Read The Duchess Of Windsor Online
Authors: Greg King
The Duchess Of Windsor (43 page)
Wigram duly informed the King of this conversation, but this was clearly not what George VI wished to hear. Once again, Wigram was dispatched to do the King’s bidding. This time, he met with Maurice Gwyer, another member of the Parliamentary Council, and presented the royal arguments. Once again, however, he was met with resistance. “I should have thought myself that an attempt to deprive the Duke’s wife of the title of HRH would have the most disastrous results,” Gwyer declared. “I have no doubt at all that it would be popularly regarded as an attempt to strike at the Duke through his wife, and resented accordingly . . . It would be impossible to imagine a more public or deadly slight.”
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The King refused to give up. During a meeting with the Minister, he asked Baldwin, “Is she a fit and proper person to become a Royal Highness after what she has done in this country; and would the country understand it if she became one automatically on marriage? . . . I and my family and Queen Mary all feel that it would be a great mistake to acknowledge Mrs. Simpson as a suitable person to become Royal. The Monarchy has been degraded quite enough already.”
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The eventual argument worked out by the Crown Law Offices was that Edward VIII, on his Abdication, had ceased to hold royal rank. If George VI could not legally deprive his brother’s wife of her rightful status, they advised, his only recourse was to deprive his brother of his royal rank and then restore it with restrictions. The decision was made to draw up Letters Patent in order to strip the Duke of Windsor of his birthright. Letters Patent, a declaration from the sovereign in which certain rights or honours are conferred, were ordinary used to create titles in the British Peerage. In some cases, they have been used to create Royal Dukedoms, such as the Dukedom of Windsor.
The Letters Patent drawn up declared that Edward VIII, on abdicating the British Throne, had lost all royal rank and status. George VI did not wish his brother to go through life as plain Mr. Edward Windsor, and therefore decided to re-create him a Royal Duke entitled to the style of Royal Highness. According to this document, a previous Letters Patent, issued by George V in 1917, had restricted the style of Royal Highness to those Princes in the lineal succession to the Throne; because David was no longer eligible for the Throne, he therefore fell outside the bounds of the ordinary requirements, and George VI was making an exception for the sake of his brother’s honour. But in granting the style of His Royal Highness to the Duke, the Letters Patent also claimed to be able to restrict its use to him and him alone.
Because a deliberate alteration was being made to the ordinary course of events by the issuance of Letters Patent to re-create his brother as a Royal Duke, George VI was constitutionally obliged to seek the advice of his ministers. The King was not empowered to alter royal titles or the succession, according to the Statute of Westminster, without consulting the Dominions. Indeed, this very issue had been the reason why David had not been able to his own accord to marry Wallis morganatically. One suspects the question was allowed to reach this point simply because the King would be required to heed the advice of the Dominions, and George VI, only three months after the Abdication, had little doubt as to their feeling where Wallis was concerned.
The normal procedure involved the King requesting formal consideration and advice on the issuance of the Letters Patent. In this case, however, George VI, unwilling to risk any possible outcome other than the one which he himself wished, had written to the Prime Minister and told him exactly what he wished that opinion to be. This is not idle speculation; Montgomery-Hyde, in his biography of Baldwin, had access to the original letter George VI dispatched to the Prime Minister on the question, a letter which apparently took great care to tell the Cabinet what it was he expected to hear in their report.
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Ironically, Baldwin’s last Cabinet meeting as Prime Minister, on 26 May, 1937, included discussion and ratification of the King’s Letters Patent recreating his brother a Royal Prince and allowing him to withhold the style of Her Royal Highness from Wallis. Two days later, the official announcement appeared in the London Gazette: “Whitehall, May 28, 1937. The King has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm bearing the date the 27th day of May 1937, to declare that the Duke of Windsor shall, notwithstanding his Instrument of Abdication executed on the 10th day of December 1936, and His Majesty’s declaration of Abdication Act 1936, whereby effect was given to the said Instrument, be entitled to hold and enjoy for himself only the title, style or attribute of Royal Highness so however that his wife and descendants if any shall not hold the said title, style or attribute.”
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A day later, the
Times
repeated the text of the announcement. The accompanying article declared: “Their decision is in keeping with the tradition that a right to the title of Royal Highness and to the recognition accorded to it by custom, at home, throughout the Empire, and elsewhere abroad, is essentially the attribute of a potential successor to the Throne—the Duke of Windsor himself remaining a special exception to the rule. It also accords with such parallels as are to be found in other official practice and should relieve the ceremony which is to take place in France next week from some part of the burden of speculation and discussion that has settled upon it.”
