He was King of Britain, but only for 325 days before dramatically quitting the job to be with the woman he loved.
But was it the ultimate love story, or was it an act of treason and selfishness?
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about Edward VIII.
[00:00:25] He was King of Britain, but only for 325 days, before dramatically, scandalously, quitting the job to be with the woman he loved.
[00:00:37] For some, it is the ultimate love story, for others it is one of treason and selfishness.
[00:00:45] So, in the next twenty minutes or so we are going to explore the life and times of Edward VIII.
[00:00:52] We’ll meet glamorous Americans, extramarital affairs, Prime Ministers, Hitler and Mussolini, kidnap plots, sacrifice, bitterness and betrayal.
[00:01:02] OK then, Edward VIII, the King Who Said No.
[00:01:10] Since the first king of England, back in the year 827, a grand total of 62 people have held the title of king or queen of England.
[00:01:22] It is the most exclusive job in the country.
[00:01:25] You get access to huge riches, palaces, cars, servants, all the worldly possessions you could ever wish for.
[00:01:33] For centuries, people would go to war to try to become king or queen, with countless lives lost over different people’s quests to sit on the British throne.
[00:01:46] But on December 12th, of 1936, to a stunned British public, the then British king Edward VIII released this message on the BBC:
[00:01:59] a few hours ago, I discharged my last duty as King and Emperor.
[00:02:08] He went on:
[00:02:10] But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.
[00:02:38] He used some slightly old-fashioned language there, but to translate this into more plain English, he said “I have decided to stop being king, because I can’t be king without the woman I love”.
[00:02:54] In so doing, he became the first and, to date, only British monarch to give up the job.
[00:03:02] So, to better understand how it got to this point, and then learn about what he would spend the rest of his life doing, we need to go right back to the start.
[00:03:13] Like many royals, King Edward VIII had a lot of names.
[00:03:19] His name was Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, which would have been quite a mouthful. His family called him “David”, but we’ll use his public name, “Edward”.
[00:03:33] He was born in 1894, still during the reign of his great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.
[00:03:41] Shortly before his 16th birthday his father, George V, became king, making Edward first in line to the throne, and meaning he automatically became the Duke of Cornwall, the title held by Prince William today.
[00:03:57] A month later, he was made Prince of Wales, in preparation for the inevitable, his eventual accession to the British throne, becoming king.
[00:04:08] He studied at Oxford University, although this was not due to any great academic excellence, and indeed, he left with no academic qualifications whatsoever. The only thing he did seem to learn there was how to play polo.
[00:04:24] He served in the First World War, far from the front line, of course, although he did visit the trenches and see the horrors endured by his contemporaries, the young men who were forced to live and die in squalor in the name of war.
[00:04:39] This experience clearly left a mark on him, and will come back to play an important part in his political views later on.
[00:04:48] With war over, and returning to England, he developed a reputation as something of a dandy, a handsome and eligible bachelor.
[00:04:58] He had multiple affairs with a series of married women, he would be seen dashing around on the polo pitch, and was generally having a good time as an eligible young heir in waiting.
[00:05:11] At this point he was exceptionally popular, well-liked by the British public.
[00:05:17] One person who didn’t like him very much, or at least didn’t approve of his behaviour, was the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin.
[00:05:27] The young Prince of Wales was gadding around Europe, having sexual affairs with married women, writing love letters that could come back to haunt him, and, most importantly not doing the one thing that a young prince was meant to do: finding an eligible bride, getting married and producing an heir.
[00:05:47] Edward's father, King George V seemed to share the Prime Minister’s concerns, once declaring about his son "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months."
[00:06:01] How right he would be…
[00:06:04] This ruin, if indeed we can call it a “ruin”, all began in 1930.
[00:06:12] An American lady called Lady Furness, who was married to a British aristocrat and was a lover of Edward’s, introduced him to a fellow American, a lady called Wallis Simpson.
[00:06:26] With her dark hair and bright red lipstick, Edward was immediately smitten, it seemed to be love at first sight.
[00:06:36] Now, it is impossible to tell the story of Edward VIII without mentioning Wallis Simpson, so let me tell you a little bit about her life before she met Edward.
[00:06:47] She was born in Baltimore, in the United States in 1896, almost to the day two years after Edward. Her father died suddenly after she was born, and with her mother unable to support her financially, the pair went to live with wealthy relatives.
[00:07:06] She was clearly an impressive young lady. She was driven and intelligent, and appeared to have grand ambitions. She got married young to a military pilot, but it was an unhappy marriage to an alcoholic and distant husband who was constantly abroad with the airforce.
[00:07:26] It was during this marriage that she found love, but not with her husband.
[00:07:32] She had a series of affairs, first with an Argentine diplomat.
[00:07:37] Then, while living in China where her husband was posted, she had an affair with a man who would become Mussolini’s son-in-law. During this affair she reportedly fell pregnant and had an abortion in an operation that sadly left her infertile, unable to have children. If this rumour is indeed true, its relevance will become clear in a few minutes' time.
[00:08:03] And one language-related anecdote about Wallis Simpson, one that perhaps gives you an insight into her character, is that she spent a whole year living in China but reportedly the only Chinese she managed to learn was "Boy, pass me the champagne".
[00:08:20] Whether that’s true or not, I cannot tell you, but it gives you some idea of the public perception of the kind of person she was.
[00:08:29] Her first marriage ended in 1927, by which time she was already romantically involved with another married man, an Anglo-American shipping executive called Ernest Simpson who had divorced his wife to be with Wallis.
[00:08:45] Wallis Simpson, as she had become, was then living the high life. A house in Mayfair, the most fashionable and expensive district of London, a blank chequebook to buy anything she wanted, and a fleet of servants to attend to her every need.
[00:09:02] And then in 1930, three years into her second marriage, she was introduced to Edward, the Prince of Wales, introduced, by the way, by a married friend that he was having an affair with.
[00:09:15] Don’t worry if it’s getting a little difficult to follow who is having an affair with who - essentially everyone is romantically involved with someone they aren’t married to.
[00:09:26] The only person who isn’t married, in fact, is Edward.
[00:09:31] It doesn’t take long for Edward to grow closer and closer to this new American, Wallis Simpson. They start to spend more and more time together, despite her still being married to her second husband, Ernest Simpson and Edward still being in a relationship with Lady Furness, who was still married to her husband.
[00:09:51] I told you it was confusing.
[00:09:54] The relationship between Edward and Wallis was kept secret from the British public, and initially he tried to keep it secret even from his own family.
[00:10:05] When his father found out, he was deeply disapproving of the match.
[00:10:10] Wallis was not only not of royal blood, of aristocratic heritage, she had already been married twice. The king most likely didn’t know this, but she was also not able to bear children after her botched abortion.
