The Duchess Of Windsor (38 page)

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Authors: Greg King

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Within an hour, Baldwin also had a copy of the press statement, which would be published in the newspapers the following morning. This was not quite the categorical renunciation Baldwin had hoped for; to find out what she intended, he dispatched her lawyer, Theodore Goddard, to Cannes.
18
When David learned of this, he rang Wallis and warned her not to listen to any threats or arguments he might make.
19
Vague rumors had reached the press that Goddard was accompanied by an anesthetist and a gynecologist; neither Wallis nor the others encamped at the villa had any idea why the lawyer would be accompanied by such men, and there were hints that Baldwin might have ordered her drugged and seized. On Wednesday, when Goddard arrived, Wallis learned the truth: He had come with his own doctor—W. Douglas Kirkwood, formerly a surgeon at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital for Women, one of London’s largest maternity hospitals—not with an emissary from Baldwin.
20
The current rumor was that Wallis might be pregnant, and Kirkwood was there to make absolutely certain that this was not so. If he could establish that she was not pregnant, it would make the King’s desire to push for a special bill to finalize her decree absolute much easier.
Goddard urged Wallis to withdraw her divorce petition; if she did, he explained, there could be no question of the King’s marrying her, and the crisis would be averted. “I will do anything within my power to keep the King on the Throne,” she declared. She asked if she might advise Brownlow of her intended step and called him into the room.
21
She knew Ernest would agree for the sake of the throne. If they did this, they could have the King crowned, and the situation might later resolve itself.
Brownlow, however, seemed less convinced. “If the King does abdicate,” he declared, “his object, as we all know, will be marriage; and for you to scrap your divorce will produce a hopeless anticlimax and an all-round tragedy.”
22
Instead, Brownlow advised Wallis that she should leave Europe at once. She agreed, thinking she might return to China, where she would be both fairly anonymous and out of reach of the King. She had decided to lie to him, to tell him that she was not in love with him, would never marry him, and did not want to spend her life with him. Hurtful as this would be to both her and David, it was her only hope that he might remain on the throne.
23
Goddard drew up an announcement and telephoned the text to Baldwin: “I have discussed the whole position with Mrs. Simpson—her own, the position of the King, the country, the Empire. Mrs. Simpson tells me she was, and still is, perfectly willing to instruct me to withdraw her petition for divorce and willing to do anything to prevent the King from abdicating. I am satisfied that this is Mrs. Simpson’s genuine and honest desire. I read this note over to Mrs. Simpson who in every way confirmed it.” The note was signed by Goddard and countersigned by Brownlow.
24
In despair, Wallis put through a telephone call to David. Nerves were frayed, and the crisis had almost reached its climax. When she began to explain to him what she wanted to do, he cut her short. “I can’t seem to make you understand the position,” he said. “It’s all over. The Instrument of Abdication is already prepared.” Nothing Wallis might now do, he said, would change the situation.
25
So little did she know of the political situation and the King’s power and status that she is said to have asked, “But, David, can’t you remain Emperor of India even if you are no longer King of England?”
26
Wallis was stunned. David had assured her that he would not abdicate; now he had done just that without bothering to inform her until it was too late. She had worried endlessly, tried to remove herself over and over again from the situation, been prepared to sacrifice her own desires and future happiness, to keep him on the throne. “I think ultimately she felt very, very betrayed by the abdication,” a friend later declared. “She rarely spoke about that period of her life, but once, she did admit that the Duke’s actions had hurt her terribly. I think, also, that she was more than a little put out at having her future essentially determined for her.”
27
Undoubtedly, too, there was a sense of dread at what inevitably must follow. Until now, Wallis had managed to remain out of the public eye, and the five days of press which had followed Blunt’s speech had been relatively clear of criticism; but now she had little doubt that the entire world would hold her responsible for the abdication and that she would become the object of almost universal scorn. “I,” Wallis recalled, “who had sought no place in history would now be assured of one—an appalling one, carved out by blind prejudice.”
28
Wallis hung up the telephone and collapsed in tears. Katherine Rogers rushed to her, saying, “You have done everything that could be expected of a woman in this situation. No one will blame you.” The following afternoon, Wallis again spoke with the King on the telephone. He had announced his intention of going to Switzerland after he abdicated. Wallis, worried that he would be alone or surrounded by strangers, now recommended that he stay with their friends Baron Eugene de Rothschild and his wife at their country estate, Schloss Enzesfeld, near Vienna. He considered this and agreed.
29
On Thursday, December 10, David, witnessed by his brothers, signed six copies of the Act of Abdication at ten in the morning in the octagonal drawing room at the Fort. The act, which would take effect at midnight, read:
I, Edward the Eighth, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Emperor of India, do hereby declare my irrevocable determination to renounce the Throne for Myself and My descendants, and My desire that effect should be given to this Instrument of Abdication immediately.
In token whereof I have hereunto set My hand this tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty six, in the presence of the witnesses whose signatures are subscribed.
 
