The Peoples King (45 page)

The speech also made Wallis feel that she had failed the man she loved, because she was the cause of his abdication from the throne. She had tried to prevent this final step, but in vain. She wrote to Sybil Colefax of the terrible struggle of the last couple of weeks - 'I still can't write about it all because I am afraid of not conveying the true facts as brain is so very tired from the struggle of the past two weeks - the screaming of a thousand plans to London, the pleading to lead him not force him.' She knew him so well, she told Sibyl, that she 'wanted them to take my advice. But no, driving on they went headed for this Tragedy. If only they had said, let's drop the idea now and in the autumn we'll discuss it again. And Sibyl darling in the autumn I would have been so very far away. I had already escaped.' The little faith she had tried to cling on to, she added, 'has been taken from me when I saw England turn on a man that couldn't defend himself and had never been anything but straight with his country.'
⁴⁶
After Edward's broadcast, she 'drained the dregs of the cup of my failure and defeat.'
⁴
' She ached with longing for Edward, who had given up so much to marry her. 'The agony of not being able to see you after all you have been through,' she wrote to him, 'is pathetic . . . Your broadcast was very good my angel and it is all going to be so very lovely ... I hope you will never regret this sacrifice and that your brother will prove to the world that we still have a position and that you will be given some jobs to do.' With this last sentence, she revealed her anxiety about Edward's future. 'I love you David,' she ended the letter, 'and am holding so tight.'
⁴⁸

Lloyd George heard the speech from Jamaica. 'Just heard the King on the BBC', he wrote. 'A fine farewell, courageous, sincere, simple, dignified. He is [a] great little man & he has been hounded from the throne by that arch humbug Baldwin.'
⁴⁹
An agricultural engineer in Palestine wrote to Edward that he had followed 'during the last years the activities of Your Majesty with great admiration and sincere sympathy, especially Your Majesty's care for the working and unemployed people.' He was sure, he said, 'that the greatest part of the Jewish population of Palestine is feeling the same.'
⁵⁰

For New Yorkers, said Margaret Case Harriman, who wrote for the
New Yorker,
the speech was heard on 'a rainy late afternoon with crowds pushing into radio shops, hotel lobbies, and bars, or standing on street corners in the rain, their unabashed tears falling on their wet raincoats as they listened to that infinitely sad yet determined English voice.'
⁵¹
One New Yorker wrote to Edward to say that he had heard the broadcast at five o'clock that afternoon. Long afterwards, he said, he sat still, 'too deeply touched to move'. Earlier he had felt that Edward was letting the country down - but 'I never heard or read of a man ever paying so great a price for pure love of a woman.'
⁵²
John Gunther wrote to Margot Asquith from Connecticut:

We simply remain thunderstruck. Most of this week we've been glued to the radio, listening to it all, and each day it got worse. I thought Edward's talk yesterday was one of the finest things I've ever heard; Frances burst into tears and I felt the whole thing to be almost intolerable."

Gunther was shocked to learn that Edward's speech was not sold in Britain on a gramophone record.
⁵⁴
This was odd because it was quite common at this time for important speeches to be recorded by His Master's Voice, or another gramophone company, and sold to the public. It was another story in America, where the speech was boot­legged. Within a few hours, Macy's, New York's largest department store, put a record of the speech on sale at one dollar.
⁵⁵

Walking along Whitehall the other day, wrote Virginia Woolf, 'I thought what a Kingdom! England! And to put it down the sink . . . Not a very rational feeling. Still it is what the Nation feels.'
⁵⁶
In her view, 'the Nation' was outraged by Edward's abdication - but it is unlikely that many of the Bloomsbury set had much idea of what ordinary people in Britain felt. Nor did Nancy Dugdale, who believed that Edward 'had fallen so precipitously in the esteem of the public, as a shooting star falls through the heavens to end in oblivion.' He will leave many sorrowing hearts, she added, 'for his popularity was of a very personal and touching nature, especially among the poorer classes, owing to his having moved so much in the ranks of his people. Everyone felt they had been personally let down, a demoralizing national feeling.'
⁵⁷
But Mrs Dugdale knew few, if any, of these 'poorer classes', and she certainly did not know 'everyone'. This tendency of members of the Establishment to equate their
own
feelings with those of 'the nation', 'the public' or 'the people of Britain' characterizes the whole of the abdication crisis. When Susie Buchan, the wife of the Governor-General of Canada, encountered continuing support for Edward on a visit to Britain, she simply explained it away as 'a good deal of sentimentality'.
⁵⁸