[00:10:26] She was not the type of woman a future British monarch should be marrying.
[00:10:32] Edward’s father didn’t have a huge amount of time to be cross about this, though, as he died in January of 1936.
[00:10:40] The throne immediately passed to his eldest son, the then 41-year-old Prince Edward.
[00:10:47] Prince Edward became King Edward VIII, but he had no intentions of breaking things off with the still married Wallis Simpson.
[00:10:57] Amazingly, perhaps, in the modern era of gossip magazines and obsession about every last movement of the royals, the British press were aware of but did not heavily publicise the relationship. In fact, it was better known in the United States than in Britain.
[00:11:15] And the British establishment did everything it possibly could to keep the scandal shut, the scandal that the King was in a relationship with a divorced American.
[00:11:26] Extraordinary lengths were gone to, with one report even claiming that American newspapers and magazines were removed, or all bought up, from London newsstands, so that the story wouldn’t become known to the British people.
[00:11:41] But the story couldn’t be kept quiet forever, and the new king needed to make a choice. He needed to marry and produce an heir.
[00:11:52] The woman he loved and wanted to marry, however, was deeply problematic.
[00:11:58] Firstly, the British monarch is also head of the Church of England.
[00:12:03] Until 2002, the Church of England didn’t allow divorced people to remarry if their previous partner was still alive. Both of Wallis Simpson’s previous husbands were still alive, so if Edward married her he would be going directly against the regulations of his own Church.
[00:12:24] Secondly, there was the question of how the public would react to the King marrying a twice-divorced woman. Divorce was still somewhat taboo, it wasn't socially accepted, and questions were raised over Wallis’ character if she had been divorced already, and would need to get divorced again to marry Edward.
[00:12:47] But Edward had an idea.
[00:12:49] He went to the British Prime Minister and proposed something called a morganatic marriage, which would allow him to marry Wallis but would mean that she wouldn’t become an official queen, and any children they might have wouldn’t become heirs to the throne.
[00:13:06] The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, agreed to ask his cabinet, and the Prime Ministers of the other Dominions of which Edward was king.
[00:13:15] Their response was definitive.
[00:13:17] Edward’s proposal of a morganatic marriage, or any kind of marriage to Wallis Simpson, was soundly rejected.
[00:13:26] Edward could not marry Wallis and remain king.
[00:13:30] The choice was clear. Leave Wallis, or abdicate, stop being king.
[00:13:38] For Edward, he was completely obsessed with Wallis, he couldn’t imagine life without her, and his mind was made up. Love must come above duty. He was going to abdicate.
[00:13:53] When Wallis found out about this, she was reportedly horrified, and immediately told Edward that the pair should split. The Crown must come above any affairs of the heart.
[00:14:07] Now, there is another theory that she was still in love with a previous lover, a man called Herman Rogers, and in fact she tried to use this crisis as a way of leaving Edward, but that is not the way that things panned out.
[00:14:23] Without any way of resolving the situation, Edward stunned the country by announcing that he would abdicate the throne, passing it to his brother “Bertie”, who would become King George VI.
[00:14:36] That was the message you heard at the start of the episode, which was broadcast on December 12th, of 1936.
[00:14:45] But what happens when a king abdicates? What happens to an ex-king?
[00:14:51] It was a question the country had never had to ask itself before?
[00:14:56] King no longer, Edward was made Duke of Windsor, an important-sounding title but one without any responsibilities.
[00:15:05] The day after abdicating he travelled to Europe, and the following year, free from his royal obligations, he was able to marry Wallis.
[00:15:15] There was no grand romantic wedding full of smiles, tears of joy and happy families. Relations between Edward and the rest of the royal family were incredibly cold, and a grand total of zero members of the royal family attended the couple’s wedding.
[00:15:34] But if the royal family and senior British politicians might have hoped that, now they could be married, the pair would live out the rest of their lives quietly and posing no further problems to the British establishment, then they would find themselves sorely disappointed.
[00:15:52] Although they now had no official role, one of the first acts of the newly-married couple was to go and visit a European leader.
[00:16:02] But this was no vanilla, minor, uncontroversial European leader.
[00:16:08] In October of 1937, the pair went to meet Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, and Edward and Hitler had a private meeting while Wallis was entertained by Eva Braun and Rudolf Hess.
[00:16:24] Now, nothing is known about what exactly Hitler and Edward spoke about, but it has become the subject of much speculation, so let’s spend a moment indulging ourselves and looking at some of the reasons why the two met, and what could have been the subject of their discussion.
[00:16:44] As a reminder of what was happening in Europe at the time, we are still two years away from the outbreak of the Second World War here. Most British politicians were desperate to avoid war if possible, and Edward was certainly in the category of people who believed that everything should be done to avoid repeating the horrors of World War I.
[00:17:07] He was deeply affected by his experience in World War I, or at least the atrocities that he saw in the trenches. He believed that everything should be done to stop this from happening again. He believed in the policy of appeasement, essentially, of making concessions to Hitler to stop war.
[00:17:27] And, unlike his brother, the new King George VI or his niece, Queen Elizabeth II, he wasn’t the sort of person to keep his mouth shut.
[00:17:39] Both as a young man and when he was briefly king, Edward had publicly expressed a desire to be involved in politics, involved in shaping policy. He saw himself as something of a moderniser, someone who could be a 20th century king.
[00:17:57] He believed that the true enemy of Europe was communism, not fascism. Edward’s relations, the Romanovs, had been murdered by the communists, and he thought the real enemy was further to the East.
[00:18:14] The Nazis were aware of Edward’s views, and in fact from the early 1930s Hitler had tried to link the British and German royal houses; he had tried to get Edward to marry a young German princess and reel him in.
[00:18:31] He had to wait a few years, but in 1937 he got his chance to woo the abdicated king.
[00:18:40] So, picture this. You have Edward, now Duke of Windsor, with his new wife, Wallis Simpson.
[00:18:47] They have no official duties, they are not allowed the status that they believe they deserve.
[00:18:54] And all of a sudden they are treated like royalty, given an official visit, the red carpet rolled out by an increasingly powerful European leader. Yes, he would prove himself to be a murderous dictator, and his anti-Semitic worldview was already clear for anyone to see by then.
[00:19:13] But you can perhaps appreciate why the pair might have accepted this invitation, and when you learn that Edward was in favour of appeasement, of some kind of agreement being made with Hitler, then the reason for the pair being courted by the Nazis starts to become somewhat clearer.
[00:19:31] And this wouldn’t be the only time the pair would cross paths with the Nazis. There is even a theory that the Nazis were keeping Edward close because they wanted to install him as a puppet king if Britain fell to the Nazis. He might no longer be king, but he could come in useful down the road.
