Re: throne succession



The way I understood it (which may be wrong) was that government
pressure was not put upon King Edward VIII in order to get him to
abdicate, but rather to get him to break off his relations with Mrs.
Simpson -- the working assumption being that his relationship with
Mrs. Simpson was a casual infatuation and that the King would
doubtless prefer crown and throne to a cheap and vulgar ____, and if
pressed, would 'come to his senses'; and that even Mrs. Simpson would
not want to be party to something so drastic as an abdication.

In this, it seems, the government mistook both the depth of the King's
attachment to Mrs. Simpson (and it must be admitted that, whatever his
faults, he did stay with her for the remainder of his life) and the
seriousness with which he took his kingship.  It may well be that he
found the entire job of being king 'rather a bore', and not one that
he was well suited to; and as he had a brother with a pair of
daughters waiting in the wings, he was probably not overly burdened
with worry about the future of the monarchy.

In the beginning, yes, everyone thought that it was just a casual
dalliance and even if it did amount to something more - he would have
married properly and kept Mrs. Simpson on as a mistress. It was found
out as 1936 moved on that the King was incapable of 'coming to his
senses' and the only alternative was for him to vacate the throne. Had
he not been willing to sign an Instrument of Abdication, the
Government would have resigned en masse leading to a Constitutional
crisis. Even David was not so stupid as to place his country in such
turmoil and put in to a corner, he had no option but to go.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor did stick together for the rest of
their life, true, but was there anyone around who wanted either of
them? They were virtually persona non grata.

One can only imagine what might have happened had King Edward VIII
stayed on the throne. His 'modernisation' of the monarchy might not
have been taken too kindly by the people and I am sure that his
noticeable boredom with it all would not have been received
favourably. When the war came I would suspect he would have whisked
himself off to Canada.

Regards
Donald Binks




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