The Peoples King (14 page)

King Edward VIII shared in this comradeship - by reason of his
war service, and by reason of his generation. 'You are
our age, the age
who's [sic] youth sacrificed during the Great War', said one letter to
Edward in
L936.
⁸¹
'You mean so much to our generation,' insisted the
writer of another letter, 'which shared with you as with no one else
the danger and trials of the War, and for whose present problems you
show such deep understanding and practical sympathy.'
⁸²
Nor was
this appreciation of Edward limited to British war veterans. A French
woman who had been an English interpreter during the war wrote
from Paris to tell the King that he was 'loved by the World, especially
we French people who have not forgotten those days of War.'
⁸³

The author Vera Brittain shared this sense of belonging to a genera­tion blighted by war. She had been a member of the Voluntary Aid
Detachment, nursing in France, and had been so horrified by the
slaughter that she became an ardent pacifist. 'I belonged, like Edward
VIII,' she said, 'to a generation which was still on the early side of
middle age but had already seen almost more history than any genera­tion could bear.'
⁸⁴
Brittain gave an account of her war experiences in
her autobiographical
Testament of Youth
(1933).
In
Honourable
Estate,
a novel published in
1936,
she described the many changes in
manners and morals that had taken place since - and because of - the
war. Bertrand Russell wrote in 1918 that, 'One sees how our genera­tion is a little mad, because it has allowed itself glimpses of the truth,
and the truth is spectral, insane, ghastly.'
⁸⁵

The brutality of the war had made many of Edward's generation
long for a new kind of society, free of the social injustice that had
characterized the pre-war world. 'The dark ages are past and the
twentieth century rolls on!' declared one of Edward's subjects.
⁸⁶
'Your
words and actions since you have been King have made us, and
thousands of people like us,' wrote one woman,

realise that you are far closer to the people in your aims and beliefs than any
previous Sovereign. We admire your courage and honesty, your pacifism and
your sympathy with the people in the Distressed Areas . .
.
And specially for
disliking red carpets & all they stand for. You appear to us to belong to the
Spirit of the Age.
⁸⁷

This spirit was contrasted with the decay and self-interest of the
governing classes. 'England needs a good hoovering', wrote one
woman to Edward, emphasizing her point by referring to the vacuum
cleaner, which was starting to simplify housework in the homes of the
better-off. But 'these politicians and folk of a previous generation',
she added, 'refuse to see the grime and dust their antiquated hard
brushes cannot cope with ... We feel that
you
are the hand with the
Hoover and hope you will continue - we are with you.'
⁸⁸

The hearts of Baldwin and his Government must have sunk when
they heard after the King's visit to South Wales that he was making
plans to visit
another
Special Area - this time, the North-East. The
King 'asked for big maps of Tyneside and the North-East districts',
reported the
Daily Mirror.
'Minister of Labour Brown was phoned
for consultation several times,' it added, 'and officials were called to
the Palace to help to arrange the programme.'
⁸⁹
The local press in
Wales was delighted: 'The second Special Areas tour, we learn, will
probably take place in February. And it may extend to Westmoreland
and Cumberland.'
⁹⁰
Local dignitaries in the North-East region and
the Tyne Improvement Commission in Newcastle rushed letters of
enthusiasm to the Special Areas headquarters.
⁹¹
It may have been
Malcolm Stewart, the outgoing Commissioner for the Special Areas,
who recommended such a visit to the King, during the royal dinner
party at Usk on 17 November. Certainly Stewart had spoken more
than once of the desirability of the King visiting the North-East.
⁹²
On
1 December, when Dawson was having lunch at the Travellers, he ran
into Tommy Lascelles, a royal courtier. Dawson noted in his private
diary that Lascelles 'looked thoroughly worn and told me that he was
busily engaged in arranging another Royal tour . . . which he felt in
his heart would never come off.'
⁹³