In reality, ordinary people thought very differently. 'We were with him on the Western Front and will always deem him our leader', read a telegram from London.
⁵⁹
The Mayor of Llanidloes in Wales sent his thanks 'for the special interest you have shown at all times in the welfare of the people of the Principality. As Welsh men and women we pray for your happiness - so richly deserved.'
⁶⁰
Hundreds of telegrams arrived offering the King gratitude, love and admiration. 'Remembering all your Majesty's kindness, Dockland begs to wish all happiness and God speed!' said one.
⁶¹
'From one sportsman to a greater one. Good luck. God speed' said another.
⁶²

For John Buchan, the royal crisis was a question not so much of morals as of manners. 'A certain dignity', he wrote to Edith London­derry, 'is demanded from the Throne, and I hope that has been now restored.'
⁶³
Lockhart's 'Mrs Town Councillors' and 'Mrs Rectors' generally agreed, and a farmer in Sussex observed in his diary that Edward was a 'frightful ass to get himself in the position he did'.
⁶⁴
But many did not agree. A teacher at a London County Council school told the King that he would tell his pupils, with pride, of the dignity with which Edward had conducted himself through the whole of the crisis.
⁶⁵
From the Savile Club in London came the message that 'We have just drunk the health of His Majesty and broke the glass. For he is England's Admiral till [the] setting of his sun.'
⁶⁶
Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder and leader of the Boy Scouts, sent a tele­gram recalling Edward's hard work for the scouting movement when he was Prince of Wales: 'Boy Scouts offer most grateful thanks for His Majesty's many kindnesses which they will ever remember and offer heartfelt good wishes.'
^6.

There was admiration for Edward's courage - but there was also bitter disappointment and a sense of lost hope, especially among minority groups. Marcus Garvey, the President of the General Uni­versal Negro Improvement Association, sent a telegram in which he asked the King to

Please accept from the Negro race deepest sympathy . . . We were looking to you for much but we fully appreciate your noble Christian stand which will do so much to raise the Empire to the position it has lost by the world being able to say through your noble act that an Englishman's word is his bond. History will record you as the noblest character of the twentieth century. May God bless and keep you is the prayer of the Negro race.
⁶⁸

All the gypsies, said Queen Viola, the Queen of the Gypsies, joined her in congratulations 'to you, one of the best. To us gipsies you remain our King. The same applies to your future wife. We tender her all happiness in her great trial. God bless you both.'
⁶⁹

This was the greatest love story of the decade, and the world was watching. Telegrams poured in from every continent and region: Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and North and South America. Nearly all of them congratulated the King and offered their best wishes for his future happiness. From a civil servant in India came the judgement that 'The Empire has blundered',
⁷⁰
which contrasted sharply with the Viceroy's claim that the 'general reactions of press and public could not be more satisfactory'.
⁷¹
In Ceylon, a resolution passed on 12 December by the Urban District Council of Kurunegala appreciated 'the high principles which led His Majesty to make that momentous decision', but at the same time expressed 'its deepest regret' at the abdication and sent 'best wishes for His Majesty's future'.'
²
Similar sentiments were expressed by the Trinidad Citizens' League. They acknowledged

our deep gratitude for the great services rendered by him as Prince of Wales and as King Emperor... we shall always pray that long life and happiness may be in store for him and for the Lady of his choice and our love and affection for him has not been in any way lessened.
⁷³

