The Peoples King (2 page)
In his portrait of Edward VIII in the
Dictionary of National Biography,
the historian John Grigg described the King as a man out of the
ordinary, with virtues of moral and physical courage. 'He surely
deserves honour', wrote Grigg, 'for the chivalrousness of his decision
to abdicate, no less than the perfect constitutional propriety with
which it was carried out." I was startled to read this warm description
of Edward at the beginning of my research on the abdication. I had
boundless respect for John Grigg, but little at that time for Edward.
I shared most of the conventional - and unflattering - opinions about
him and Wallis Simpson. My plan was to tell the story of the abdication
through contemporary letters and the diaries of the British elite, most
of whom regarded his approach to kingship as a threat to the survival
of the monarchy. They thought even less of Mrs Simpson, and assumed
that she was scheming to be Queen.
But I had barely scratched the surface of my research before I
realized that the truth might be different. As I watched a newsreel of
Edward VIII's tour of the Welsh valleys in November 1936 - when he
urged that 'Something must be done' to find work for the unemployed
- I saw a man who was visibly moved by the sufferings of the poor.
He brought hope to the valleys, as to the other areas of unemployment
he had visited as Prince of Wales, and the whole country seemed to
admire and appreciate his efforts. I started to see the story of the
abdication on a wider screen: it was no longer simply a tale of royalty
and the Establishment, but included the ordinary people of Britain.
Indeed, as I was later to discover, it also included the people of the Empire, across the globe. Edward's sixty million subjects counted as
much in this story as the tiny circle of 'Society'.
Shortly after watching this newsreel, while doing some research at
the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, I stumbled - quite by
chance - upon the diaries of a middle-aged linen draper in Belfast.
The opinions he expressed in December 1936, just after the news of
Edward's love for Wallis Simpson had broken in Britain, were very
different from those I had found in Society diaries. As far as he was
concerned, Edward was a fine King and Wallis Simpson a reasonable
choice for a wife. I was fired with curiosity: how many other people
had felt like he had? I started a search of record offices all over Britain
and found many more diaries written by the general public - by the
kind of people 'who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited
tombs', as George Eliot put it in
Middlemarch.
Many of them,
I discovered, were deeply sympathetic to Edward. Clearly, one's perception of the abdication changed if one looked outside and beyond
the usual parameters of study.
Then the Royal Archives offered me access to a set of ten massive
boxes, bursting with thousands of letters and telegrams that were sent
to Edward during the weeks of the abdication crisis, from people all
over Britain and from many other countries of the world. A former
Assistant Private Secretary to Edward gave an account of these boxes
in a note written nearly ten years after the abdication: 'They contain
a remarkable cross-section of public opinion, from all classes, which
should be of much interest & value to anyone who in years to come
is writing about the Abdication.'
Some of the letters were hostile to Edward, others were written by
cranks, but overwhelmingly they offered loyal and heartfelt support
to the King. As I sat at a desk in the Round Tower at Windsor Castle,
1 was often moved by these letters: some were signed by every member
of a family, from the smallest children to the grandparents; others
were petitions signed by whole streets or by all the people in a cafe or
a shop. Many were written by ex-servicemen, whose loyalty to Edward
had been increased by the fact that he had shared with them the
horrors of the First World War. With one letter there was a small
packet containing one of a pair of four-leaf clovers. The veteran had
been sent the clovers while he was serving at Gallipoli in 1915.
Although the Allies had suffered a terrible and brutal defeat, with
over two hundred thousand casualties, he had survived
-
thanks, he
believed, to the clovers. He had carried them with him ever since, and
now he hoped the King would accept one of the clovers 'for luck'.
[1]
A striking feature of many letters is the acceptance of Wallis Simpson
as a suitable wife for the King. Whereas the social elite dismissed her out
of hand, many of the general public welcomed her as someone more like
them - someone who came from an ordinary family and had struggled
as they had themselves. 'A Commoner has a Soul & is worthy in the
sight of God', wrote a woman from Wales, adding, 'It is character that
Counts here, & in the Great Beyond, not a Tytle [sic]. The greatest thing
in life is love & sympathy, & Your Majesty should be allowed to choose
your Queen and help mate in life.'
5
The fact that 'the Lady of your
choice having been in a humbler position one time', said the wife of an
unemployed ex-serviceman, was an advantage - 'she will know how to
help you in doing what you have for the poor. Not like some who has
never known what is to want a real meal, the same as I have. . . My wish
is you will make the Lady of your Choice our Queen.'