[00:19:53] And when war broke out in 1939, Edward’s position was even more precarious.
[00:20:00] He was an ex-King living in Europe. What would happen if he was captured by the Nazis and used as a bargaining chip? This soon became a very real threat, as there was a Nazi plot to kidnap him and bring him to Germany in an attempt to force Britain to surrender.
[00:20:21] As a result, he was swiftly evacuated from Europe and given the post of the Governor of the Bahamas, the small collection of islands in the Caribbean.
[00:20:32] This was very much a ceremonial role where he would be both safe from danger and not be able to cause too much trouble, and for the most part, it had its intended effect.
[00:20:45] After the war he was able to return to Europe, and lived out the rest of his life in France with Wallis, in a villa in Northwest Paris.
[00:20:55] And in terms of the rest of Edward’s life, it was characterised by bitterness and a sense of being an outcast until his death in 1972.
[00:21:05] His last words were, reportedly, “Wallis, Wallis, Wallis”, but the love of his life was not by his side; he was accompanied only by his nurse.
[00:21:18] Unlike every other king or queen, he was not given the honour of a state funeral.
[00:21:24] He died alone, cast out and chastised by his family and country. Indeed, the entirety of his life after meeting Wallis Simpson had been punctuated by conflict and tension with his family, the British royal family.
[00:21:40] He was incredibly bitter for how he felt he had been treated, angry at not being able to do what he wanted to do, resentful at not being able to both be king and be with the woman he loved.
[00:21:54] And on the royal family’s side, he was seen as a traitor, someone who had betrayed his country, someone who had failed to do his duty, and worse, a threat to the monarchy, a man who had interfered in politics and got into bed with the 20th century’s most famous dictator.
[00:22:14] Clearly, there are two sides to every story, and perhaps your sympathies lie with Edward, perhaps they lie with the royal family.
[00:22:23] Of course, you might have noticed some similarities between this story and a more modern story involving a British royal prince and an American divorcée, the story of Harry and Meghan.
[00:22:37] That is a story for another day, but before we end the story of Edward, the king who wasn’t, I want to briefly reflect on Wallis Simpson.
[00:22:48] The history books have not been kind to her. She is typically described as someone who forced Edward’s hand, a seductress who turned a king against his country, and a woman who inflicted deep damage against the monarchy.
[00:23:03] We now know that perhaps not all of that is true.
[00:23:07] To address the question of whether she intended to tear him away from the throne from the outset, well, according to one prominent biographer, she tried to leave Edward when she realised that he would have to abdicate to be with her.
[00:23:22] When he did choose to abdicate, well, she had little choice but to stay with him.
[00:23:27] And, to go a bit further down the path of historical “what ifs”, what would have happened if Edward had never met Wallis Simpson? He wanted to be more involved in politics than is normal for a monarch, he held sympathies for the Nazis, he later said that he never thought Hitler was such a bad chap, and he was an ardent proponent of appeasement, he wanted to come to some kind of deal with Hitler.
[00:23:54] It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that, had he been on the throne, he would have forced through some kind of alliance or agreement with Nazi Germany.
[00:24:04] And bringing it back to Wallis, according to one biographer, stopping Edward from being king was exactly what she wanted, but it was for a good reason.
[00:24:17] She wanted to marry Edward so she could stop him from becoming the king she feared.
[00:24:23] She saw what might happen if he became King, she knew that he couldn’t become king if the pair were together, and this master plan was rudely interrupted by the death of Edward’s father, putting Edward on the throne ahead of schedule.
[00:24:39] Essentially, she wanted to save Britain from a Nazi king.
[00:24:44] If that truly was the case, this presents a very different picture of Wallis Simpson.
[00:24:50] One not of an evil American temptress who tore the country apart, but, as one British newspaper put it, “the woman who saved Britain”.
[00:25:02] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Edward VIII, the king who said no.
[00:25:10] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that this was a fun exploration of the problems that come with having a monarchy.
[00:25:17] If you want to dive further into the subject, I wouldn’t blame you, as it is a fascinating story. In terms of books, I’d recommend both “The Traitor King” and “The Real Wallis Simpson”, for two differing viewpoints, and if you haven’t yet watched the Netflix series The Crown, then you’ll also learn about their story in that.
[00:25:37] As always, I would love to know what you thought of this episode.
[00:25:40] What do you think about the story of Edward VIII? Was he a traitor and Nazi sympathiser or a good-hearted man who just wanted to be with the woman he loved?
[00:25:51] And what about Wallis Simpson? Troublesome American, woman caught in the middle, or saviour of Britain?
[00:25:58] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:26:02] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:26:09] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:26:14] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about Edward VIII.
[00:00:25] He was King of Britain, but only for 325 days, before dramatically, scandalously, quitting the job to be with the woman he loved.
[00:00:37] For some, it is the ultimate love story, for others it is one of treason and selfishness.
[00:00:45] So, in the next twenty minutes or so we are going to explore the life and times of Edward VIII.
[00:00:52] We’ll meet glamorous Americans, extramarital affairs, Prime Ministers, Hitler and Mussolini, kidnap plots, sacrifice, bitterness and betrayal.
[00:01:02] OK then, Edward VIII, the King Who Said No.
[00:01:10] Since the first king of England, back in the year 827, a grand total of 62 people have held the title of king or queen of England.
[00:01:22] It is the most exclusive job in the country.
[00:01:25] You get access to huge riches, palaces, cars, servants, all the worldly possessions you could ever wish for.
[00:01:33] For centuries, people would go to war to try to become king or queen, with countless lives lost over different people’s quests to sit on the British throne.
[00:01:46] But on December 12th, of 1936, to a stunned British public, the then British king Edward VIII released this message on the BBC:
[00:01:59] a few hours ago, I discharged my last duty as King and Emperor.
[00:02:08] He went on:
[00:02:10] But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.
[00:02:38] He used some slightly old-fashioned language there, but to translate this into more plain English, he said “I have decided to stop being king, because I can’t be king without the woman I love”.
[00:02:54] In so doing, he became the first and, to date, only British monarch to give up the job.
[00:03:02] So, to better understand how it got to this point, and then learn about what he would spend the rest of his life doing, we need to go right back to the start.
[00:03:13] Like many royals, King Edward VIII had a lot of names.
[00:03:19] His name was Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, which would have been quite a mouthful. His family called him “David”, but we’ll use his public name, “Edward”.
[00:03:33] He was born in 1894, still during the reign of his great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.
[00:03:41] Shortly before his 16th birthday his father, George V, became king, making Edward first in line to the throne, and meaning he automatically became the Duke of Cornwall, the title held by Prince William today.
[00:03:57] A month later, he was made Prince of Wales, in preparation for the inevitable, his eventual accession to the British throne, becoming king.
