Abdication of Edward VIII

It is generally accepted that Wallis Simpson and Edward became lovers in 1934, while Lady Furness (who was also in a relationship with the prince) was visiting relatives in the United States.

[6] The prospect of having an American divorcée with a questionable past having such sway over the heir apparent led to anxiety among government and establishment figures.

[13] The King invited Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to Buckingham Palace the following Monday (16 November) and informed him that he intended to marry Simpson.

[15] Nevertheless, the British press remained quiet on the subject until Alfred Blunt, Bishop of Bradford, gave a speech to his diocesan conference on 1 December, which alluded to the King's need of divine grace: "We hope that he is aware of his need.

[17] When asked about it later, however, the bishop claimed he had not heard of Simpson at the time he wrote the speech, and that it was an expression of disappointment at the King's conspicuous failure to attend church services regularly.

[18] Acting on the advice of Edward's staff, Simpson left Britain for the south of France two days later in an attempt to escape intense press attention.

[24] This view was partially shared by Alan Don, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who wrote that he suspected the King "is sexually abnormal which may account for the hold Mrs S. has over him".

[30] The future prime minister Neville Chamberlain (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) wrote in his diary that she was "an entirely unscrupulous woman who is not in love with the King but is exploiting him for her own purposes.

[42] When Edward visited depressed mining villages in Wales, his comment that "something must be done"[43] led to concerns among elected politicians that he would interfere in political matters, traditionally avoided by constitutional monarchs.

"[44] Although Edward's comments had made him popular in Wales,[45] he became extremely unpopular with the public in Scotland following his refusal to open a new wing of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, saying he could not do so because he was in mourning for his father and delegated the task to his brother Albert despite the logical inconsistency in doing so since both men shared the same father, George V. The day after the opening, he was pictured in newspapers on holiday: he had turned down the public event in favour of meeting Simpson.

[46] As Prince of Wales, Edward had publicly referred to Labour county councillors as "cranks"[47] and made speeches counter to government policy.

The Foreign Office obtained leaked dispatches from the German Reich's Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Joachim von Ribbentrop, which revealed his strong view that opposition to the marriage was motivated by the wish "to defeat those Germanophile forces which had been working through Mrs Simpson".

[51] While Edward was abdicating, the personal protection officers guarding Simpson in exile in France sent reports to Downing Street suggesting that she might "flit to Germany".

The prime ministers of the five Dominions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the Irish Free State) were consulted, and the majority agreed that there was "no alternative to course (3)".

[60] As soon as the affair became public knowledge, Churchill started to pressure Baldwin and the King to delay any decisions until parliament and the people had been consulted.

[68] The letters and diaries of working-class people and ex-servicemen generally demonstrate support for the King, while those from the middle and upper classes tend to express indignation and distaste.

"[72] In the proposed speech, Edward indicated his desire to remain on the throne or to be recalled to it if forced to abdicate, while marrying Simpson morganatically.

In seeking the people's support against the government, Edward was opting to oppose binding ministerial advice and instead act as a private individual.

[75] On 5 December, having in effect been told that he could not keep the throne and marry Simpson, and having had his request to broadcast to the Empire to explain "his side of the story" blocked on constitutional grounds,[76] Edward chose the third option.

The divorce action would fail if the citizen's intervention showed that the Simpsons had colluded by, for example, conniving in or staging the appearance of his adultery so that she could marry someone else.

Indeed, as the belief that the abdication was inevitable gathered strength, Goddard stated that: "[his] client was ready to do anything to ease the situation but the other end of the wicket [Edward VIII] was determined".

Legal experts discussed whether an abdication would have force in the Irish Free State, regardless, or if Edward VIII might remain king of that country while George VI reigned elsewhere.

"[91] Edward's own Assistant Private Secretary, Alan Lascelles, had told Baldwin as early as 1927: "I can't help thinking that the best thing that could happen to him, and to the country, would be for him to break his neck.

[94][95] The official address had been polished by Churchill and was moderate in tone, speaking about Edward's inability to do his job "as I would have wished to do" without the support of "the woman I love".

[99] The couple settled in France, and the Duke received a tax-free allowance from his brother, which Edward supplemented by writing his memoirs and by illegal currency trading.

[102] In an article for the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune of 13 December 1966 the Duke wrote that in 1937 Hitler persuaded him "it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ...

[104] In February 1940, the German ambassador in The Hague, Count Julius von Zech-Burkersroda, claimed that Edward had leaked the Allied war plans for the defence of Belgium.

[106] Under the code name Operation Willi, Nazi agents, principally Walter Schellenberg, plotted unsuccessfully to persuade the Duke to leave Portugal, and contemplated kidnapping him.

[111] Comments like these reinforced the belief that the Duke and Duchess held Nazi sympathies and the effect of the abdication crisis of 1936 was to force off the throne a man with extreme political opinions.

[112] Claims that Edward would have been a threat or that he was removed by a political conspiracy to dethrone him remain speculative and "persist largely because since 1936 the contemporary public considerations have lost most of their force and so seem, wrongly, to provide insufficient explanation for the King's departure".