The Peoples King (19 page)
Wallis had boldly told Aunt Bessie in May of 1936 that if her
relationship with Edward proved to be a mistake, it was one she was
willing to pay for. But she may not have expected to start paying for
it so quickly, or so painfully, as she did. For it soon became clear that
those people who had patronized her as Edward's mistress were not
willing to approve of her as his wife. Edith, Lady Londonderry,
the granddaughter of the Duke of Sutherland and the wife of the
Conservative politician the Marquess of Londonderry, decided to
intervene in the affair. As a key member of the highest echelon of
Society, she felt she had an obligation to do something about the
scandal surrounding the King. She knew all the great political figures
of her time and regularly brought these influential people together at
Londonderry House. At receptions to mark the opening of Parliament,
Edith had stood at the top of the staircase, next to the Prime Minister,
to welcome her guests. Now, she appointed herself as the spokeswoman for moral values. On Friday 6 November, at an evening party
given by Emerald Cunard at her home on Grosvenor Square, she told
Wallis that if the King had any idea of marrying her, he ought to give
it up. The English people, she said, would never put up with a queen
or king's consort who had been divorced twice and whose previous
husbands were both still living.
How Lady Londonderry knew the minds of the English people, she
did not reveal. Probably, it was a simple confidence in how things
ought
to be. But her warning appears to have made an impression on
Wallis, who next day wrote a letter to Lady Londonderry, saying that
she had thought over their conversation the night before. She was
conscious, she said, that 'perhaps no one has been really frank with a
certain person in telling him how the country feels about his friendship
with
me ...
I am going to tell him the things you told me.'
90
Lady Londonderry's intervention was presented to Wallis as genuine
concern for Edward and for the nation as a whole. More painful for
Wallis was the growing hostility of the royal circle, led by Elizabeth,
Duchess of York, who had snubbed her on a particularly miserable
evening at Balmoral in the last week of September. At a dinner that
was attended by the Yorks, Wallis had stepped forward to greet them,
holding out her hand as a gesture of friendship. Edward had evidently
asked Wallis to perform the role of hostess. The Duchess was furious.
She walked straight past Wallis and said in a loud voice, 'I came to
dine with the King.' Throughout the evening, she continued to ignore
Wallis, and she and the Duke were the first to leave.
91
But if Wallis's
gesture of friendship was a breach of royal etiquette, then it was
Edward who was responsible. He wanted Wallis to be treated as if she
were his wife, with all the social status that was attached to that
position - and it must have been this that offended Elizabeth. Her
rudeness cannot be explained by moral outrage at a sexual relationship
outside marriage, as she had been perfectly friendly in the past to
Thelma Furness.
'Poor Wallis, the cynosure of all eyes,' Chips Channon had sighed,
'she can do no right. All her tact, sweetness and charm - are they
enough?'
92
Protective of Wallis, Channon was protective of Edward,
too - 'not for loyalty so much as for admiration and affection for
Wallis, and in indignation against those who attack her.'
93
In the middle of November 1936 came a new development in the royal
crisis in the form of a letter written to the King by Alec Hardinge, his
Private Secretary. Edward found the letter waiting for him on Friday
13 November, when he returned from his visit to the Home Fleet at
Portland. Written on Palace stationery, it gave an account of some
facts 'which I know', said Hardinge, 'to be accurate'. He warned that
although the majority of the population of Britain were still ignorant
of his relationship with Wallis, the silence of the press would be broken
in a matter of days. And judging by letters from British subjects living
in foreign countries where the press had been outspoken, he added,
'the effect will be calamitous'.'
Years later, Helen Hardinge explained why her husband had
decided to give such a warning to the King. She said that Geoffrey
Dawson had shown him a very long letter he had received from the
United States which deplored the publicity surrounding the King's
friendship with Mrs Simpson. The letter had been sent on 15 October
by a British man living in the USA who called himself 'Britannicus in
Partibus Infidelium'. In the view of Britannicus, the prevailing opinion
in America was that the foundations of the British monarchy were
under threat and that 'its moral authority, its honour, and its tradition
cast into the dustbin'. Nothing, he said, 'would please me more than
to hear that Edward VIII had abdicated his rights in favour of the heir
presumptive, who I am confident would be prepared to carry on in
the sterling tradition established by his father.'
2
In Dawson's view,
this letter 'seemed to me to sum up opinion in America so well that it
ought to be seen by others' - so he took it to Hardinge.
3
Dawson asked Hardinge to show this letter to the King. It is surprising that either of these men regarded the Britannicus letter as being
'of historic importance', as Hardinge's wife claimed.
4
For it took a
view that was altogether different from most of the American press,
which was mostly delighted about Edward's relationship with Wallis.'
Dawson, as a top newspaperman, must surely have been aware of this.
Over the next few weeks, indeed, as American interest in the story
grew ever stronger, Edward was sent a number of supportive letters
from the USA which were enthusiastic about Edward and Wallis and
congratulated them on their love for each other. Their message was
more one of good luck than of condemnation. A letter from Wisconsin
sent 'best wishes to yourself and Mrs Simpson', adding that Edward
was Britain's own Franklin Roosevelt.
6
The President of a brewing
company in Pennsylvania sent his congratulations 'on your clean and
crystal clear romance'.
7
'DO know one thing,' wrote a woman in New
York City, 'that almost all the women of America are with YOU -
and the women of America ARE America.'
8
Some letters of censure
also arrived, such as one from a British citizen living in the USA -
another 'Britannicus'. If the King 'knew the attitude of the average
American toward the average Britisher', he said, then he would not
subject them to such embarrassment. 'Their attitude towards us', he
explained, 'is really one of envy for our superior culture'.