[00:04:08] He studied at Oxford University, although this was not due to any great academic excellence, and indeed, he left with no academic qualifications whatsoever. The only thing he did seem to learn there was how to play polo.
[00:04:24] He served in the First World War, far from the front line, of course, although he did visit the trenches and see the horrors endured by his contemporaries, the young men who were forced to live and die in squalor in the name of war.
[00:04:39] This experience clearly left a mark on him, and will come back to play an important part in his political views later on.
[00:04:48] With war over, and returning to England, he developed a reputation as something of a dandy, a handsome and eligible bachelor.
[00:04:58] He had multiple affairs with a series of married women, he would be seen dashing around on the polo pitch, and was generally having a good time as an eligible young heir in waiting.
[00:05:11] At this point he was exceptionally popular, well-liked by the British public.
[00:05:17] One person who didn’t like him very much, or at least didn’t approve of his behaviour, was the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin.
[00:05:27] The young Prince of Wales was gadding around Europe, having sexual affairs with married women, writing love letters that could come back to haunt him, and, most importantly not doing the one thing that a young prince was meant to do: finding an eligible bride, getting married and producing an heir.
[00:05:47] Edward's father, King George V seemed to share the Prime Minister’s concerns, once declaring about his son "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months."
[00:06:01] How right he would be…
[00:06:04] This ruin, if indeed we can call it a “ruin”, all began in 1930.
[00:06:12] An American lady called Lady Furness, who was married to a British aristocrat and was a lover of Edward’s, introduced him to a fellow American, a lady called Wallis Simpson.
[00:06:26] With her dark hair and bright red lipstick, Edward was immediately smitten, it seemed to be love at first sight.
[00:06:36] Now, it is impossible to tell the story of Edward VIII without mentioning Wallis Simpson, so let me tell you a little bit about her life before she met Edward.
[00:06:47] She was born in Baltimore, in the United States in 1896, almost to the day two years after Edward. Her father died suddenly after she was born, and with her mother unable to support her financially, the pair went to live with wealthy relatives.
[00:07:06] She was clearly an impressive young lady. She was driven and intelligent, and appeared to have grand ambitions. She got married young to a military pilot, but it was an unhappy marriage to an alcoholic and distant husband who was constantly abroad with the airforce.
[00:07:26] It was during this marriage that she found love, but not with her husband.
[00:07:32] She had a series of affairs, first with an Argentine diplomat.
[00:07:37] Then, while living in China where her husband was posted, she had an affair with a man who would become Mussolini’s son-in-law. During this affair she reportedly fell pregnant and had an abortion in an operation that sadly left her infertile, unable to have children. If this rumour is indeed true, its relevance will become clear in a few minutes' time.
[00:08:03] And one language-related anecdote about Wallis Simpson, one that perhaps gives you an insight into her character, is that she spent a whole year living in China but reportedly the only Chinese she managed to learn was "Boy, pass me the champagne".
[00:08:20] Whether that’s true or not, I cannot tell you, but it gives you some idea of the public perception of the kind of person she was.
[00:08:29] Her first marriage ended in 1927, by which time she was already romantically involved with another married man, an Anglo-American shipping executive called Ernest Simpson who had divorced his wife to be with Wallis.
[00:08:45] Wallis Simpson, as she had become, was then living the high life. A house in Mayfair, the most fashionable and expensive district of London, a blank chequebook to buy anything she wanted, and a fleet of servants to attend to her every need.
[00:09:02] And then in 1930, three years into her second marriage, she was introduced to Edward, the Prince of Wales, introduced, by the way, by a married friend that he was having an affair with.
[00:09:15] Don’t worry if it’s getting a little difficult to follow who is having an affair with who - essentially everyone is romantically involved with someone they aren’t married to.
[00:09:26] The only person who isn’t married, in fact, is Edward.
[00:09:31] It doesn’t take long for Edward to grow closer and closer to this new American, Wallis Simpson. They start to spend more and more time together, despite her still being married to her second husband, Ernest Simpson and Edward still being in a relationship with Lady Furness, who was still married to her husband.
[00:09:51] I told you it was confusing.
[00:09:54] The relationship between Edward and Wallis was kept secret from the British public, and initially he tried to keep it secret even from his own family.
[00:10:05] When his father found out, he was deeply disapproving of the match.
[00:10:10] Wallis was not only not of royal blood, of aristocratic heritage, she had already been married twice. The king most likely didn’t know this, but she was also not able to bear children after her botched abortion.
[00:10:26] She was not the type of woman a future British monarch should be marrying.
[00:10:32] Edward’s father didn’t have a huge amount of time to be cross about this, though, as he died in January of 1936.
[00:10:40] The throne immediately passed to his eldest son, the then 41-year-old Prince Edward.
[00:10:47] Prince Edward became King Edward VIII, but he had no intentions of breaking things off with the still married Wallis Simpson.
[00:10:57] Amazingly, perhaps, in the modern era of gossip magazines and obsession about every last movement of the royals, the British press were aware of but did not heavily publicise the relationship. In fact, it was better known in the United States than in Britain.
[00:11:15] And the British establishment did everything it possibly could to keep the scandal shut, the scandal that the King was in a relationship with a divorced American.
[00:11:26] Extraordinary lengths were gone to, with one report even claiming that American newspapers and magazines were removed, or all bought up, from London newsstands, so that the story wouldn’t become known to the British people.
[00:11:41] But the story couldn’t be kept quiet forever, and the new king needed to make a choice. He needed to marry and produce an heir.
[00:11:52] The woman he loved and wanted to marry, however, was deeply problematic.
[00:11:58] Firstly, the British monarch is also head of the Church of England.
[00:12:03] Until 2002, the Church of England didn’t allow divorced people to remarry if their previous partner was still alive. Both of Wallis Simpson’s previous husbands were still alive, so if Edward married her he would be going directly against the regulations of his own Church.
[00:12:24] Secondly, there was the question of how the public would react to the King marrying a twice-divorced woman. Divorce was still somewhat taboo, it wasn't socially accepted, and questions were raised over Wallis’ character if she had been divorced already, and would need to get divorced again to marry Edward.
[00:12:47] But Edward had an idea.
[00:12:49] He went to the British Prime Minister and proposed something called a morganatic marriage, which would allow him to marry Wallis but would mean that she wouldn’t become an official queen, and any children they might have wouldn’t become heirs to the throne.
[00:13:06] The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, agreed to ask his cabinet, and the Prime Ministers of the other Dominions of which Edward was king.
[00:13:15] Their response was definitive.
[00:13:17] Edward’s proposal of a morganatic marriage, or any kind of marriage to Wallis Simpson, was soundly rejected.
[00:13:26] Edward could not marry Wallis and remain king.