That afternoon, Baldwin made the announcement in the House of Commons. Harold Nicolson wrote that the chamber was “nervous and noisy.” Curious onlookers sat on the floor and in the gallery aisles, filling every conceivable space. Baldwin entered the House and fumbled with his papers. “The old man collects them hurriedly,” wrote Nicolson, “and the next minute . . . walks hurriedly to the Bar, turns round, bows, and advances to the Chair. He stops and bows again. ‘A message from the King,’ he shouts, ‘signed by His Majesty’s own hand.’ He then hands the papers to the Speaker. The latter rises and reads out the message of abdication in a quavering voice.”
30
The message read:
After long and anxious consideration, I have determined to renounce the Throne to which I succeeded on the death of my Father, and I am now communicating this my final and irrevocable decision. Realising as I do the gravity of this step, I can only hope that I shall have the understanding of my people in the decision I have taken and the reasons which had led me to take it.
I will not enter now into my private feelings, but I would beg that it should be remembered that the burden which constantly rests upon the shoulders of a Sovereign is so heavy that it can only be borne in circumstances different from those in which I now find myself.
I conceive that I am not overlooking the duty that rests on me to place in the forefront the public interest when I declare that I am conscious that I can no longer discharge this heavy task with efficiency or with satisfaction to myself. I have accordingly this morning executed an Instrument of Abdication....
I deeply appreciate the spirit which has actuated the appeals which have been made to me to take a different decision, and I have, before reaching my final determination, most fully pondered over them. But my mind is made up. Moreover, further delay cannot but be most injurious to the peoples whom I have tried to serve as Prince of Wales and as King and whose future happiness and prosperity are the constant wish of my heart.
I take my leave of them in the confident hope that the course which I have thought it right to follow is that which is best for the stability of the Throne and Empire and the happiness of my peoples. I am deeply sensible of the consideration which they have always extended to me, both before and after my accession to the Throne, and which I know they will extend in full measure to my successor.
31
 
As soon as the speaker finished reading the King’s message, Baldwin once again stood up and prepared to address the House. “The feeling,” continues Nicolson, “that at any moment he may break down from emotion increases our own emotion. I have never known in any assemblage such accumulation of pity and terror.”
32
“No more grave message has ever been received by Parliament, and no more difficult, I may almost say repugnant, task has ever been imposed upon a Prime Minister,” Baldwin began. He emphasized that he could only tell the story “truthfully, sincerely, and plainly, with no attempt to dress up or to adorn.” He began by relating the good nature of his relations with the King, first as Prince of Wales and later as sovereign, and added curiously that “the discussions of this last week bound us more closely together than ever.” He carefully outlined each of his meetings with the King and the course of the developing crisis. He spoke of the various ideas and the morganatic marriage proposal, explaining again how he had been forced to reject them, and how the dominions had also expressed their disapproval. He ended by saying, “My last words on that subject are that I am convinced that where I have failed no one could have succeeded. His mind was made up, and those who know His Majesty best will know what that means.”
33
Nicolson continues: “The ‘Hear, Hears!’ echo solemnly like Amens. His papers are in a confused state . . . and he hesitates somewhat. He confuses dates and turns to Simon, ‘It was a Monday, was it not the 27th?’ The artifice of such asides is so effective that one imagines it to be deliberate. There is no moment when he overstates emotion or indulges in oratory. There is intense silence broken only by the reporters in the gallery scuttling away to telephone the speech paragraph by paragraph. I suppose that in after-centuries men will read the words of that speech and exclaim, ‘What an opportunity wasted!’ They will never know the tragic force of its simplicity. ’I said, to the King . . .’ ‘The King told me. . . .’ It was Sophoclean and almost unbearable. Attlee felt this. When it was over, he asked that the sitting might be adjourned until 6 P.M. We file out broken in body and soul, conscious that we have heard the best speech that we shall ever hear in our lives. There is no question of applause. It was the silence of Gettysburg.”
34
That evening, David consulted with Bertie at Fort Belvedere, a meeting which was to prove a source of great contention and resentment between the two brothers for the rest of their lives. Six other men, all financial and legal advisers, were also present: Sir Ulick Alexander, keeper of the privy purse under Edward VIII; Sir Edward Peacock, serving as the King’s private financial adviser; Lord Wigram, the former private secretary to King George V, who was advising the Duke of York; Sir Bernard Bircham, the Duke of York’s personal solicitor; George Allen, the King’s solicitor; and Walter Monckton.
There were two principal issues discussed that evening: the dispersal of the private royal estates of Sandringham and Balmoral and their contents and what financial settlement the soon-to-be-former King could expect to receive after the abdication.
Both Sandringham and Balmoral were owned by the royal trustees; Edward VIII, according to the terms of his father’s will, held a life tenancy in both properties. When he died, the properties would pass to any children he might have. Clearly, the Duke of York believed that the two estates were inalienable from the Crown even if, by law, they belonged to his brother. David had little interest in keeping them for himself; he only wished to return to the Fort. Therefore, an agreement was worked out whereby the two properties and their contents would be sold to the new monarch and thus remain within the Crown.
35
Edward VIII possessed a large private fortune. From 1910 to 1936, he had received the revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall; these had been quite substantial, amounting to £70,941 in 1936. In his years as Prince of Wales, these had been increased through prudent investment, and by the time David came to the throne, they amounted to almost a million pounds.
36
However, there were other financial considerations. As king, David had spent large sums from this private fortune buying jewels for Wallis and improving and restoring the Fort. He was actually in debt when he abdicated, as the annual revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall and Lancaster were not due until the middle of 1937. He had therefore borrowed money from Baring Brothers Bank in London in order to meet his routine household expenses, such as salaries and pensions. He had also given Wallis some £300,000 as a cash settlement to ensure that no matter what happened, she would have the means to remain comfortable. Although she would return nearly all of this money after the abdication, in December 1936 it remained an outstanding debt against the King’s fortune.

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