The Madness of King Edward VIII

[Stillhomewardbound]

For those of you that have seen and remarked kindly on my 'Quiet Corner' mini-docs, I have just completed my third.

The title rather speaks for itself, or does it?

It's a subject that still arouses much controversy and I'd be delighted to see the debate continue here.

Anyway, it's something of a personal view on the matter so let's see where it leads us.

https://vimeo.com/123136813

SHB!

[kernelbogey]

I enjoyed the film, SHB, and noted particulary your appropriate employment of music - in contrast to my comments elsewhere about the use of music in films and television!

Quite a lot in it that I didn't know about Edward VIII.

(BTW I had a bit of trouble loading it and it stopped dead several times. Maybe to do with my broadband, but thought you might like to know of this.)

[pastoralguy]

Excellent film about a subject that has always fascinated me. I've often wondered, with the benefit of hindsight, if Mrs. Simpson was sent by fate. It was well known that Edward the Eighth was extremely pro-German. (He spoke German fluently). The upper classes were known to be pro-German too so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that this very popular Prince and King would have been very influential in suing for peace with Hitler and his cronies.

I enjoyed the story about using his 'best side' on coins and stamps although, due to technical reasons, the background could not be changed thus depicting the King looking into the darkness rather than the light.

This is the sort of film that can re-kindle a slightly defunct interest.

[slarty]

Excellent work SHB, very well made indeed and on one of my favorite subjects.
My only slight carp, it was too short. So when can we expect the director's cut with all the material that did not make it into this cut?

[Stillhomewardbound]

My only slight carp, it was too short. So when can we expect the director's cut with all the material that did not make it into this cut?

Thanks for the nice remarks from everyone so far!

The short duration 'Slarty' is because it is part of a portfolio building project I've been working on. I'll happily do the 50 min version if I get a commission, but one of the areas I would expand on would be the exile and the money:


** I did not appreciate the extent to which Edward was actively exiled. It began as a gesture on his part, but it soon became clear that he had not gone away that quietly. He left behind him a considerable amount of resentment, especially over his financial affairs which he had grossly underestimated, but also, between the Palace and successive Downing Street incumbents, it should be said, a grave concern about the fragility of the new monarchy. Edward did, after all, have his admirers.

Having said that, he was very easy to keep away. He had a very clear achilles heel: money. The message was, return home and you forget about any allowance and you'll be liable for tax just like any normal subject.

That's also how he came to live in Paris, a tax exile, at the invitation of the French state.

** I'd say he was entitled to a pension having done twenty years as the Prince of Wales, but of course he took away a big chunk of his income from the Duchy of Cornwall, effectively treating it as his own personal income which it wasn't.

In today's terms, incidentally, the currency trading made him about £2 million during the war. One could say it was a peevish reaction to his being consigned to the Bahamas for the duration, but actually, I think the man was simply devoid of any moral compass.

** The very sad aspect of the whole story was how it genuinely was a family tragedy. Edward was all wronged in his own mind, but I don't think he really considered the impact on his brother and his family, and it was a big shock to him to discover how firmly the door had been closed behind him on his departure.

** Speaking of doors closing, I'd have to include the story about John Reith who announced Edward at the beginning of his abdication address. In vacating the chair to make way for the ex-king he kicked the table leg and this reverberated through the microphone a loud thud which one newspaper reported as 'DG slams door after announcing Prince Edward'!!

** I doubt it will ever happen, and I'm not too likely to campaign for it myself, but it is somewhat spooky that as one of the kings of the British monarchy he is not commemorated anywhere. I mean, even Charles I has three of his likenesses between Charing Cross and Parliament Square.

[Stillhomewardbound]

I enjoyed the story about using his 'best side' on coins and stamps ...

The tradition of alternating left/right profiles went back to Charles II who deemed that he would face the opposite direction to Cromwell with the Restoration. Now, when it came to George VI, they decide to behave as if Edward's aberration had never been in the offering. That is why the three kings of 1936 all face the same way. George VI facing left as if his brother had appeared facing right.

[mercia]

very enjoyable.

Sorry to be a boring nitpicker but when you say something to the effect "while Edward was enjoying the sunshine of the Bahamas his subjects were being bombed ...." I guess they weren't in fact his subjects because he wasn't king (?)

[John Wright]

Very enjoyable SHB, thank you! My parents were always talking about Edward VIII; they were married in 1937. In the cabinet next to me there's their souvenir coronation teapot, George VI.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Very enjoyable SHB, thank you! My parents were always talking about Edward VIII; they were married in 1937. In the cabinet next to me there's their souvenir coronation teapot, George VI.

Thank you, John Wright. I'd very grateful if you'd wish to enlarge on how parents talked about them and what they thought. In my research I found it difficult to get a rounder picture of how people felt about him when he was the heir presumptive.

Clearly there was a vastly greater sense of reverence towards the royals than we know now, but was admiration for Edward a given, as it were, or did your parent's actually admire him?

[Stillhomewardbound]

very enjoyable.

