The Peoples King (26 page)

Baldwin's answer to Edward was not entirely honest or straight­forward, however. At 2.40 a.m. on 2 December, the day Baldwin met
with Edward, he had received a telegram from Michael Savage, the
Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand, backing the plan for a mor­ganatic marriage. It rejected the idea of Wallis becoming Queen, but
affirmed that 'The great affection felt in New Zealand for His Majesty
and the desire of the people in this country for his happiness inspire
the thought that some such arrangement might be possible.' There
could be insuperable obstacles, but 'if some solution along these lines
were found to be practicable it would no doubt be acceptable to the
majority of the people of New Zealand.' Savage concluded by saying
that because of the 'enormous popularity of the King with both races
in Zealand - Pakeha and Maoris', a decision to abdicate would be
received with the deepest regret; but if this were the only course
open, the Dominion would be guided by the decision of the Home
Government.
⁷⁴
The Governor-General sent a telegram to London
explaining that his Prime Minister's assessment of public opinion was
based on the King's popularity among all classes in New Zealand after
Edward's tour of 1920, and his belief that Edward's personality was
much more inspiring than the Duke of York's.

The Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King, was
hesitant. It was his personal view that neither Parliament nor public
opinion in Canada would accept Mrs Simpson as Queen or as the
morganatic wife of the King. On these grounds, he believed that a
voluntary abdication would be the 'honourable and right course for
the King to pursue'. But he emphasized that such an abdication
must
be voluntary:
Were it believed King's abdication were something imposed by his
Ministers (or were such in fact the case) solely because of His Majesty's
intended or actual marriage to Mrs Simpson, and not a step voluntarily
proposed by His Majesty himself for reasons of State, the whole matter
would, 1 believe, be very differently regarded. Public opinion would be sharply
divided.

'Sympathy with the King in his desire as a man to marry the woman
of his choice', he added, 'will be widespread, if indeed it will not be
universal.
⁷⁶
Mackenzie King had already indicated his sympathy for
the King, when he had been in London in October and resisted several
appeals from members of the court to approach the King about
the harm he was doing to the Empire. On I December, the High
Commissioner sent a message to London: 'I think it my duty to tell
you that in my opinion [Mackenzie King] is unduly influenced by what
he describes as King's obligations to Mrs Simpson.'
⁷⁷

The Irish Free State sent no response at this stage, though the Prime
Minister, Eamon de Valera, had made it clear that his own position
was one of detachment. He told Sir Harry Batterbee, who had brought
him the message from Baldwin, that 'at first blush' he was inclined to
favour the option of a morganatic marriage. He pointed out that
Edward was undoubtedly popular everywhere including Ireland, and
he thought that 'every avenue ought to be explored before he was
excluded from the Throne.' It was true, he acknowledged, that divorce
was not recognized in Catholic countries, but Edward was a Protestant
king of a Protestant country with different divorce laws and different
attitudes to divorce. 'Many - especially young people - throughout
the Empire would, in these democratic days, be attracted by the idea
of a young King ready to give up all for love.'
⁷⁸

Sir Harry was surprised by de Valera's reaction, and also by the fact
that it was shared by John Whelan Dulanty, the Irish Ambassador to
London, and Mr Walshe, another advisor, who were both present for
most of the meeting. He tried to persuade them that the United
Kingdom public saw things differently from the Irish public and
would not tolerate the King marrying a woman 'of the nature of Mrs
Simpson'. Caesar's wife, he said, 'must be above suspicion'. Eamon
de Valera replied that if that were so, he supposed there was nothing
for it but abdication.
⁷⁹

Baldwin did not explain to Edward the details of the replies from
New Zealand, Canada, and the Irish Free State. But he told him there
was little hope, given the opinions of the Dominion leaders, of pressing
on with his plan for a morganatic marriage. The King was in a very
weak position. Indeed, his position was now far weaker than it had
been before the visit to South Wales, for his Government had now
been formally consulted and had given 'advice' - which he was bound
to accept. In every way, the plan for a morganatic marriage had turned
out to be a mistake. It required legislation which the Government
refused to introduce. And it had removed Edward's great strength -
that constitutionally, he was entitled to marry anyone he liked, except
a Roman Catholic.

The King replied to Baldwin's report on the Dominion premiers with
a request. He said firmly that he wanted Parliament to be consulted. For
even though Baldwin and the National Government had a majority -
and the Labour and Liberal leaders had agreed not to oppose the
Government on this issue - they by no means spoke for all elected
MPs. Representative of the electorate, Parliament was the proper and
best channel for a full exploration of the views and reactions of the
citizens of Britain.