[00:13:30] The choice was clear. Leave Wallis, or abdicate, stop being king.
[00:13:38] For Edward, he was completely obsessed with Wallis, he couldn’t imagine life without her, and his mind was made up. Love must come above duty. He was going to abdicate.
[00:13:53] When Wallis found out about this, she was reportedly horrified, and immediately told Edward that the pair should split. The Crown must come above any affairs of the heart.
[00:14:07] Now, there is another theory that she was still in love with a previous lover, a man called Herman Rogers, and in fact she tried to use this crisis as a way of leaving Edward, but that is not the way that things panned out.
[00:14:23] Without any way of resolving the situation, Edward stunned the country by announcing that he would abdicate the throne, passing it to his brother “Bertie”, who would become King George VI.
[00:14:36] That was the message you heard at the start of the episode, which was broadcast on December 12th, of 1936.
[00:14:45] But what happens when a king abdicates? What happens to an ex-king?
[00:14:51] It was a question the country had never had to ask itself before?
[00:14:56] King no longer, Edward was made Duke of Windsor, an important-sounding title but one without any responsibilities.
[00:15:05] The day after abdicating he travelled to Europe, and the following year, free from his royal obligations, he was able to marry Wallis.
[00:15:15] There was no grand romantic wedding full of smiles, tears of joy and happy families. Relations between Edward and the rest of the royal family were incredibly cold, and a grand total of zero members of the royal family attended the couple’s wedding.
[00:15:34] But if the royal family and senior British politicians might have hoped that, now they could be married, the pair would live out the rest of their lives quietly and posing no further problems to the British establishment, then they would find themselves sorely disappointed.
[00:15:52] Although they now had no official role, one of the first acts of the newly-married couple was to go and visit a European leader.
[00:16:02] But this was no vanilla, minor, uncontroversial European leader.
[00:16:08] In October of 1937, the pair went to meet Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, and Edward and Hitler had a private meeting while Wallis was entertained by Eva Braun and Rudolf Hess.
[00:16:24] Now, nothing is known about what exactly Hitler and Edward spoke about, but it has become the subject of much speculation, so let’s spend a moment indulging ourselves and looking at some of the reasons why the two met, and what could have been the subject of their discussion.
[00:16:44] As a reminder of what was happening in Europe at the time, we are still two years away from the outbreak of the Second World War here. Most British politicians were desperate to avoid war if possible, and Edward was certainly in the category of people who believed that everything should be done to avoid repeating the horrors of World War I.
[00:17:07] He was deeply affected by his experience in World War I, or at least the atrocities that he saw in the trenches. He believed that everything should be done to stop this from happening again. He believed in the policy of appeasement, essentially, of making concessions to Hitler to stop war.
[00:17:27] And, unlike his brother, the new King George VI or his niece, Queen Elizabeth II, he wasn’t the sort of person to keep his mouth shut.
[00:17:39] Both as a young man and when he was briefly king, Edward had publicly expressed a desire to be involved in politics, involved in shaping policy. He saw himself as something of a moderniser, someone who could be a 20th century king.
[00:17:57] He believed that the true enemy of Europe was communism, not fascism. Edward’s relations, the Romanovs, had been murdered by the communists, and he thought the real enemy was further to the East.
[00:18:14] The Nazis were aware of Edward’s views, and in fact from the early 1930s Hitler had tried to link the British and German royal houses; he had tried to get Edward to marry a young German princess and reel him in.
[00:18:31] He had to wait a few years, but in 1937 he got his chance to woo the abdicated king.
[00:18:40] So, picture this. You have Edward, now Duke of Windsor, with his new wife, Wallis Simpson.
[00:18:47] They have no official duties, they are not allowed the status that they believe they deserve.
[00:18:54] And all of a sudden they are treated like royalty, given an official visit, the red carpet rolled out by an increasingly powerful European leader. Yes, he would prove himself to be a murderous dictator, and his anti-Semitic worldview was already clear for anyone to see by then.
[00:19:13] But you can perhaps appreciate why the pair might have accepted this invitation, and when you learn that Edward was in favour of appeasement, of some kind of agreement being made with Hitler, then the reason for the pair being courted by the Nazis starts to become somewhat clearer.
[00:19:31] And this wouldn’t be the only time the pair would cross paths with the Nazis. There is even a theory that the Nazis were keeping Edward close because they wanted to install him as a puppet king if Britain fell to the Nazis. He might no longer be king, but he could come in useful down the road.
[00:19:53] And when war broke out in 1939, Edward’s position was even more precarious.
[00:20:00] He was an ex-King living in Europe. What would happen if he was captured by the Nazis and used as a bargaining chip? This soon became a very real threat, as there was a Nazi plot to kidnap him and bring him to Germany in an attempt to force Britain to surrender.
[00:20:21] As a result, he was swiftly evacuated from Europe and given the post of the Governor of the Bahamas, the small collection of islands in the Caribbean.
[00:20:32] This was very much a ceremonial role where he would be both safe from danger and not be able to cause too much trouble, and for the most part, it had its intended effect.
[00:20:45] After the war he was able to return to Europe, and lived out the rest of his life in France with Wallis, in a villa in Northwest Paris.
[00:20:55] And in terms of the rest of Edward’s life, it was characterised by bitterness and a sense of being an outcast until his death in 1972.
[00:21:05] His last words were, reportedly, “Wallis, Wallis, Wallis”, but the love of his life was not by his side; he was accompanied only by his nurse.
[00:21:18] Unlike every other king or queen, he was not given the honour of a state funeral.
[00:21:24] He died alone, cast out and chastised by his family and country. Indeed, the entirety of his life after meeting Wallis Simpson had been punctuated by conflict and tension with his family, the British royal family.
[00:21:40] He was incredibly bitter for how he felt he had been treated, angry at not being able to do what he wanted to do, resentful at not being able to both be king and be with the woman he loved.
[00:21:54] And on the royal family’s side, he was seen as a traitor, someone who had betrayed his country, someone who had failed to do his duty, and worse, a threat to the monarchy, a man who had interfered in politics and got into bed with the 20th century’s most famous dictator.
[00:22:14] Clearly, there are two sides to every story, and perhaps your sympathies lie with Edward, perhaps they lie with the royal family.
[00:22:23] Of course, you might have noticed some similarities between this story and a more modern story involving a British royal prince and an American divorcée, the story of Harry and Meghan.
[00:22:37] That is a story for another day, but before we end the story of Edward, the king who wasn’t, I want to briefly reflect on Wallis Simpson.
[00:22:48] The history books have not been kind to her. She is typically described as someone who forced Edward’s hand, a seductress who turned a king against his country, and a woman who inflicted deep damage against the monarchy.
[00:23:03] We now know that perhaps not all of that is true.
