Born to Rule: Edward VIII

Nice photo-op

There is an air of romance about Great Britain's Edward VIII and fair enough; he did give up the throne for love. Beyond that, my only impressions of him have been garnered from popular culture - a selfish man (perhaps) a womaniser (true, although his marriage was a long and successful one) and nasty to his brother (not true, at least not before or during the abdication crisis: later perhaps) whose life after the abdication did not amount to much (well..) After reading Philip Ziegler's Edward VIII, while I feel more informed, I cannot say I feel much better towards the subject. I do think this is as sympathetic a biography as you're going to get, without lapsing into hagiography. It's a very effective retelling of the Abdication Crisis, which in the end is the most interesting thing about Edward.

 The marriage which was not expected to last - Simpson was not Edward's first great love affair, and the others had petered out -  did so until Edward's death in 1976. Given our next king will be a divorcee married to another divorcee, we can see that time has changed (although whether she will be Queen is still a matter of speculation.) It was Noel Coward who suggested that there should be a statue of Wallis Simpson in every town in Britain, as a tribute to the woman who stopped Edward becoming king. It was a typically waspish Coward thing to say, but contains more than a kernel of truth. A lot of the anger directed towards Simpson derived from her nationality and her marriage status, not to mention her commoner status. But she did seem to bring out the worst in Edward, through her love of money, jewellery, and attention. Not to mention her friends in Germany. But Ziegler dismissed the more lurid rumours about her life and sexuality, simply from lack of evidence.

The other use that Edward gets put to in literature is as King of England in the alternative universe where Germany won WWII. Edward, like many of his time, was an appeaser of the Germans and an admirer of the order that the Nazis brought to what had been a country in some chaos. He visited Germany in the late 30s, met the top Nazis, and has been accused of being pro-Nazi.

Ill-advised photo-op

Ziegler seems satisfied that Edward  would not have been a puppet king for the Nazis, should the opportunity present itself. But I cannot help thinking he might have been; not a puppet as such, but he would have seen himself as a mediator between the Germans and the British people. In any case, the point is moot. (In case you're wondering, WE WON!)

This book does spend what seems a lot of time on Edward's youth but I think Ziegler is trying hard to find the boy who became the man who renounced the throne. He felt constrained by his role as a prince, hated the ceremony and dressing up. During WW1, despite being in uniform and asking otherwise, he was kept from the  fighting and spent most of it at one headquarters or another which he resented. (He went on record several times saying how much he hated the Germans; indeed he seemed to share most of the common prejudices of his age.)  He was also aware of the working class and their life and often commented on a need to do something for them. But in the end he lacked the application, and to be fair, the means to do much at all. If he had kept his throne, he may have kicked against the traces but one suspects he would have stayed a conservative course.

 Edward's post-adbication life was about half of his life and yet it takes up perhaps a third of this book, even less, which gives you a fair indication of its action-packed nature. He does well as Governor of the Bahamas during the Second World War, working hard to improve the local economy and the position of the majority black population. But apart from that, most of his energy seemed to be spent on making the Royal Family keep him the style he had become accustomed and trying to get his wife made a Royal Highness. As neither of them were in the line of succession, it seems a fruitless argument. He never seemed to put his energy or his name to anything of use to anyone but himself and his wife.

Possibly from
the Abdication
Crisis

In the end, I kept thinking of what was the point of Edward VIII? If you are born to the royal family, supported by the resources of the people of Britain, and then opt out of what you were born to do, what is the point of you?  Perhaps once he had stopped being king, he should have gone out, got a job, and got on with things as Mr Windsor (or Saxe-Coburg or whatever. Actually, just change his name to Sax Coburg and become a jazz man. Ok, that's a bit silly.) Such a path would be unthinkable then, and perhaps now. But we fetishise self-fulfilment these days to the detriment of everything else - responsibility to others, for example. Responsibility to your society. Edward may have been the harbinger to the modern liberal fallacy that your happiness is the only thing that matters and damn everybody and anything else. Duty, sacrifice, selflessness are all qualities we disparage so we can all be the best you you can be, and I don't see society improving as a result. I don't suggest one should ignore personal fulfilment but I'm not convinced it should be the driver of society that it is. In The Madness of George III, the king's last line (in the film at least) is that the Royal Family is there to be an example. Maybe we all looked to the wrong King.