The Queen Mother (69 page)

Over the weekend of 5–6 December much of the support the King enjoyed seemed to evaporate as the enormity of what he wished to do sank into the minds of the British people. Any notion of a ‘King’s Party’ faded. The Duke wrote to his mother that he had spoken to David who seemed quite calm, though he could not be hurried in his decision. ‘I feel so terribly sad for you darling Mama & I can well imagine through what anxiety you must have been going during this last 3 weeks. It has been awful for all of us, but much more so for you, when David has been trained for the great position he holds, & now wants to chuck away. I am feeling very overwrought as to what may befall me, but with your help I know I shall be able to carry on … I really cannot believe that David is going.’
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The Duchess was grateful to the many friends who wrote to offer their support. She replied to a letter from Osbert Sitwell, ‘In these last few days, when every minute has seemed an hour, we have been sustained & helped by the sympathy of our friends … It is extraordinary how one’s heart lightens at the kindness of friends.’
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O
N
6 D
ECEMBER
Baldwin went to see Queen Mary at Marlborough House. He was nervous because he always found her shyness rather difficult to overcome, but she greeted him with the words, ‘Well, a pretty kettle of fish we’re in now!’ and this homely phrase revealed to him that he had no need to pick his words in describing the King’s conduct.
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She thought the idea of a morganatic marriage was the worst solution of all; she simply would not countenance it. Apart from anything else, she thought, it would create a court within the Court and would make her own position intolerable – she saw no reason why she should compete with Mrs Simpson.

Throughout the weekend, the King refused to see his brother, claiming that he had not yet made up his mind what to do; the Duke and Duchess waited anxiously just down the road at Royal Lodge. In fact the King was still trying to have his way. Mrs Simpson, now in an uncomfortable villa in the south of France, was constantly offering advice and threats down the crackling telephone lines of the time. These calls were often painful to the King, and to those who overheard him shouting down the line in the Fort. Sometimes he was reduced to tears. Walter Monckton, the distinguished lawyer whom Edward VIII had asked to liaise with the Prime Minister on his behalf, said that those who heard his end of the calls would never forget them.
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Mrs Simpson was, mostly, urging him to be strong, rely on his personal popularity, tough out the government and insist on his rights. On 6 December she issued a statement declaring herself ready ‘to withdraw forthwith from a situation that has been rendered both unhappy and untenable’. But she was well aware that the King would not give her up, and she was equally determined that he should not give up the throne; the solution of a morganatic marriage – though after a decent interval during which the King would win popular support – was her ultimate aim, as Sarah Bradford pointed out in her biography of King George VI.
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On the evening of Monday 7 December the King finally agreed to see the Duke of York at Fort Belvedere. ‘I was with him at 7.0 pm. The awful and ghastly suspense of waiting was over,’ the Duke recorded. Pacing up and down the room, the King told his brother that he had decided to abdicate. The Duke went back to Royal Lodge for dinner before returning to the Fort. ‘I felt having once got there I was not going to leave. As he is my eldest brother I had to be there to
try & help him in his hour of need.’
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Later that night the Duke returned to London with his wife.

At this point in the crisis the Duchess was struck by one of her frequent attacks of flu. She took to her bed at 145 Piccadilly and was thus absent for most of the dramatic events that followed. She was stunned by it all and, like her husband, could still scarcely believe what the King was doing, let alone the implications for her own family. The Duchess had a very definite view on the King’s proposal that he should be able to remain on the throne while contracting a morganatic marriage to Mrs Simpson. She wrote to her sister May, ‘Bertie & I are feeling very despairing, and the strain is terrific. Every day lasts a week, & the only hope we have is in the affection & support of our family & friends. I feel so sad, & yet there is only a very straightforward case – if Mrs Simpson is not fit to be Queen, she is not fit to be the King’s morganatic wife.’
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In a letter to Lady Londonderry she demurred from the suggestion that Queen Mary’s views should discreetly be made known. ‘I also think that it is
essential
for the Queen to remain outside any controversy – she
must
be above everything, and her calm & dignity will prove to the people the futility of the cheap Press.’
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Every day brought new uncertainties and wild rumours.
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Negotiations between the King, his family, his advisers and the Prime Minister continued. On the evening of Tuesday 8 December there was a surprising interlude – a dinner at the Fort, which was attended by the Prime Minister, the Dukes of York and Kent, the King’s advisers Walter Monckton and Edward Peacock, his solicitor, and Ulick Alexander, the Keeper of the Privy Purse. According to the Duke of York’s own account, while all the guests ‘were very sad (we knew the final & irrevocable decision he had made) my brother was the life & soul of the party … I whispered to W.M. [Walter Monckton] “& this is the man we are going to lose.” One couldn’t, nobody could, believe it.’
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At the end of a harrowing day of discussions with the King and his advisers on 9 December, the Duke returned to London to his mother and wife. He went to see Queen Mary; Walter Monckton came, bringing the draft Instrument of Abdication to show them. As the Duke recorded, ‘I broke down & sobbed like a child.’
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His mother recalled this later, saying he was appalled. ‘He was devoted to his brother and the whole Abdication crisis made him miserable. He sobbed on my shoulder for an hour – there, upon that sofa.’
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Queen Mary was herself in shock. Her biographer pointed out that in her
diary she rarely indulged in exclamation marks. On this occasion she clearly felt they were necessary. She still could not believe that her son, her firstborn, was determined to abdicate ‘the Throne of this Empire because he wishes to marry Mrs Simpson!!!! The whole affair has lasted since Novr. 16th and has been very painful. It is a terrible blow to us all & particularly to poor Bertie.’
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The Duchess, still ill in bed, wrote to Queen Mary next day:

