A real crown drama as King Edward abdicates throne to wed his lover
It was the BBC radio broadcast that stunned the nation.
On this day 86 years ago the man the people knew as King Edward VIII announced he had abdicated the throne in favour of his brother, so he could be free to marry the woman he loved – American divorcee and socialite Wallis Simpson.
It was the climax of a constitutional crisis said to have begun with his proposal to her in the secret garden of her friend Mary Ann Milner Gibson’s country home of Slogaire House in Mossdale, Dumfries and Galloway. But, as a commoner who was twice divorced, she was not considered to be a suitable future queen.
The broadcast was heard by the whole country, most of whom had been unaware of the royal love affair only a week earlier.
Edward had already made the first ever royal broadcast, so knew the power of radio to reach people in their homes. As the crisis developed he was keen to put his side of the story to the country.
The original speech he wrote, in which he argued the case for a morganatic marriage – in which he would wed Simpson without her ever becoming Queen – was vetoed by the Cabinet. And, when Edward did eventually broadcast, George VI – the late Queen Elizabeth II’S father – was the new King, and Edward was preparing to go into exile.
The Abdication speech, which interrupted the programme Comicopera, still survives, having been recorded by BBC engineers in defiance of orders.
Edward was a popular and much-loved Prince of Wales when he met Simpson in 1930. They were together when George V died on January 20, 1936, and Edward succeeded to the throne as Edward VIII.
Concern grew in the Cabinet, opposition parties and the Dominions, when Simpson obtained a divorce and it was clear Edward was determined to marry her. Eventually Edward realised he had to choose between the Crown and Simpson. On December 10, 1936, Edward VIII executed an Instrument of Abdication which was given legal effect the following day when he gave Royal Assent to His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act. The following year, he was created Duke of Windsor and married Wallis Simpson in France.
The decision threatened the integrity of the British monarchy and changed the lives of his younger brother, George VI, and his family, including the Princess Elizabeth, who became heir to the throne and, after the death of her father, ruled for the next 70 years until her death in September aged 96.
But Edward had aired as early as 1919 his own doubts over becoming king. He is reported to have admitted in a letter to his then mistress Freda Dudley Ward that he was not a “big enough man to take on” what he considered “is about the biggest job in the world”. His father, George V, is said to have shared his lack of confidence, telling one member of the royal court that if Edward became king he would “wreck the monarchy and the Empire”. And he is reported to have told the then Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin:“after I’m dead the boy will ruin himself in 12 months.”
The announcement of King Edward’s decision was made first in a message to both Houses of Parliament. He said:“the burden which constantly rests on 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,” said King Edward, who declared he could “no longer discharge this heavy task with efficiency or satisfaction to myself”.