute".
Some British ministers advised that Edward had no need of it being conferred
because he had not lost it, and further that Mrs. Simpson would automatically
obtain the rank of wife of a prince with the style HRH; others maintained that
he had lost all royal rank and should no longer carry any royal title or style
as an abdicated King. On 14 April 1937 Attorney General Sir Donald Somervell
submitted to Home Secretary Sir John Simon a memorandum summarising the views of
Lord Advocate T.M. Cooper, Parliamentary Counsel Sir Granville Ram and himself,
to the effect that:
We incline to the view that on his abdication the Duke of Windsor could not have
claimed the right to be described as a Royal Highness. In other words, no
reasonable objection could have been taken if the King had decided that his
exclusion from the lineal succession excluded him from the right to this title
as conferred by the existing Letters Patent
The question however has to be considered on the basis of the fact that, for
reasons which are readily understandable, he with the express approval of His
Majesty enjoys this title and has been referred to as a Royal Highness on a
formal occasion and in formal documents. In the light of precedent it seems
clear that the wife of a Royal Highness enjoys the same title unless some
appropriate express step can be and is taken to deprive her of it.
We came to the conclusion that the wife could not claim this right on any legal
basis. The right to use this style or title, in our view, is within the
prerogative of His Majesty and he has the power to regulate it by Letters Patent
generally or in particular circumstances.
The Duke of Windsor married Mrs. Simpson, who had changed her name by deed poll
to Wallis Warfield, in a private ceremony on 3 June 1937, at Chateau de Candé,
near Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France. When the Church of England refused to
sanction the union, a County Durham clergyman, the Reverend Robert Anderson
Jardine (Vicar of St Paul's, Darlington), offered to perform the ceremony, and
the Duke happily accepted. The new king, George VI, absolutely forbade members
of the Royal Family to attend—Edward had particularly wanted Princes Henry and
George (the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent) and Lord Louis Mountbatten (Earl
Mountbatten of Burma after 1947) to be there—and this continued for many years
to rankle with the now ducal couple, notwithstanding the obvious awkwardnesses
involved should royalty have been on hand because of the King's role as Supreme
Governor of the Church of England.
The denial of the style "HRH" to the Duchess of Windsor caused conflict, as did
the financial settlement—the government declined to include the Duke or the
Duchess on the Civil List and the Duke's allowance was paid personally by the
King. But the Duke had compromised his position with the King by concealing the
extent of his financial worth when they informally agreed on the amount of the
sinecure the King would pay. Edward's worth had accumulated from the revenues of
the Duchy of Cornwall paid to him as Prince of Wales and ordinarily at the
disposal of an incoming king. This led to strained relations between the Duke of
Windsor and the rest of the Royal Family for decades. Edward became embittered
against his own mother, writing to her in 1939: "[your last letter] destroy[ed]
the last vestige of feeling I had left for you ... [and has] made further normal
correspondence between us impossible." In the early days of George VI's reign
the Duke telephoned daily, importuning for money and urging that the Duchess be
granted the style of HRH, until the harassed King ordered that the calls not be
put through.
The Duke had assumed that he would settle in Britain after a year or two of
exile in France. However, King George VI (with the support of his mother Queen
Mary and his wife Queen Elizabeth) threatened to cut off his allowance if he
returned to Britain without an invitation. The new King and Queen were also
forced to pay Edward for Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle. These properties
were Edward's personal property, inherited from his father, King George V, on
his death, and thus did not automatically pass to George VI on abdication.[54]
World War II
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor with Adolf HitlerIn 1937, the Duke and Duchess
visited Germany, against the advice of the British government, and met Nazi
leader Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden. The visit was much publicised by the
German media. During the visit the Duke gave full Nazi salutes.[58]
The couple then settled in France. In September 1939, they were brought back to
Britain by Lord Mountbatten in HMS Kelly, and the Duke was made a Major-General
attached to the British Military Mission in France.
In February 1940, the German Minister in The Hague, Count Julius von Zech-Burkersroda,
claimed that the Duke had leaked the Allied war plans for the defence of
Belgium. When Germany invaded the north of France in May 1940, the Windsors fled
south, first to Biarritz, then in June to Spain. In July the pair moved to
Lisbon, where they lived at first in the home of a banker with German contacts.
A "defeatist" interview with the Duke that was widely distributed may have
served as the last straw for the British government: the Prime Minister Winston
Churchill threatened the Duke with a court-martial if he did not return to
British soil. In August, a British warship dispatched the pair to the Bahamas,
where in the view of Winston Churchill the Duke could do least damage to the
British war effort.
The Duke of Windsor was installed as Governor, and became the first Commonwealth
monarch ever to hold a civilian political office. He did not enjoy the position,
and referred to the islands as "a third-class British colony". He held the post
until the end of World War II in 1945.
The Austrian ambassador, who was also a cousin and friend of George V, believed
that Edward favoured German fascism as a bulwark against communism, and even
that he initially favoured an alliance with Germany. Edward's experience of "the
unending scenes of horror" during World War I led him to support appeasement.
Hitler considered Edward to be friendly towards Nazi Germany, saying "His
abdication was a severe loss for us." Many historians have suggested that Hitler
was prepared to reinstate Edward as King in the hope of establishing a fascist
Britain.
It is widely believed that the Duke (and especially the Duchess) sympathised
with fascism before and during World War II, and had to remain in the Bahamas to
minimise their opportunities to act on those feelings. In 1940 he said: "In the
past 10 years Germany has totally reorganized the order of its society…
Countries which were unwilling to accept such a reorganization of society and
its concomitant sacrifices should direct their policies accordingly." During the
occupation of France, the Duke asked the German forces to place guards at his
Paris and Riviera homes: they did so. The British Foreign Office strenuously
objected when the pair planned to tour aboard a yacht belonging to a Swedish
magnate, Axel Wenner-Gren, whom American intelligence wrongly believed to be a
close friend of Nazi leader Hermann Göring. Lord Caldecote wrote to Winston
Churchill just before the couple were sent to the Bahamas, "[the Duke] is
well-known to be pro-Nazi and he may become a centre of intrigue." The latter,
but not the former, part of this assessment is corroborated by German operations
designed to use the Duke. (See Operation Willi.)
The Allies became sufficiently disturbed by the German plots that President
Roosevelt ordered covert surveillance of the Duke and Duchess when they visited
Palm Beach, Florida, in April 1941. The former Duke of Württemberg (then a monk
in an American monastery) had convinced the Federal Bureau of Investigation that
the Duchess had been sleeping with the German ambassador in London, Joachim von
Ribbentrop, had remained in constant contact with him, and had continued to leak
secrets.
After the war, the Duke admitted in his memoirs that he admired the Germans, but
he denied being pro-Nazi. Of Hitler he wrote: "[the] Führer struck me as a
somewhat ridiculous figure, with his theatrical posturings and his bombastic
pretensions."
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