Revisiting the 1936 Abdication

Clearing out my house I offered for free a collection of books on the 1936 Abdication.   I got no takers, would that change today?

For authoritative commentary on the monarchy I rely on the authoritative Professor Robert Hazell CBE  at the UCL Constitution Unit (although he was badged as Cambridge University on television).

However, I have noticed some rather misleading commentary by others on the abdication of Edward VIII, subsequently the Duke of Windsor.

I think that was a real constitutional crisis because Winston Churchill, whose judgement was generally unreliable in domestic politics, tried to set up a 'King's Party.' 

Fortunately, that attempt failed.   Edward Windsor was a weak individual with German and Nazi sympathies.   One can even see him as a front man for a Nazi occupation of Britain.

He paid the price in terms of living out the rest of his life in exile and estranged from his family.   His wife in particular took a role in café society which was made up of rich but boring Americans who played golf in Palm Beach,

Some of the tales about the Duchess of Windsor are lurid speculation.  I think that by the time she fled to France she realised she was in too deep and tried to disengage.   Her feud with the Queen Mother (aka Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon) whom she called 'cookie' at least had its amusing aspects.

The deeply socially conservative prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, certainly set out to shaft Edward and he did a good job of it.  He made sure that the concept of a 'morganatic marriage' was never properly considered, although I don't think it would have been acceptable either to the establishment or the public. To deny the Duchess the title of HRH was not really justified in constitutional terms

In many ways it was a footnote in history, but it suddenly acquires an inappropriate relevance.   Robert Hazell has done some interesting comparative work on constitutional monarchies in Europe (unfortunately my copies are currently in store) and I look forward to hearing more from him in the coming weeks.