[00:23:07] To address the question of whether she intended to tear him away from the throne from the outset, well, according to one prominent biographer, she tried to leave Edward when she realised that he would have to abdicate to be with her.
[00:23:22] When he did choose to abdicate, well, she had little choice but to stay with him.
[00:23:27] And, to go a bit further down the path of historical “what ifs”, what would have happened if Edward had never met Wallis Simpson? He wanted to be more involved in politics than is normal for a monarch, he held sympathies for the Nazis, he later said that he never thought Hitler was such a bad chap, and he was an ardent proponent of appeasement, he wanted to come to some kind of deal with Hitler.
[00:23:54] It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that, had he been on the throne, he would have forced through some kind of alliance or agreement with Nazi Germany.
[00:24:04] And bringing it back to Wallis, according to one biographer, stopping Edward from being king was exactly what she wanted, but it was for a good reason.
[00:24:17] She wanted to marry Edward so she could stop him from becoming the king she feared.
[00:24:23] She saw what might happen if he became King, she knew that he couldn’t become king if the pair were together, and this master plan was rudely interrupted by the death of Edward’s father, putting Edward on the throne ahead of schedule.
[00:24:39] Essentially, she wanted to save Britain from a Nazi king.
[00:24:44] If that truly was the case, this presents a very different picture of Wallis Simpson.
[00:24:50] One not of an evil American temptress who tore the country apart, but, as one British newspaper put it, “the woman who saved Britain”.
[00:25:02] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Edward VIII, the king who said no.
[00:25:10] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that this was a fun exploration of the problems that come with having a monarchy.
[00:25:17] If you want to dive further into the subject, I wouldn’t blame you, as it is a fascinating story. In terms of books, I’d recommend both “The Traitor King” and “The Real Wallis Simpson”, for two differing viewpoints, and if you haven’t yet watched the Netflix series The Crown, then you’ll also learn about their story in that.
[00:25:37] As always, I would love to know what you thought of this episode.
[00:25:40] What do you think about the story of Edward VIII? Was he a traitor and Nazi sympathiser or a good-hearted man who just wanted to be with the woman he loved?
[00:25:51] And what about Wallis Simpson? Troublesome American, woman caught in the middle, or saviour of Britain?
[00:25:58] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:26:02] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:26:09] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:26:14] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about Edward VIII.
[00:00:25] He was King of Britain, but only for 325 days, before dramatically, scandalously, quitting the job to be with the woman he loved.
[00:00:37] For some, it is the ultimate love story, for others it is one of treason and selfishness.
[00:00:45] So, in the next twenty minutes or so we are going to explore the life and times of Edward VIII.
[00:00:52] We’ll meet glamorous Americans, extramarital affairs, Prime Ministers, Hitler and Mussolini, kidnap plots, sacrifice, bitterness and betrayal.
[00:01:02] OK then, Edward VIII, the King Who Said No.
[00:01:10] Since the first king of England, back in the year 827, a grand total of 62 people have held the title of king or queen of England.
[00:01:22] It is the most exclusive job in the country.
[00:01:25] You get access to huge riches, palaces, cars, servants, all the worldly possessions you could ever wish for.
[00:01:33] For centuries, people would go to war to try to become king or queen, with countless lives lost over different people’s quests to sit on the British throne.
[00:01:46] But on December 12th, of 1936, to a stunned British public, the then British king Edward VIII released this message on the BBC:
[00:01:59] a few hours ago, I discharged my last duty as King and Emperor.
[00:02:08] He went on:
[00:02:10] But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.
[00:02:38] He used some slightly old-fashioned language there, but to translate this into more plain English, he said “I have decided to stop being king, because I can’t be king without the woman I love”.
[00:02:54] In so doing, he became the first and, to date, only British monarch to give up the job.
[00:03:02] So, to better understand how it got to this point, and then learn about what he would spend the rest of his life doing, we need to go right back to the start.
[00:03:13] Like many royals, King Edward VIII had a lot of names.
[00:03:19] His name was Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, which would have been quite a mouthful. His family called him “David”, but we’ll use his public name, “Edward”.
[00:03:33] He was born in 1894, still during the reign of his great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.
[00:03:41] Shortly before his 16th birthday his father, George V, became king, making Edward first in line to the throne, and meaning he automatically became the Duke of Cornwall, the title held by Prince William today.
[00:03:57] A month later, he was made Prince of Wales, in preparation for the inevitable, his eventual accession to the British throne, becoming king.
[00:04:08] He studied at Oxford University, although this was not due to any great academic excellence, and indeed, he left with no academic qualifications whatsoever. The only thing he did seem to learn there was how to play polo.
[00:04:24] He served in the First World War, far from the front line, of course, although he did visit the trenches and see the horrors endured by his contemporaries, the young men who were forced to live and die in squalor in the name of war.
[00:04:39] This experience clearly left a mark on him, and will come back to play an important part in his political views later on.
[00:04:48] With war over, and returning to England, he developed a reputation as something of a dandy, a handsome and eligible bachelor.
[00:04:58] He had multiple affairs with a series of married women, he would be seen dashing around on the polo pitch, and was generally having a good time as an eligible young heir in waiting.
[00:05:11] At this point he was exceptionally popular, well-liked by the British public.
[00:05:17] One person who didn’t like him very much, or at least didn’t approve of his behaviour, was the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin.
[00:05:27] The young Prince of Wales was gadding around Europe, having sexual affairs with married women, writing love letters that could come back to haunt him, and, most importantly not doing the one thing that a young prince was meant to do: finding an eligible bride, getting married and producing an heir.
[00:05:47] Edward's father, King George V seemed to share the Prime Minister’s concerns, once declaring about his son "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months."
[00:06:01] How right he would be…
[00:06:04] This ruin, if indeed we can call it a “ruin”, all began in 1930.
[00:06:12] An American lady called Lady Furness, who was married to a British aristocrat and was a lover of Edward’s, introduced him to a fellow American, a lady called Wallis Simpson.
[00:06:26] With her dark hair and bright red lipstick, Edward was immediately smitten, it seemed to be love at first sight.
[00:06:36] Now, it is impossible to tell the story of Edward VIII without mentioning Wallis Simpson, so let me tell you a little bit about her life before she met Edward.
[00:06:47] She was born in Baltimore, in the United States in 1896, almost to the day two years after Edward. Her father died suddenly after she was born, and with her mother unable to support her financially, the pair went to live with wealthy relatives.
[00:07:06] She was clearly an impressive young lady. She was driven and intelligent, and appeared to have grand ambitions. She got married young to a military pilot, but it was an unhappy marriage to an alcoholic and distant husband who was constantly abroad with the airforce.
[00:07:26] It was during this marriage that she found love, but not with her husband.