She ended the letter, ‘I have great faith in Bertie – he sees very straight, & if this terrible responsibility comes to him he will face it bravely.’
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At about 10 a.m. on 10 December, in the presence of his brothers, the King signed the Instrument of Abdication, which declared his ‘irrevocable determination to renounce the throne for Myself and for My descendants’. A few hours later the Prime Minister told the whole sorry story to the House of Commons and thus the world. In her diary that night Queen Mary recorded that this ‘was received in silence & with real regret. The more one thinks of this affair the more regrettable it becomes.’
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That day negotiations became quite unpleasant on the subject of the financial settlement to be agreed with the King after his abdication. The most difficult questions involved Sandringham and Balmoral, in which, under the terms of King George V’s will, his eldest son had a life interest. The properties now had to be passed to the Duke of York but the King wanted as generous a settlement for himself as he could obtain. He claimed that his total fortune was only £90,000 and that he could not survive without subsidy. He insisted that his brother should buy his life interest in Sandringham and Balmoral. The Duke agreed
to pay him £25,000 a year if the government declined to do so. Later, however, it became clear that the King had lied to his brother about the true state of his finances in ways which seemed unforgivable. His wealth was later estimated to be closer to £1 million than to £100,000. ‘It was a suicidal lie,’ wrote King Edward VIII’s biographer; and it drove further pain deep into the brothers’ relationship over the years to come.
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Freddy Dalrymple Hamilton wrote in his diary the same day: ‘The Duke of York is to be proclaimed King on Saturday & so Elizabeth will become Queen of England – a fate I never guessed for her in the old days of Glamis but which she will do as well as she does her present job.’
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The family rallied to the Duke and Duchess. Princess Mary
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wrote at once to her sister-in-law:

That night when the Duke returned to his home at 145 Piccadilly, as he later recorded, ‘I found a large crowd outside my house cheering wildly. I was overwhelmed.’
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The next day, Friday 11 December, his brother’s abdication was announced just before 2 p.m. The Duke was now King George VI – he had decided to take his father’s name to strengthen the sense of
continuity. For the new King it was ‘that dreadful day’. He spent most of it occupied with arrangements for his Accession Council and Proclamation and with the difficult question of what his brother’s title should now be. A decision was needed quickly because his brother insisted on making a farewell broadcast and Sir John Reith of the BBC was planning to introduce him on air that night as ‘Mr Edward Windsor’. The King pointed out that that was quite wrong and instructed that his brother should be introduced as ‘His Royal Highness Prince Edward’; he also declared his intention of giving the ex-King a new title. Indeed the first act of his reign was to make his brother duke of Windsor.
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That evening the final act of the tragedy took place at Royal Lodge. There the Royal Family dined together for the last time. Absent from the dinner, the new Queen wrote an affectionate letter of farewell to her brother-in-law.

Afterwards Prince Edward was driven to Windsor Castle to make his farewell broadcast, which he had written himself, with some help from both Monckton and Churchill. He spoke well and moved many of his listeners to tears. Declaring his allegiance to the new monarch and his loyalty to Britain, he explained, ‘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.’ Determined to exonerate Mrs Simpson, he said, ‘The other person most nearly concerned has tried up to the last to persuade me to take a different course.’ He entrusted the nation to his brother ‘with his long training in the public affairs of this country and with his fine qualities’ and pointed out that ‘he has one matchless blessing, enjoyed by so many of you and not bestowed on me – a happy home
with his wife and children.’ He ended with the words, ‘And now we all have a new King. I wish him and you, his people, happiness and prosperity with all my heart. God save the King.’

The new Duke then returned to Royal Lodge to say goodbye to his family. Queen Mary had been relieved by the content of her son’s speech. This was perhaps the lowest point of her life, but she concealed her feelings behind her mask of dignity and courage. ‘And then’, she wrote, ‘came the dreadful good bye as he was leaving that evening for Austria. The whole thing was too pathetic for words.’
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The new King embraced his predecessor and the Duke bowed to his new sovereign.
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The Duke was then driven away through the fog. In Portsmouth at 2 a.m. he boarded HMS
Fury
for the first leg of his journey into exile. To his astonishment, not one of his personal servants would agree to go with him.

As his brother was driving away, King George VI returned to London to his sick wife who, by her own later account, had lived the last week in a daze.
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Queen Mary wrote to her to say how sorry she was her temperature still kept them apart. ‘Thank God this awful crisis is at an end & people all welcome you both warmly, the P.M. has handled it so well and D. has acted with great dignity. You darling know how much I love you both & that you can always count on me to help you as much as I can.’
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