In his memoirs, Edward later recorded this conversation between
himself and the Prime Minister:

'What about Parliament?' I asked.

'The answer would, 1 am sure, be the same.'

'But Parliament has not been consulted', I persisted. 'The issue has never
been presented.'

He answered, unruffled, I have caused inquiries to be set afoot in the usual
manner. The response has been such as to convince my colleagues and myself
that the people would not approve of Your Majesty's marriage with Mrs
Simpson.'
⁸⁰

Baldwin never explained the nature of these enquiries. By 'the usual
manner', he probably meant consultations with Government MPs
through the whips and with party managers of the Opposition. This
was standard practice: such consultations are designed to give a picture
of what is thought by the House of Commons, political associations
and the leaders of local communities. Baldwin would be entitled to
express confidence in their reliability. But the views of these people
are not necessarily the same as the views of the ordinary people,
especially in such a socially divided nation as Britain in 1936. Baldwin,
his Government - and Edward and Wallis too - had yet to find out
what the general public thought about the idea of the King marrying
an American woman, twice divorced.

At 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 2 December, news editors in Fleet Street
were springing from their chairs and shouting, 'It's begun! Look at
this!' They had been waiting for months for the story of Edward and
Wallis to break, and now there was a definite sign that it was about to
happen. The Press Association tape machine was flashing through the
news that the Bishop of Bradford, Dr Blunt, had publicly uttered
words of reproof to the King in the course of an address at the
Bradford Diocesan Conference.
¹
Criticizing the outspoken Bishop
of Birmingham for his suggestion that the coronation should be
secularized, Blunt had declared that

The benefit of the King's Coronation depends, under God, upon two elements:
First, on the faith, prayer, and self-dedication of the King himself, and on that
it
would be improper for me to say anything except to commend him, and ask
you to commend him, to God's grace, which he will so abundantly need, as
we all need it - for the King is a man like ourselves
-
if he is to do his duty
faithfully.

He added, piously, 'We hope that he is aware of his need. Some of us
wish that he gave more positive signs of his awareness.'
²
The address
was reported in the
Yorkshire Post
and picked up quickly by some
other provincial papers. The
Birmingham Post
commented that
nobody, cleric or layman, had thought fit to address such words of
reproof to the King of England for hundreds of years.' Readers were astonished to learn that a bishop of the Church of England had rebuked the King, and in such a gratuitous way. A man
who was the same age as the King and worked in his family's linen
business in Belfast described his own reaction in his diary on I Decem­ber: 'A little paragraph appeared in paper tonight,' he wrote, 'record­ing speech made by Bishop Blunt about the leaving out of the Com­munion Service from the Coronation Service. He is against the leaving
of it out, & said one would wish that the King would give a little more
evidence of his regard for religious duties!'
⁴
From a village in Sussex,
a seventy-year-old woman wrote to the Palace on 2 December in
indignation at the Bishop. 'Who made
him
a judge & a ruler?! Does
he
follow the teaching of Jesus Christ in dressing up in expensive robes
& a mitre?' She was Church of England, she added, but thought that
there was 'so much humbug in it' - and that if the bishop came to her
neighbourhood, she would 'protest against him, even if I were turned
out of the church.'
⁵
A man in Glasgow made the following rather
desperate offer to the King:

If your Majesty desires that the Bishop of Bradford be bayoneted I shall if you
will so command be happy to do the needful, even though I am at heart a
pacifist. If I should fail, any one of 4 millions of your Scottish subjects will be
prepared to do the needful.
⁶

The first sentence of a letter from a man in Aberdeen to the Bishop of
Bradford (which he copied to the King) was, 'I think you may be fairly
described as a toad."

After such a long period of strained silence by the press on the royal
love affair, 'Blunt's mildly reproachful words, given prominence in
the
Yorkshire Post,''
commented the journalist Bill Deedes, 'acted as a
sort of starting-pistol.'
⁸
The press started cautiously to publish articles
linking Blunt's judgement to the King's love affair. At first, only the
provincial newspapers, including the
Manchester Guardian
and
the
Birmingham Post,
covered the story. But these articles were 'the
advance guard', commented the English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, 'and soon heavy artillery, cavalry, tanks, pursuit planes,
and even poison gas, were brought into action. All other news was
discarded, all restraint laid aside." The press agreement collapsed
completely - 'The fat is in the fire today,' observed Cecil Headlam in
his diary on z December.
¹⁰