A Very British Crisis

This is London. The following bulletin issued at 9.25. The King's

life is moving peacefully towards its close. January 1936 and the old

king is dying. BBC radio bulletins chronicled the last days of George

V. His successor, his eldest son Edward, glamorous, popular,

relatively young. Would this caring herald a new, modern Britain? The

Prince of Wales was box office. Stardust. He was funny. He was

good-looking and articulate. He genuinely enjoyed going out and

meeting people and talking to people. He had enormous charm, a

great deal of charisma. But underneath that he was very

irresponsible. Over those ten years he degenerated, he became

self-indulgent, he became frivolous. By the time he came near to

accession he was causing grave doubts among all his advisers and

those who knew him best. In keeping with tradition the accession of

Edward VIII was proclaimed by heralds at St James's Palace and

broadcast by the BBC. The royal prince, Edward VIII. To reign over

us. God save the King. But in ad break with tradition Edward decided

to watch the ceremony in the company of his American mistress, this is

Wallis Simpson, still married to her second husband. This romance would

plunge the monarchy into crisis. It was a time when newspaper

proprietors really wanted to interview in politics. And his

friend the Conservative backbencher Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill

at that stage was feared and loathed by the mainstream Conservative

Party. He was seen as dangerously irresponsible, dangerously

ambitious. For much of 1936 the romance was not reported by Fleet

Street, when news emerged that shocked the nation, by the end of

the year the King would be gone. Edward, known as Davis to his

family, had been a popular Prince of Wales, speaking up for war veterans.

He was also a playboy who had had a string of mistresses. Unlike his

brother, next in line to the throne, who was happily married. British

society in the early 30s was intensely conservative both with a

small sea and a big say. It was monarchical to an extent which one

can hardly believe now. The monarchy was the one remaining link between

Britain and its empire. And a tarnished monarchy was incompatible

with a stable and successful empire. As King, Edward was also head of the

Church of England, which opposed divorce. The courtiers believed that

she was not going to last. They went on with this delusion for months,

even perhaps years. But soon they realise this was something

different. She had got a grip of home that no other woman who had

ever had. Not that the issue seems particularly pressing start of

Edward's rain, after all she was still married to someone else, and

surveillance by special Branch suggested she had another lover. At

one level it looked so bad that possibly people underestimated the

danger because the Simpsons just look like such low-grade unappealing

people there was perhaps not a temptation to look at them as any

kind of threat. It seems such a trivial matter compared to Britain's

economic situation or the darkening international picture. Edward's

coronation was set for May 1937 and his likeness soon adorn a variety of

souvenirs, from toasting forks to teaspoons. Patriotically mortally

showed the King's dutiful public image. Most of his subjects had no

idea about his private life. The owners of mass-market titles saw

themselves as part of the establishment. Edward looked for

Beaverbrook's help in keeping the story out of the British press.

Astonishing self denial. The newspaper proprietors rejected the

biggest story he could ever have had, even though the American papers

were crammed with a salacious story about King Edward VIII and his

mistress. The British press denied themselves. The American public were

fascinated by it. The notion of a queen who came from this wonderful

democratic republic, a nation without monarchy tradition. They

wanted to read about it and they could. In the summer of 1936 the

King went on a cruise around the Eastern Mediterranean. Mrs Simpson

was on board. Crowds flocked to catch a glimpse as did the foreign

press. The holiday, the crews on the yacht, which attracted massive

global publicity, was the thing that really got people starting to worry.

Only those in the know. The owner of the Kent messenger newspaper was

keeping himself informed if not his readers. If you were a member of the

charmed circle, part of that Bill defines British elites who all talk

to each other but do not share the secrets, you could get the Chicago

daily Tribune, the New York Times, the French evening paper, which was

paying close attention to this.