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Times
repeated the text of the announcement. The accompanying article declared: “Their decision is in keeping with the tradition that a right to the title of Royal Highness and to the recognition accorded to it by custom, at home, throughout the Empire, and elsewhere abroad, is essentially the attribute of a potential successor to the Throne—the Duke of Windsor himself remaining a special exception to the rule. It also accords with such parallels as are to be found in other official practice and should relieve the ceremony which is to take place in France next week from some part of the burden of speculation and discussion that has settled upon it.”
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This then, was the argument as presented by George VI and his advisors: that David had lost all royal rank on his abdication, and that the King was perfectly entitled to restore this lost rank and also to restrict the use of the style of Royal Highness to the Duke alone. In the years which have since passed, no effort has been made on the part of either George VI or his daughter Elizabeth II, nor the Court, to re-examine this controversial decision.
The case that David never lost his royal rank is absolutely clear. On 5 February, 1864, Queen Victoria had issued Letters Patent which would later substantiate the Duke of Windsor’s claims: “The Queen has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal, to declare Her Royal Will and Pleasure that besides the Children of Sovereigns of these Realms, the Children of the Sons of any Sovereign of Great Britain and Ireland shall have and at all times hold and enjoy the title, style and attribute of ‘Royal Highness,” with their titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their respective Christian names
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...David was born a Highness in 1894; on 27 May, 1898, he became a Royal Highness, on issuance of Letters Patent from Queen Victoria which gave the style “to the children of the eldest son of a Prince of Wales.”
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...David was born a Highness in 1894; on 27 May, 1898, he became a Royal Highness, on issuance of Letters Patent from Queen Victoria which gave the style “to the children of the eldest son of a Prince of Wales.”
A second Letters Patent, issued by David’s father, King George V, in 1917, had declared: “The Children of any Sovereign of the United Kingdom, and the Children of the Sons of any such Sovereign, and the eldest living Son of the eldest Son of the Prince of Wales, shall have and at all times hold and enjoy the style, title or attribute of Royal Highness, with their titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their respective Christian names, or with their other titles of honour.”
These Letters Patent not only confirmed exactly the provisions of those issued by Queen Victoria in 1864, but spelled out in a more explicit fashion the same standards. George V’s Letters Patent did nothing to alter or change those issued by his grandmother sixty years earlier.
When David abdicated the Throne, he lost his sovereign status as His Majesty the King. The only way in which his royal rank and style of Royal Highness could be taken away was through the issuance of Special Letters Patent which specifically deprived him of these attributes. Nothing in the Abdication process nor in any of the documents had done this, nor did King George VI ever issue Letters Patent depriving his brother of his royal rank. He either simply—and wrongly—assumed that he had lost it on abdicating, or even less generously, ignored the facts in his determination to punish David and Wallis. As Philip Thomas stated in
Burke’s Peerage
: “The position is that immediately upon his abdication and without any special act of the Prerogative, the former sovereign became, as son of a sovereign and pursuant to Letters Patent of 30 November, 1917, a Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with the qualification of Royal Highness. . . .”
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Burke’s Peerage
: “The position is that immediately upon his abdication and without any special act of the Prerogative, the former sovereign became, as son of a sovereign and pursuant to Letters Patent of 30 November, 1917, a Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with the qualification of Royal Highness. . . .”
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The King’s own contention that his brother had lost royal rank on his Abdication was undermined not only by the definitive evidence of both Queen Victoria’s and George V’s Letters Patent, but also by events more recent. George VI himself had recognized his brother as retaining royal rank at his Accession Council immediately after the abdication, when Edward was referred to as His Royal Highness; in his instructions to Sir John Reith to introduce him before his speech to the nation as His Royal Highness Prince Edward; and in the Letters Patent creating the Dukedom of Windsor, where, before the ratification and issuance, David was referred to as His Royal Highness.
The King and his advisors would also try to claim that because the Duke of Windsor was no longer in the line of succession for the Throne, he did not fall under the provisions of either Queen Victoria’s Letters Patent of 1864 or George V’s Letters Patent of 1917. But neither of these two Letters Patent in any way dealt with the issue of the succession, or the limiting of titles and styles to those in line for the Throne. No mention was made of any such idea. They only confirmed that all sons and grandsons of sovereigns were entitled to the use of the title of Prince and style of Royal Highness for life without restriction.
