:00:44. > :00:55.This is London. The following bulletin issued at 9.25. The King's
:00:56. > :01:03.life is moving peacefully towards its close. January 1936 and the old
:01:04. > :01:15.king is dying. BBC radio bulletins chronicled the last days of George
:01:16. > :01:19.V. His successor, his eldest son Edward, glamorous, popular,
:01:20. > :01:23.relatively young. Would this caring herald a new, modern Britain? The
:01:24. > :01:33.Prince of Wales was box office. Stardust. He was funny. He was
:01:34. > :01:36.good-looking and articulate. He genuinely enjoyed going out and
:01:37. > :01:42.meeting people and talking to people. He had enormous charm, a
:01:43. > :01:54.great deal of charisma. But underneath that he was very
:01:55. > :02:02.irresponsible. Over those ten years he degenerated, he became
:02:03. > :02:07.self-indulgent, he became frivolous. By the time he came near to
:02:08. > :02:14.accession he was causing grave doubts among all his advisers and
:02:15. > :02:18.those who knew him best. In keeping with tradition the accession of
:02:19. > :02:25.Edward VIII was proclaimed by heralds at St James's Palace and
:02:26. > :02:36.broadcast by the BBC. The royal prince, Edward VIII. To reign over
:02:37. > :02:44.us. God save the King. But in ad break with tradition Edward decided
:02:45. > :02:48.to watch the ceremony in the company of his American mistress, this is
:02:49. > :03:04.Wallis Simpson, still married to her second husband. This romance would
:03:05. > :03:08.plunge the monarchy into crisis. It was a time when newspaper
:03:09. > :03:10.proprietors really wanted to interview in politics. And his
:03:11. > :03:18.friend the Conservative backbencher Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill
:03:19. > :03:23.at that stage was feared and loathed by the mainstream Conservative
:03:24. > :03:30.Party. He was seen as dangerously irresponsible, dangerously
:03:31. > :03:33.ambitious. For much of 1936 the romance was not reported by Fleet
:03:34. > :03:42.Street, when news emerged that shocked the nation, by the end of
:03:43. > :03:47.the year the King would be gone. Edward, known as Davis to his
:03:48. > :03:53.family, had been a popular Prince of Wales, speaking up for war veterans.
:03:54. > :03:57.He was also a playboy who had had a string of mistresses. Unlike his
:03:58. > :04:12.brother, next in line to the throne, who was happily married. British
:04:13. > :04:20.society in the early 30s was intensely conservative both with a
:04:21. > :04:23.small sea and a big say. It was monarchical to an extent which one
:04:24. > :04:30.can hardly believe now. The monarchy was the one remaining link between
:04:31. > :04:37.Britain and its empire. And a tarnished monarchy was incompatible
:04:38. > :04:40.with a stable and successful empire. As King, Edward was also head of the
:04:41. > :04:49.Church of England, which opposed divorce. The courtiers believed that
:04:50. > :04:56.she was not going to last. They went on with this delusion for months,
:04:57. > :05:03.even perhaps years. But soon they realise this was something
:05:04. > :05:11.different. She had got a grip of home that no other woman who had
:05:12. > :05:14.ever had. Not that the issue seems particularly pressing start of
:05:15. > :05:18.Edward's rain, after all she was still married to someone else, and
:05:19. > :05:30.surveillance by special Branch suggested she had another lover. At
:05:31. > :05:36.one level it looked so bad that possibly people underestimated the
:05:37. > :05:42.danger because the Simpsons just look like such low-grade unappealing
:05:43. > :05:47.people there was perhaps not a temptation to look at them as any
:05:48. > :05:51.kind of threat. It seems such a trivial matter compared to Britain's
:05:52. > :06:00.economic situation or the darkening international picture. Edward's
:06:01. > :06:04.coronation was set for May 1937 and his likeness soon adorn a variety of
:06:05. > :06:11.souvenirs, from toasting forks to teaspoons. Patriotically mortally
:06:12. > :06:17.showed the King's dutiful public image. Most of his subjects had no
:06:18. > :06:20.idea about his private life. The owners of mass-market titles saw
:06:21. > :06:26.themselves as part of the establishment. Edward looked for
:06:27. > :06:31.Beaverbrook's help in keeping the story out of the British press.
:06:32. > :06:37.Astonishing self denial. The newspaper proprietors rejected the
:06:38. > :06:41.biggest story he could ever have had, even though the American papers
:06:42. > :06:47.were crammed with a salacious story about King Edward VIII and his
:06:48. > :07:03.mistress. The British press denied themselves. The American public were
:07:04. > :07:11.fascinated by it. The notion of a queen who came from this wonderful
:07:12. > :07:13.democratic republic, a nation without monarchy tradition. They
:07:14. > :07:21.wanted to read about it and they could. In the summer of 1936 the
:07:22. > :07:25.King went on a cruise around the Eastern Mediterranean. Mrs Simpson
:07:26. > :07:36.was on board. Crowds flocked to catch a glimpse as did the foreign
:07:37. > :07:42.press. The holiday, the crews on the yacht, which attracted massive
:07:43. > :07:48.global publicity, was the thing that really got people starting to worry.
:07:49. > :07:51.Only those in the know. The owner of the Kent messenger newspaper was
:07:52. > :07:58.keeping himself informed if not his readers. If you were a member of the
:07:59. > :08:02.charmed circle, part of that Bill defines British elites who all talk
:08:03. > :08:09.to each other but do not share the secrets, you could get the Chicago
:08:10. > :08:13.daily Tribune, the New York Times, the French evening paper, which was
:08:14. > :08:16.paying close attention to this.