Many citizens of the Irish Free State had followed the royal crisis. 'The heart of Ireland is with you now', said one letter. 'You are with­out a shadow of doubt the most loved one.' It described an instance when 'a poor bare-footed - ragged little girl - went to a small shop - where a wireless is installed and said - "Please my muthor [sic] wants to know the last news about the King?"!'
⁷⁴
Eamon de Valera, the President, was also sympathetic to the King. On 5 December, Baldwin had sent him a telegram announcing the likelihood of Edward's im­minent abdication. This sudden news gave de Valera 'serious cause for anxiety' and he cabled back:

Legislation in our Parliament would be necessary in order to regularize the situation about to be created. Such legislation at the present moment would cause grave difficulties. Is there no alternative to immediate abdication? Surely delay at least is advisable even if no ultimate solution in sight.
⁷⁵

De Valera sent a telegram to the King, too, stressing that abdication could not take place without the authority of the Irish Free State - the matter of succession to the throne required the assent of
all
the Dominions, according to the Statute of Westminster.
⁷⁶
In other words, Edward would continue to be King in Ireland until his abdication was accepted.

It was a worrying situation for the British Government, which feared that de Valera would exploit Britain's dilemma to his own advantage. This is exactly what happened. The President summoned a special session of the Dail on 11 and 12 December, which proceeded to pass legislation that effectively excluded the new King from any position in which he might influence the internal affairs of the Irish Free State, retaining for him only certain functions in external affairs.
⁷
' This move had been planned for the future anyway, but it was now rushed into action - and since Britain was so preoccupied with its own crisis, it was not resisted.

Dawson and
The Times
- the 'Thunderer', as it was known - were widely regarded as instrumental in the drama that had led to the abdication. In a letter written on 12 December, Winston Churchill referred to 'the sledge-hammer blows
The Times
dealt the late King'.
⁷⁸
Many others expressed heartfelt thanks to Dawson for his role in the affair. The Duke of Buccleuch conveyed his 'Respect and gratitude to you and the "Times" in these days of National misery, and God speed your task of re-establishing the Monarchy.'
⁷⁹
Hardinge assured Dawson that the one thing that had kept him going was 'the kindness and encouragement of those whose opinions were worth having'. In the end, he said, 'the Empire has, I believe, really profited by this demonstration of unity and common ideals.' Although the work of starting a second new reign was heavy, he added, 'it is like a haven of rest at B.P. [Buckingham Palace] after the bedlam of the last few months.'
⁸⁰
The courtier Tommy Lascelles told Dawson that, 'merely as a tax-payer, how profoundly grateful I have been to the
Times
every morning lately. In all this sad business, the only cause for real rejoicing is the utter defeat of the Powers of Evil.'
⁸¹

Sybil Colefax took a larger view. 'For the people it's a great loss', she wrote to Berenson. 'He was truly democratic - and they knew it . . . Well it's over but matters more than you think.'
⁸²
Geoffrey Wells, who thought that Baldwin was 'the Dirty Dog of the whole business', was disgusted. He went to the cinema in Oxford on the afternoon of 11 December and wrote in his diary that 'Afterwards they put on such a flood of slosh about The New King & in particular his blasted wife that I got up & walked out. Applause for Baldwin, for Edward, for George VI, applause and hisses for Mrs S.' He came out of it all, he said, 'in a mood of deep disgust for the sheer hypocrisy of the British press & public, the sheer unqualified immorality, which makes a heroine of a woman like Queen Mary, who marries to order, and a bloody adulteress of Mrs Simpson, of whom it knows nothing. After Queen Mary, I could have done with a little Mrs S!' In the evening he listened to Edward's speech and found it 'the wholly dignified moving utterance of a self-possessed, confident man. Listening, one felt him to be the one real man in the affair. I'd like to know what Baldwin & the rest thought as they listened!'
⁸³

Once the reality of the abdication had sunk in - that King Edward VIII of England had really vacated the throne - there was time for some reflection. Churchill believed that the Government and
The Times
had behaved unfairly. In a letter to Lord Salisbury, he pointed out that