I have quoted from a large number of these letters and telegrams in
the book because they offer a unique window onto the attitudes and
feelings of ordinary people. Many of the authors were not used to
writing letters and had not received much schooling - as one person
wrote, 'the writing and spelling is bad but my heart is good'. For the
most part I have standarized the spelling and grammar, to make the
book easier to read, but some of the idiosyncrasies have been left to
keep the flavour of the letters. I have taken the same approach with
the letters and telegrams sent to Stanley Baldwin and also to Winston
Churchill, Edward's champion during the crisis - 'the ordinary letters
from various people all over the country about the King', as a note to
Mrs Churchill observed.
I was blessed with many strokes of good fortune in the course of
my research for the book. One of these was the timely release in
January 2003 of the government records relating to the abdication,
which had been closed since 1936. I was honoured to serve as the
Historical Advisor to The National Archives for this release, which
gave me full access to the documents before they were opened to the
public. For this privilege I am grateful to the Keeper, Sarah Tyacke,
and to David Thomas. These documents - sprinkled liberally with the
words 'Secret', 'Very Secret', and 'Top Secret' - have filled some
important gaps in knowledge and have helped me to understand better
the relationships between crown and government between the wars.
This new information has wonderfully fleshed out the story told in
this book. My time at The National Archives was exciting, and it was
a great pleasure to work with Clea Relly, Robert Smith, and Stephen
Twigge.
Research for the book depended on access to public record collections across Britain, and all of those consulted are listed at the end of
the book. I was given generous help by librarians and archivists and
should like to mark out two people for special thanks: John Gurney,
Curatorial Officer of the Historical Manuscripts Commission; and
Carolyn Jacob at the Merthyr Tydfil Public Library. The resources
and expertise of the British Library (not least the Western Manuscripts
and the Oriental and India Collections) and the Newspaper Library
at Colindale were indispensable, as were the books and the wonderful
flexibility of the London Library.
I am indebted to the following institutions for their help and for
permission to make use of documents in their custody: Amgueddfa
Pontypool Museum, and the assistance of Glyn Lloyd; Fototeca
Berenson, Florence, and the help of Fiorella Gioffredi Superbi; Birmingham City Archives, where I benefited from outstanding help from
Rachel MacGregor; Bristol Record Office, and the assistance of Rob
Petre; Caernafon Record Office; the Syndics of Cambridge University
Library; East Sussex Record Office; Gwent Record Office, and the
assistance of Luned Davies; the Kensington and Chelsea Reference
Library; the Centre for Kentish Studies; the Lincolnshire Archive;
Special Collections and Archives at the Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool; Mass-Observation Archive, University of Sussex;
the London Metropolitan Archives; the Manuscripts and Archives
Division at the New York Public Library, with special and much
appreciated help from John D. Stinson; the Special Collections of
the Robinson Library, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and the
assistance of Lesley Gordon; the Modern Papers and John Johnson
Reading Room at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, where
all the staff deserve prizes; the Public Record Office of Northern
Ireland; Somerset Record Office; Staffordshire Record Office at Stoke
on Trent, where I was given wonderful help by Liz Street; King's
College Library, University of Cambridge, and the assistance of Rosalind Moad; the Archives, University of Wales Swansea; Archives and
Manuscripts at the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine; Westminster Library; West Sussex Record Office; and
the West Yorkshire Archive Service: Bradford, where I was fortunate to
be given excellent assistance by Lorraine Mackenzie.
This book relies heavily on papers that are held privately. Earl
Baldwin gave me access to and permission to quote from the papers of
Lucy Baldwin, and Lord Crathorne photocopied for me the abdication
papers of his mother, Nancy Dugdale. I enjoyed stimulating discussions on various occasions with both Lord Baldwin and Lord
Crathorne, who offered new insights into the abdication and a better
understanding of the complexities of the period. Lady Mairi Bury
kindly allowed me to quote from the papers of her mother, Edith Lady
Londonderry. John Simon gave me permission to quote from the
Simon Papers; George Trevelyan gave me permission to quote from
the Moorman Papers; and Mr P. M. Furbank, the Turing Executor,
gave me permission to quote from the Turing Archive. I am also
grateful to Robin Dower for the permission of the Trustees of the
Trevelyan Family Papers at the Robinson Library, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.