thumb|Instrument of abdication signed by [[Edward VIII and his three brothers, Albert, Henry and George, 10 December 1936|upright=1.25]]

In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was in the process of divorcing her second.

The marriage was opposed by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth. Religious, legal, political, and moral objections were raised. As the British monarch, Edward was Supreme Governor of the Church of England, which at this time did not allow divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses were still alive. For this reason, it was widely believed that Edward could not marry Wallis and remain on the throne. As a double-divorcée, Wallis was perceived to be politically, morally and socially unsuitable as a prospective queen consort. It was widely assumed by the Establishment that she was driven by love of money or position rather than love for the King. Despite the opposition, Edward declared that he loved Wallis and intended to marry her as soon as her second divorce was finalised.

The widespread unwillingness to accept Wallis as the King's consort and Edward's refusal to give her up led to his abdication in December 1936.

Baldwin blocked the speech, saying that it would shock many people and would be a grave breach of constitutional principles. By modern convention, the sovereign could only act with the advice and counsel of ministers. In seeking the people's support against the government, Edward was opting to oppose binding ministerial advice and instead act as a private individual. Edward's British ministers felt that, in proposing the speech, Edward had revealed his disdainful attitude towards constitutional conventions and threatened the political neutrality of the Crown.

Cabinet Office files released in 2013 show that on or before 5 December 1936, the Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, had ordered the General Post Office (which controlled British telephone services) to intercept "telephone communications between Fort Belvedere and Buckingham Palace on the one hand and the continent of Europe on the other".

On 5 December, having in effect been told that he could not keep the throne and marry Wallis, and having had his request to broadcast to the Empire to explain "his side of the story" blocked on constitutional grounds, Edward chose the third option.

Following Wallis's divorce hearing on 27 October 1936, her solicitor, John Theodore Goddard, became concerned that there would be a "patriotic" citizen's intervention (a legal device to block the divorce), and that such an intervention would be successful. The courts could not grant a collaborative divorce (a dissolution of marriage consented to by both parties), and so the case was being handled as if it were an undefended at-fault divorce brought against Ernest, with Wallis as the innocent, injured party. The divorce action would fail if the citizen's intervention showed that the Simpsons had colluded by, for example, conniving in or staging the appearance of his adultery so that she could marry someone else. On Monday 7 December 1936, the King heard that Goddard planned to fly to the south of France to see Wallis. The King summoned him and expressly forbade him to make the journey, fearing that the visit might put doubts in Wallis's mind. Goddard went straight to Downing Street to see Baldwin, as a result of which he was provided with an aeroplane to take him directly to Cannes.

Goddard had a weak heart and had never flown before, so he asked his doctor, William Kirkwood, to accompany him on the trip. As Kirkwood was a resident at a maternity hospital, his presence led to false speculation that Wallis was pregnant, and even that she was having an abortion. The press excitedly reported that the solicitor had flown to Wallis accompanied by a gynaecologist and an anaesthetist (who was actually the lawyer's clerk).

Abdication

thumb|"The Year of the Three Kings", postcard 1936

thumb|Abdication statement of Edward VIII

At Fort Belvedere, on 10 December, Edward signed his written abdication notices, witnessed by his three younger brothers: Prince Albert, Duke of York (who succeeded Edward as George VI); Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester; and Prince George, Duke of Kent. The following day, it was given effect by Act of Parliament: His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936.

Under changes introduced by the Statute of Westminster in 1931, a single Crown for the entire empire had been replaced by multiple crowns, one for each Dominion, worn by a single monarch in an organisation then-known as the British Commonwealth. According to the Statute of Westminster, the act passed by the UK parliament could become law in other Dominions at their request. This was duly given by the Parliament of Australia, which was at the time in session, and by the governments of Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand, whose parliaments were in recess. The government of the Irish Free State, taking the opportunity presented by the crisis and in a major step towards its eventual transition to a republic, passed an amendment to its constitution on 11 December to remove references to the Crown and abolish the office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State; the King's abdication was recognised a day later in the External Relations Act, leading to a 24-hour period wherein Edward was king in the Irish Free State and his brother was king of the UK and other Dominions. In Canada, the Succession to the Throne Act 1937 symbolically confirmed the abdication. but many members of the establishment were relieved by Edward's departure. Mackenzie King wrote in his diary on 8 December 1936 that Edward's "sense of right or wrong has been largely obliterated by the jazz of life he has led for years" Edward's own Assistant Private Secretary, Alan Lascelles, had told Baldwin as early as 1927: "I can't help thinking that the best thing that could happen to him, and to the country, would be for him to break his neck." Lascelles resigned in 1929 "in despair".

On 11 December 1936, Edward made a BBC radio broadcast from Windsor Castle; having abdicated, he was introduced by Sir John Reith as "His Royal Highness Prince Edward". The official address had been polished by Churchill and was moderate in tone, speaking about Edward's inability to do his job "as would have wished to do, without the help and support of the woman I love". The address attracted the largest audience of any radio broadcast in the world up to that point. Edward's reign had lasted 327 days, the shortest of any monarch in Britain since the disputed reign of Lady Jane Grey (10–19 July 1553). The day following the broadcast he left Britain for Austria.

Post-abdication

thumb|left|upright|The Duke of Windsor, formerly Edward VIII, 1945

George VI granted his elder brother the title of Duke of Windsor with the style His Royal Highness on 12 December 1936.

Edward married Wallis in France on 3 June 1937. She became the Duchess of Windsor, but, much to Edward's disgust, George VI issued letters patent that denied her the style of Her Royal Highness. The couple settled in France, and the Duke received a tax-free allowance from his brother, which Edward supplemented by writing his memoirs and by illegal currency trading. He also profited from the sale of Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House to George VI, for a "colossal sum" according to Alan Lascelles. In an article for the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune of 13 December 1966 the Duke wrote that in 1937 Hitler persuaded him "it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever[...] I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out."

After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Edward was assigned to the British Military Mission in France. In February 1940, the German ambassador in The Hague, Count Julius von Zech-Burkersroda, claimed that Edward had leaked the Allied war plans for the defence of Belgium. When Germany invaded the north of France in May 1940, the Duke and Duchess fled to Lisbon.

Under the code name Operation Willi, Nazi agents, principally Walter Schellenberg, plotted unsuccessfully to persuade the Duke to leave Portugal, and contemplated kidnapping him. Lord Caldecote warned Churchill that the Duke "is well-known to be pro-Nazi and he may become a centre of intrigue". Churchill threatened the Duke with a court-martial if he did not return to British soil.

In July 1940, Edward was appointed Governor of the Bahamas. Edward reportedly told an acquaintance, "After the war is over and Hitler will crush the Americans[...] we'll take over[...] They [the British] don't want me as their king, but I'll be back as their leader." He was reported as saying that "it would be a tragic thing for the world if Hitler was overthrown".

See also

  • Abandoned coronation of Edward VIII

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

Works cited

Further reading

  • Digital reproduction of the Abdication Act 1936 on the Parliamentary Archives catalogue