Nobody seemed to know whether the King was
really
making plans
for another royal tour, or whether it was just a rumour. 'So far as I
have yet been able to ascertain, the story about the King's visit to the
North-East in the near future is nothing more than a
Daily Mail
stunt', replied an official at the Special Areas Commission to a letter
of enquiry.
⁹⁴
But even a rumour must have horrified the Government.
For although there would be opportunities in the North-East to show
economic recovery, such a trip would have to include Jarrow - which
had an unemployment rate as high as 80 per cent. In the very month
before Edward's visit to South Wales in 1936, protesting jobless
steelworkers had walked all the way from Jarrow to London, where
they cheered King Edward in the Mall.
⁹
' The march had been organized
by the local council, with the support of both Labour and Conservative
councillors, and was covered sympathetically by the press and in
newsreels. They're foot-slogging all the way, 280 miles,' reported the
narrator of British Movietone's
Jarrow Crusade,
which was shown in
cinemas on 8 October 1936. 'Everyone must sympathize', it added,
'with this orderly demonstration which has such a deserving object.
Here's wishing them a happy march and good luck at the end of it!'
⁹⁶
The next report by British Movietone,
Jarrow Marchers,
told the story
of their arrival in London. Ellen Wilkinson, said the soundtrack, was
at the marchers' head, 'and marching with them is the dog that has
joined the crusade. The demonstration has been most orderly. Their
object - a petition to aid their town - a worthy one. So here's the very
best of luck to them - every one.'
⁹⁷
Baldwin refused to meet the Jarrow
marchers on their arrival in London. 'This is the way civil strife begins,'
he said, 'and civil strife may not end until there is civil war."
⁸
But the
nation was deeply touched by the marchers' desperate plight.

It was certain that a visit by King Edward to the North-East would
be given full attention by the media and the newsreels. Once again,
cinema-goers would see Edward walking among the poor and work-
less. Once again, he might say that 'Something must be done.' It was
not an attractive prospect for Baldwin's Government or for any of the
Establishment who were fearful of change.

The growing intimacy of Wallis and Edward was watched with appre­hension by the small circle around the King. Concern started to grow
that Edward might want to
marry
Mrs Simpson - and make her his
Queen. This was not a welcome prospect. 'So long as you have a
Queen,' observed Cecil Headlam, the Conservative MP for County
Durham, 'she must be head of Society and no one really wants anyone
in that position unless she is a lady.' Supposing then, he added,

the King had pitched upon some young woman of virgin purity, but with a
cockney accent or something of that kind - it is ridiculous to suggest that she
would have made a suitable Queen ... if you want a King and a Court, you
must recognize the fact that it implies class distinctions and forms and etiquette
- not social equality.'

However, there was little that anyone could do, from a constitutional
point of view, to prevent an unacceptable marriage by the King. For
Britain's monarch was free to marry anyone he liked, except a Roman
Catholic. The Royal Marriages Act of 1772 gave him the power to
prohibit the marriage of any member of the family, no matter what
their age might be - but nobody had the legal right to prohibit his own
marriage. The King was entitled to please himself.

On the very day that King George V died, 20 January 1936, Stanley
Baldwin had summoned Duff Cooper to 10 Downing Street to discuss
Edward's 'relations' with Mrs Simpson. Baldwin told Duff that 'if it
becomes generally known the country won't stand it.' If she were
'what I call a respectable whore', he said, then he wouldn't mind. By
this, observed Duff in his diary, he meant somebody whom the Prince
occasionally saw in secret but didn't spend his whole time with. 'I
think the Prince's staff are very much against him', added Duff.
²

On 13 February 1936, just a few weeks after the start of Edward's
reign, Ramsay MacDonald went to Buckingham Palace and noticed
the courtiers' disapproval of the King. He recorded in his diary that
he 'found the folks there not happy. Mrs Sfimpson]: Belvedere arriving
at 3 a.m. & so on.' Lord Wigram, who had been Private Secretary to
George V, told MacDonald that Edward 'wants [to] marry & get rid
of her husband; in this his mind seems to be made up.'
³

However, Edward's affair with Mrs Simpson was not the only
source of friction between the King and his courtiers. He did get on
well with his own staff, such as his cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten,
his equerry Charles Lambe, and Ulrick Alexander, who was the Keeper
of the Privy Purse and who was devoted to him. But he was treated
with suspicion and distrust by the courtiers who were loyal to the
styles and values of his father, George V. 'Clearly King G.'s men
are not for King E.', observed Cecil Headlam in his diary entry for
18 November 1936, the day on which Edward began his tour of South
Wales.
⁴
In an article entitled 'Palace battle', the intellectual magazine
This Week
observed that those members of the court who in the last
reign had occupied positions in which they could influence the throne
were bitterly disappointed that this power had come to an end.
⁵