Sorry to be a boring nitpicker but when you say something to the effect "while Edward was enjoying the sunshine of the Bahamas his subjects were being bombed ...." I guess they weren't in fact his subjects because he wasn't king (?)

Mercia, as Doris Day almost sung, 'nit-pick away, nit-pick, nit-pick awaaaaaaayyyy'! I'm more than happy to have my assertions questioned.

The sentence you refer to does actually run ... 'while his FORMER subjects ...'

Re. the Bahamas, you'll see in my post no.5 the additional points / elaborations that I'd have made given more time.

Specifically, <<I'd say he was entitled to a pension having done twenty years as the Prince of Wales, but of course he took away a big chunk of his income from the Duchy of Cornwall, effectively treating it as his own personal income which it wasn't.

In today's terms, incidentally, the currency trading made him about £2 million during the war. One could say it was a peevish reaction to his being consigned to the Bahamas for the duration, but actually, I think the man was simply devoid of any moral compass.>>

Wallis dubbed the Bahamas their 'St.Helena', but nonetheless, it was a place in the sun. A padded cell maybe, but considering what everyone else in Europe was going through, still rather cushty.

While in this film I do take a view, a stance, one of the most useful books I read is the Secret File of the Duke of Windsor which was an authorised account by Michael Bloch based on the ex-King's private papers. From this, for example, you can see that the whole German visit got a bit out of hand and was not for a moment, as has been suggested, some plot to actively court the Nazis.

It contains for example chapter and verse on the Fort Belvedere agreement in which it was agreed that his allowance ... half from the family purse and the other half from the rental for Balmoral / Sandringham would be due to him for the duration of his life.

However, that was firmly revised by George VI to mean, for as long as HE lived.

Edward firmly felt that he had been reneged on and it become one of his many grudges that he would carry for the rest of his days. Except, that the redrafting of the agreement had been in response to the fact that Edward's wealth, which he'd declared to his brother as being £93,000, was much more likely £930,000.

Now put those sums into an historical inflation calculator and feel the blood drain for your face.

In many ways, it is an infuriating saga. You want to feel sorry for the man, and indeed, the woman, who was not quite the villain she was made out to be, but all the wrangling about money and a title for Wallis, and so forth, makes that pretty difficult.

Another footnote, by the way: Edward's allowance ceased on the death of his brother, but he continued to receive the rents for Balmoral / Sandringham and at some point in the 60s he asked that the Queen, after his demise, would continue to honour half of that rental income as an allowance for Wallis until her passing.

This the Queen agreed to.

Quite extraordinary how the rich perceive themselves to be so desperately poor.

[mercia]

The sentence you refer to does actually run ... 'while his FORMER subjects ...'

- ah sorry, naughty me obviously wasn't listening properly, mislaid my ear trumpet again.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Edward VIII is always portrayed as being the baddie.


For a different slant:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059359/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

[John Wright]

Thank you, John Wright. I'd very grateful if you'd wish to enlarge on how parents talked about them and what they thought. In my research I found it difficult to get a rounder picture of how people felt about him when he was the heir presumptive.

Clearly there was a vastly greater sense of reverence towards the royals than we know now, but was admiration for Edward a given, as it were, or did your parent's actually admire him?

SHB,
My parents admired him, this was swayed by the romantic story with a woman he clearly loved, and there was an image of him in the early 1930s as a 'man of the people', and that was swayed by newsreels, presumably these were at the time cinema Pathe News films or similar, of him as the Prince of Wales, or young king, visiting factories and mines etc. I do recall sitting with my parents in the 1960s watching some of these on TV, the BBC programme 'All Our Yesterdays' comes to mind, they loved that programme as they re-lived their young days together before WWII - dad went off to Africa for 3 years.

I don't remember them re-calling Edward's admiration of the Third Reich, though newsreel of that must have been viewable in the 1930s.

[Stillhomewardbound]

SHB,
My parents admired him, this was swayed by the romantic story with a woman he clearly loved, and there was an image of him in the early 1930s as a 'man of the people', and that was swayed by newsreels, presumably these were at the time cinema Pathe News films or similar, of him as the Prince of Wales, or young king, visiting factories and mines etc. I do recall sitting with my parents in the 1960s watching some of these on TV, the BBC programme 'All Our Yesterdays' comes to mind, they loved that programme as they re-lived their young days together before WWII - dad went off to Africa for 3 years.

I don't remember them re-calling Edward's admiration of the Third Reich, though newsreel of that must have been viewable in the 1930s.

Thank you for that, JW. Of course, one of the aspects of his fame and his attractiveness was that his initial blooming coincided with the first coming of the movie news reels. He was also a much more modern royal figure. A complete departure of the whiskered, frock-coated Edwardians.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Edward VIII is always portrayed as being the baddie.


For a different slant:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059359/...?ref_=tt_ov_pl

Not necessarily a baddie. Just a figure who was hopelessly reckless.

One incident which displays this was how he was due to formally open a hospital in Scotland, but he cancelled the visit claiming it was too soon after his father's passing.

It did not go down well there when he was pictured on the due date at a public golf tournament with Mrs. Simpson at his side.