[00:07:32] She had a series of affairs, first with an Argentine diplomat.
[00:07:37] Then, while living in China where her husband was posted, she had an affair with a man who would become Mussolini’s son-in-law. During this affair she reportedly fell pregnant and had an abortion in an operation that sadly left her infertile, unable to have children. If this rumour is indeed true, its relevance will become clear in a few minutes' time.
[00:08:03] And one language-related anecdote about Wallis Simpson, one that perhaps gives you an insight into her character, is that she spent a whole year living in China but reportedly the only Chinese she managed to learn was "Boy, pass me the champagne".
[00:08:20] Whether that’s true or not, I cannot tell you, but it gives you some idea of the public perception of the kind of person she was.
[00:08:29] Her first marriage ended in 1927, by which time she was already romantically involved with another married man, an Anglo-American shipping executive called Ernest Simpson who had divorced his wife to be with Wallis.
[00:08:45] Wallis Simpson, as she had become, was then living the high life. A house in Mayfair, the most fashionable and expensive district of London, a blank chequebook to buy anything she wanted, and a fleet of servants to attend to her every need.
[00:09:02] And then in 1930, three years into her second marriage, she was introduced to Edward, the Prince of Wales, introduced, by the way, by a married friend that he was having an affair with.
[00:09:15] Don’t worry if it’s getting a little difficult to follow who is having an affair with who - essentially everyone is romantically involved with someone they aren’t married to.
[00:09:26] The only person who isn’t married, in fact, is Edward.
[00:09:31] It doesn’t take long for Edward to grow closer and closer to this new American, Wallis Simpson. They start to spend more and more time together, despite her still being married to her second husband, Ernest Simpson and Edward still being in a relationship with Lady Furness, who was still married to her husband.
[00:09:51] I told you it was confusing.
[00:09:54] The relationship between Edward and Wallis was kept secret from the British public, and initially he tried to keep it secret even from his own family.
[00:10:05] When his father found out, he was deeply disapproving of the match.
[00:10:10] Wallis was not only not of royal blood, of aristocratic heritage, she had already been married twice. The king most likely didn’t know this, but she was also not able to bear children after her botched abortion.
[00:10:26] She was not the type of woman a future British monarch should be marrying.
[00:10:32] Edward’s father didn’t have a huge amount of time to be cross about this, though, as he died in January of 1936.
[00:10:40] The throne immediately passed to his eldest son, the then 41-year-old Prince Edward.
[00:10:47] Prince Edward became King Edward VIII, but he had no intentions of breaking things off with the still married Wallis Simpson.
[00:10:57] Amazingly, perhaps, in the modern era of gossip magazines and obsession about every last movement of the royals, the British press were aware of but did not heavily publicise the relationship. In fact, it was better known in the United States than in Britain.
[00:11:15] And the British establishment did everything it possibly could to keep the scandal shut, the scandal that the King was in a relationship with a divorced American.
[00:11:26] Extraordinary lengths were gone to, with one report even claiming that American newspapers and magazines were removed, or all bought up, from London newsstands, so that the story wouldn’t become known to the British people.
[00:11:41] But the story couldn’t be kept quiet forever, and the new king needed to make a choice. He needed to marry and produce an heir.
[00:11:52] The woman he loved and wanted to marry, however, was deeply problematic.
[00:11:58] Firstly, the British monarch is also head of the Church of England.
[00:12:03] Until 2002, the Church of England didn’t allow divorced people to remarry if their previous partner was still alive. Both of Wallis Simpson’s previous husbands were still alive, so if Edward married her he would be going directly against the regulations of his own Church.
[00:12:24] Secondly, there was the question of how the public would react to the King marrying a twice-divorced woman. Divorce was still somewhat taboo, it wasn't socially accepted, and questions were raised over Wallis’ character if she had been divorced already, and would need to get divorced again to marry Edward.
[00:12:47] But Edward had an idea.
[00:12:49] He went to the British Prime Minister and proposed something called a morganatic marriage, which would allow him to marry Wallis but would mean that she wouldn’t become an official queen, and any children they might have wouldn’t become heirs to the throne.
[00:13:06] The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, agreed to ask his cabinet, and the Prime Ministers of the other Dominions of which Edward was king.
[00:13:15] Their response was definitive.
[00:13:17] Edward’s proposal of a morganatic marriage, or any kind of marriage to Wallis Simpson, was soundly rejected.
[00:13:26] Edward could not marry Wallis and remain king.
[00:13:30] The choice was clear. Leave Wallis, or abdicate, stop being king.
[00:13:38] For Edward, he was completely obsessed with Wallis, he couldn’t imagine life without her, and his mind was made up. Love must come above duty. He was going to abdicate.
[00:13:53] When Wallis found out about this, she was reportedly horrified, and immediately told Edward that the pair should split. The Crown must come above any affairs of the heart.
[00:14:07] Now, there is another theory that she was still in love with a previous lover, a man called Herman Rogers, and in fact she tried to use this crisis as a way of leaving Edward, but that is not the way that things panned out.
[00:14:23] Without any way of resolving the situation, Edward stunned the country by announcing that he would abdicate the throne, passing it to his brother “Bertie”, who would become King George VI.
[00:14:36] That was the message you heard at the start of the episode, which was broadcast on December 12th, of 1936.
[00:14:45] But what happens when a king abdicates? What happens to an ex-king?
[00:14:51] It was a question the country had never had to ask itself before?
[00:14:56] King no longer, Edward was made Duke of Windsor, an important-sounding title but one without any responsibilities.
[00:15:05] The day after abdicating he travelled to Europe, and the following year, free from his royal obligations, he was able to marry Wallis.
[00:15:15] There was no grand romantic wedding full of smiles, tears of joy and happy families. Relations between Edward and the rest of the royal family were incredibly cold, and a grand total of zero members of the royal family attended the couple’s wedding.
[00:15:34] But if the royal family and senior British politicians might have hoped that, now they could be married, the pair would live out the rest of their lives quietly and posing no further problems to the British establishment, then they would find themselves sorely disappointed.
[00:15:52] Although they now had no official role, one of the first acts of the newly-married couple was to go and visit a European leader.
[00:16:02] But this was no vanilla, minor, uncontroversial European leader.
[00:16:08] In October of 1937, the pair went to meet Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, and Edward and Hitler had a private meeting while Wallis was entertained by Eva Braun and Rudolf Hess.
[00:16:24] Now, nothing is known about what exactly Hitler and Edward spoke about, but it has become the subject of much speculation, so let’s spend a moment indulging ourselves and looking at some of the reasons why the two met, and what could have been the subject of their discussion.
