This is what you end up with if you place at the heart of
your country’s constitution a struggling dysfunctional family, often enough
just not up to the job or any job. There are plenty of occasions reading Andrew
Morton’s book when I thought “Just like Prince Charles!” and “Just like Prince
Harry”. The Windsors ( and their previous incarnation, the Saxe Coburg Gothas
whose name they dropped in 1917 ) have only ever had much luck when their women
have been in charge: Victoria, George VI’s wife Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (the
Queen Mother), Elizabeth II.
Unfortunately, this is not a good book. I find it hard to
believe that the author read it cover to cover before signing it off: two thirds of the way through, it is as if
another (and inferior) writer takes over in Chapter 13 who then goes on to
re-tell from a different perspective what has already been told in the first
dozen chapters (and already more than once). So though I began reading with
interest I ended up more than ready to put the book down.
It is not original research and in offering many quotations
from a fair number of historians who have already written about Edward VIIIs
sympathy for Hitler (and his own German aristocratic relatives who rallied to Hitler’s
cause) it ends up without a clear verdict on the nature of his disloyalty to
his country and his country’s various governments in the 1930s and 1940s. Morton
has at least one excuse: though many important incriminating documents survive,
others have surely been destroyed and more would have been if the House of
Windsor and the Governments of the 1940s had had their way. (Just as nowadays, it is the Government which is fighting to keep Prince Charles' indiscreet political letters from becoming public)
The man who briefly became Edward VIII before abdicating to
marry an American divorcee combined popular charisma with a deeply unpleasant private
personality, his wife likewise. There are many examples in the book to
make you think, “These people are
complete shits”.
Like Prince Charles, Edward believed in an “active” monarchy which would not restrict itself
to the constitutional duties of advising, encouraging and warning. But it’s
unclear on what Edward felt his right to intervene to be based: he doesn’t
appear to have studied much, read much or spent much time talking to anyone who
wasn’t a crony or a crook – or a flatterer and spy. Perhaps then just Divine
Right gave him the authority he assumed, after the Abdication, to conduct protracted freelance diplomacy with the Nazis and their allies.
Deeply self-centred and often childish, he had no notion of
discretion and his careless talk in France in 1940 – where he had an active
duty military posting - may have cost lives. On that Morton is reasonably
decisive.That may have been one reason he was then posted to the Bahamas where
he was made to sit out the war as Governor. Primarily, he was exiled from Europe
to keep him a long way away from his Nazi chums.
The insecure George VI and the vindictive Queen Mary (George V's widow and Edward's mother) and Queen Elizabeth, later the Queen Mother
ensured that after the war, there was no place for him in Britain. But in
perpetuating the family feud as dysfunctional families are supposed to do, they
may have done some good. Edward VIII got away with actions which in the case
of lesser mortals might have led to war-time internment. He does not even appear to have been questioned under caution. After the war, he had
little or no scope for any action.