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The deprivation of the style of Her Royal Highness for Wallis served quite another purpose, as Lady Longford insight-fully, and one suspects, accidentally, pointed out in her biography of the present Queen: “Her not being an HRH, however, was the only card the King held: his brother had vowed he would not return to England with Wallis unless she were created HRH. But what if the King, together with his wife and his closest advisors, considered it inadvisable for the Windsors to be let loose on England again during those critical months? It was to the Royal Family’s advantage that the Duchess should be denied the title for the very reason that her husband insisted on it: it was the condition of their return from exile.”
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In other words, George VI used the denial of the style of Royal Highness to keep his brother and sister-in-law out of the country—not a very noble use of his position as “Fountain of Honours.”
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In other words, George VI used the denial of the style of Royal Highness to keep his brother and sister-in-law out of the country—not a very noble use of his position as “Fountain of Honours.”
The effect of the King’s decision was to make the forthcoming wedding between Wallis and David a morganatic—that is, unequal—marriage. For no other interpretation can be given to a marriage where one partner holds and enjoys a title and style specifically excluded from the other partner. Baldwin had claimed that no such thing as a morganatic marriage existed in England, and used such reasoning to try to block Edward VIII’s attempt to contract one with Wallis. “But,” writes Michael Thornton, “in the five months since those words had been spoken, morganatic marriage had miraculously become ‘known to our law.’ For if His Royal Highness The Duke of Windsor, who had been denied such a marriage as King, married a lady whom the British Government intended should be known only as Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor, a morganatic marriage was indisputably what he was getting after all.”
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George VI acted illegally to deprive Wallis of the style of Royal Highness, and he perpetuated this miscarriage of justice by insisting that he, as Fountain of Honours, held control over such issues. But in the King’s Declaration of Abdication, Edward VIII had been careful to declare, “The Royal Marriages Act, 1772, shall not apply to His Majesty after His Abdication.” George VI, therefore, was not empowered to interfere in the sharing by the wife of the husband’s title and style, which followed from British common law. The King could not act counter to common law, and as the Duke of Windsor fell outside the bounds of the Royal Marriages Act—the only possible example by which his brother might have issued a directive which ran counter to common law—the new King was powerless to restrict use of the style.
David was deeply hurt by this insult to the woman he loved. “The Duke told me once that his brother had denied the Duchess the use of HRH simply as a way to punish her for the Abdication,” a former friend declared (personal interview). This is certainly the attitude David was to carry with him for the rest of his life. “I know Bertie,” he exclaimed, “I know he couldn’t have written this letter on his own. Why in God’s name would they do this to me at this time!”
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George VI himself had met with Monckton the day after the Abdication and acknowledged that his brother kept his royal style and rank; Monckton therefore believed that the King had been influenced by others. “If the King had been left to himself,” he wrote, “I feel confident that he would not have assented to this course because he knew the effect it would have on his brother.”
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George VI himself had met with Monckton the day after the Abdication and acknowledged that his brother kept his royal style and rank; Monckton therefore believed that the King had been influenced by others. “If the King had been left to himself,” he wrote, “I feel confident that he would not have assented to this course because he knew the effect it would have on his brother.”
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Both Wallis and David had little doubt as to who bore ultimate responsibility for the deprivation: the two Queens, Mary and Elizabeth. Wallis, in fact, was frequently to refer to her sister-in-law Elizabeth as “the Dowdy Duchess.”
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The dislike was mutual, and it was Elizabeth, Britain’s beloved Queen Mother, who, more than any other person, maintained the ostracism of the Windsors and the vendetta against Wallis. With the passing years, she refused to relent in her determination to punish the Duchess of Windsor. Even when constitutional authorities agreed that her husband had acted illegally, the Queen Mother staunchly held her line, a line her daughter Elizabeth II refused to cross for fear of upsetting her beloved mother.
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The dislike was mutual, and it was Elizabeth, Britain’s beloved Queen Mother, who, more than any other person, maintained the ostracism of the Windsors and the vendetta against Wallis. With the passing years, she refused to relent in her determination to punish the Duchess of Windsor. Even when constitutional authorities agreed that her husband had acted illegally, the Queen Mother staunchly held her line, a line her daughter Elizabeth II refused to cross for fear of upsetting her beloved mother.
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