[00:16:44] As a reminder of what was happening in Europe at the time, we are still two years away from the outbreak of the Second World War here. Most British politicians were desperate to avoid war if possible, and Edward was certainly in the category of people who believed that everything should be done to avoid repeating the horrors of World War I.
[00:17:07] He was deeply affected by his experience in World War I, or at least the atrocities that he saw in the trenches. He believed that everything should be done to stop this from happening again. He believed in the policy of appeasement, essentially, of making concessions to Hitler to stop war.
[00:17:27] And, unlike his brother, the new King George VI or his niece, Queen Elizabeth II, he wasn’t the sort of person to keep his mouth shut.
[00:17:39] Both as a young man and when he was briefly king, Edward had publicly expressed a desire to be involved in politics, involved in shaping policy. He saw himself as something of a moderniser, someone who could be a 20th century king.
[00:17:57] He believed that the true enemy of Europe was communism, not fascism. Edward’s relations, the Romanovs, had been murdered by the communists, and he thought the real enemy was further to the East.
[00:18:14] The Nazis were aware of Edward’s views, and in fact from the early 1930s Hitler had tried to link the British and German royal houses; he had tried to get Edward to marry a young German princess and reel him in.
[00:18:31] He had to wait a few years, but in 1937 he got his chance to woo the abdicated king.
[00:18:40] So, picture this. You have Edward, now Duke of Windsor, with his new wife, Wallis Simpson.
[00:18:47] They have no official duties, they are not allowed the status that they believe they deserve.
[00:18:54] And all of a sudden they are treated like royalty, given an official visit, the red carpet rolled out by an increasingly powerful European leader. Yes, he would prove himself to be a murderous dictator, and his anti-Semitic worldview was already clear for anyone to see by then.
[00:19:13] But you can perhaps appreciate why the pair might have accepted this invitation, and when you learn that Edward was in favour of appeasement, of some kind of agreement being made with Hitler, then the reason for the pair being courted by the Nazis starts to become somewhat clearer.
[00:19:31] And this wouldn’t be the only time the pair would cross paths with the Nazis. There is even a theory that the Nazis were keeping Edward close because they wanted to install him as a puppet king if Britain fell to the Nazis. He might no longer be king, but he could come in useful down the road.
[00:19:53] And when war broke out in 1939, Edward’s position was even more precarious.
[00:20:00] He was an ex-King living in Europe. What would happen if he was captured by the Nazis and used as a bargaining chip? This soon became a very real threat, as there was a Nazi plot to kidnap him and bring him to Germany in an attempt to force Britain to surrender.
[00:20:21] As a result, he was swiftly evacuated from Europe and given the post of the Governor of the Bahamas, the small collection of islands in the Caribbean.
[00:20:32] This was very much a ceremonial role where he would be both safe from danger and not be able to cause too much trouble, and for the most part, it had its intended effect.
[00:20:45] After the war he was able to return to Europe, and lived out the rest of his life in France with Wallis, in a villa in Northwest Paris.
[00:20:55] And in terms of the rest of Edward’s life, it was characterised by bitterness and a sense of being an outcast until his death in 1972.
[00:21:05] His last words were, reportedly, “Wallis, Wallis, Wallis”, but the love of his life was not by his side; he was accompanied only by his nurse.
[00:21:18] Unlike every other king or queen, he was not given the honour of a state funeral.
[00:21:24] He died alone, cast out and chastised by his family and country. Indeed, the entirety of his life after meeting Wallis Simpson had been punctuated by conflict and tension with his family, the British royal family.
[00:21:40] He was incredibly bitter for how he felt he had been treated, angry at not being able to do what he wanted to do, resentful at not being able to both be king and be with the woman he loved.
[00:21:54] And on the royal family’s side, he was seen as a traitor, someone who had betrayed his country, someone who had failed to do his duty, and worse, a threat to the monarchy, a man who had interfered in politics and got into bed with the 20th century’s most famous dictator.
[00:22:14] Clearly, there are two sides to every story, and perhaps your sympathies lie with Edward, perhaps they lie with the royal family.
[00:22:23] Of course, you might have noticed some similarities between this story and a more modern story involving a British royal prince and an American divorcée, the story of Harry and Meghan.
[00:22:37] That is a story for another day, but before we end the story of Edward, the king who wasn’t, I want to briefly reflect on Wallis Simpson.
[00:22:48] The history books have not been kind to her. She is typically described as someone who forced Edward’s hand, a seductress who turned a king against his country, and a woman who inflicted deep damage against the monarchy.
[00:23:03] We now know that perhaps not all of that is true.
[00:23:07] To address the question of whether she intended to tear him away from the throne from the outset, well, according to one prominent biographer, she tried to leave Edward when she realised that he would have to abdicate to be with her.
[00:23:22] When he did choose to abdicate, well, she had little choice but to stay with him.
[00:23:27] And, to go a bit further down the path of historical “what ifs”, what would have happened if Edward had never met Wallis Simpson? He wanted to be more involved in politics than is normal for a monarch, he held sympathies for the Nazis, he later said that he never thought Hitler was such a bad chap, and he was an ardent proponent of appeasement, he wanted to come to some kind of deal with Hitler.
[00:23:54] It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that, had he been on the throne, he would have forced through some kind of alliance or agreement with Nazi Germany.
[00:24:04] And bringing it back to Wallis, according to one biographer, stopping Edward from being king was exactly what she wanted, but it was for a good reason.
[00:24:17] She wanted to marry Edward so she could stop him from becoming the king she feared.
[00:24:23] She saw what might happen if he became King, she knew that he couldn’t become king if the pair were together, and this master plan was rudely interrupted by the death of Edward’s father, putting Edward on the throne ahead of schedule.
[00:24:39] Essentially, she wanted to save Britain from a Nazi king.
[00:24:44] If that truly was the case, this presents a very different picture of Wallis Simpson.
[00:24:50] One not of an evil American temptress who tore the country apart, but, as one British newspaper put it, “the woman who saved Britain”.
[00:25:02] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Edward VIII, the king who said no.
[00:25:10] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that this was a fun exploration of the problems that come with having a monarchy.
[00:25:17] If you want to dive further into the subject, I wouldn’t blame you, as it is a fascinating story. In terms of books, I’d recommend both “The Traitor King” and “The Real Wallis Simpson”, for two differing viewpoints, and if you haven’t yet watched the Netflix series The Crown, then you’ll also learn about their story in that.
[00:25:37] As always, I would love to know what you thought of this episode.
[00:25:40] What do you think about the story of Edward VIII? Was he a traitor and Nazi sympathiser or a good-hearted man who just wanted to be with the woman he loved?
[00:25:51] And what about Wallis Simpson? Troublesome American, woman caught in the middle, or saviour of Britain?
[00:25:58] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:26:02] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:26:09] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:26:14] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