9
Having justified the urgency of the matter by reference to mail from
America, Hardinge continued his letter to the King by saying that the
Prime Minister and senior members of the Government were meeting
to decide on action. The resignation of the Government, he warned,
was a real possibility. Hardinge said he had reason to know that an
alternative government was impossible, which would leave only one
course - a dissolution of Parliament and a general election, fought
over the issue of Mrs Simpson. The King was urged to send her away
immediately:
If Your Majesty will permit me to say so, there is only one step which holds
out any prospect of avoiding this dangerous situation, and that is for Mrs
Simpson to go abroad without further delay, and I would beg Your Majesty
to give this proposal your earnest consideration before the position has become
irretrievable. Owing to the changing attitude of the Press, the matter has
become one of great urgency.
10
'What a courageous & forthright role Alex played', wrote Violet
Milner, Hardinge's mother-in-law, in her diary some years later. 'It
was he who "belled the cat".'
11
But Edward was horrified. He felt
betrayed by his Private Secretary, whose post required complete and
mutual trust between himself and the king he served. A private secretary was not appointed by ministers and was not responsible to Parliament - he was a royal servant, not a civil servant.
12
It was perfectly
reasonable, said Edward later, for his Private Secretary to warn him
that a Cabinet crisis was impending as the result of his relations with
Mrs Simpson. But it was
not
reasonable for him to be acting on behalf
of the Government, which was patently the case. Edward suspected
that the only person who could have given Hardinge all his information
was the Prime Minister, and this was acknowledged by Hardinge
himself, years later, in an article for
The Times."
Hardinge had shown a draft of his letter to Geoffrey Dawson.
Knowing that this action laid him open to the accusation of conspiracy,
Hardinge later justified it:
At this moment of anxiety and distress, I desperately needed an outside opinion as to the general wisdom and propriety of my letter, as well as its
accuracy; and, as it seemed to me, no one could help me more over this than
a man with the discretion, experience, and integrity of Geoffrey Dawson, who
was at the same time very much 'in the know'.
14
But this was disingenuous, to say the least. For Hardinge had been
conspiring on the matter of this letter with various senior Ministers
and civil service officials for nearly a week. On 7 November, Sir
Warren Fisher, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Treasury and Head
of the Civil Service, reported to Neville Chamberlain that Hardinge
had come to see him that morning, 'very privately', with a suggestion
which he thought was rather good. Fisher mentioned to Chamberlain
an ultimatum that was under consideration - presumably by himself,
Chamberlain, Baldwin and others - which would force the King's
hand. But, he said, Hardinge had proposed an intermediate stage,
rather than present the ultimatum straightaway.
15
He had drafted a
letter to the King, to be signed by Baldwin, which urged Edward to
end his association with Mrs Simpson. The letter, which was copied
to Chamberlain, warned of a 'very disturbing movement of public
opinion' and a revulsion of feeling that might threaten the stability of
the nation and of the Empire.
16
As well as this draft letter, Fisher sent Chamberlain a copy of a
letter, again drafted by Hardinge and to be signed by Baldwin, that
was more forceful and was framed in such a way as to represent an
ultimatum. If the King did not give up Mrs Simpson, it warned, then
the Prime Minister and the Government would resign.
17
Accompanying the two letters was a copy of a memorandum written
by Parliamentary Counsel on 5 November which discussed the role of
the sovereign's Ministers in giving advice. The ultimate sanction lying
behind the tender of advice, explained the memorandum, was the
resignation of the Ministers. 'But I assume', added the memorandum's
author, 'that on an issue of such gravity they would have secured the
concurrence of the leaders of the Opposition in the step which they
were proposing to take, in which case the King would have no alternative Ministry on whom he could fall back for support.' The King
would therefore be left with no Ministers at all, and 'since no English
monarch could hope to govern this country even for a day as a
dictator,' unless he had a very substantial body of public opinion
behind him, he would be compelled either to accept the advice tendered
'or to abdicate'. If abdication were a possibility, added the memorandum, then 'there is an heir presumptive to the Throne . . . whose
qualifications for the succession are not in doubt.'
18
The letter which Hardinge handed to the King on 13 November -
signed by himself, not by Baldwin - was a blend of the drafts written
by himself and sent by Fisher to Chamberlain on 7 November. It had
some of the informality of the first draft letter, but it contained
the threat of the second, and was underpinned by the advice and
information in the memorandum by Parliamentary Counsel. Clearly,
therefore, the writing of Hardinge's letter was not a personal act
by Hardinge himself, with some assistance from Dawson, but the
outcome of a conspiracy of strategic thinking and planning. On the
day that Hardinge presented his letter to the King, Baldwin had held
an urgent meeting of senior Cabinet Ministers - Neville Chamberlain;
Viscount Halifax, Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords;
Sir John Simon; Walter Runciman; and Ramsay MacDonald, the
Lord President. After the meeting, Baldwin went to see Hardinge.
19
Presumably this was the moment when Hardinge was instructed
to give the King a letter signed by himself, but which in effect had
been written by a group of men who were all hostile to the King's
position.
The conspirators carefully covered their tracks, for it appeared that
Hardinge had decided himself to write to the King. Sir Horace Wilson
lied about the background to the letter in a later account of the
royal crisis: 'This letter was written by Major Hardinge on Friday
13th November. He brought it to the Prime Minister, enquiring
whether Mr Baldwin saw any objection to his reference to possible
action by Ministers. I was present. . .' Sir Horace went so far as to
criticize Hardinge's letter, saying that it 'may very well have made the
worst possible impression'.
20
This cover-up was most likely arranged
as a safeguard against any allegations that members of the royal
household might have cooperated with the Government in dealing
with the King. As Fisher had commented in the margin of his letter of
7 November to Chamberlain, 'Of course I assured Hardinge that he
has
not
been in the picture.'
21