King and Cabinet's battle royal

By CAHAL MILMO in LONDON

The black limousine glided to a halt shortly before 9pm in a dark courtyard at the rear of Buckingham Palace.

Unceremoniously, the car's passenger was lifted through a window by royal footmen.

The clandestine visitor, climbing like a burglar into the royal family's private quarters on December 3, 1936, was the Right Hon Stanley Baldwin MP, the Prime Minister.

Downing St had been called at 6pm. King Edward VIII needed to see Baldwin in the utmost secrecy.

The monarch was making one last desperate bid to keep his throne and marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, the American divorcee whose presence at his side was scandalising British society. The attempt failed. He abdicated eight days later.

Secret Government papers released yesterday at the Public Record Office in London reveal a web of intrigue and deceit by state and monarchy that has remained hidden for 66 years.

It ranges from Special Branch surveillance of Mrs Simpson's sex life to the direct intervention of the late Queen Mother in ensuring Edward and his wife would be frozen out of royal circles for life.

The abdication papers, which were kept from public view until the Queen Mother's death last year, show that Edward VIII tried to outmanoeuvre the Government and hold on to his crown with a direct appeal to the British people.

He had summoned Baldwin to tell him of his intention to make a broadcast on the BBC the next day in which he would declare his love for Mrs Simpson and plead that she be accepted as his wife.

Documents giving details of the conversation between the Prime Minister and the King show the two men became implacably opposed over the issue, which resolved the Cabinet to force the abdication.

The speech, the existence of which was unknown outside Whitehall until yesterday, was a carefully tailored, unashamed appeal to popular sentiment.

It was written with the help of a friend of the King - a Conservative MP whose reputation for rhetoric was soon to become unsurpassed - Winston Churchill.

Noting that "by ancient custom" a ruler speaks directly to his subjects, Edward said he could no longer be King without marrying.

"It has taken me a long time to find the woman I want to make my wife," he wrote.

"Without her, I have been a very lonely man. With her I shall have a home and all the companionship and mutual sympathy and understanding which married life can bring."

Adding that neither he nor Mrs Simpson, the former wife of a retired Army officer, expected she would become Queen. All he wanted was a "proper title and dignity for her, befitting my wife".

Edward had met his great love four years earlier and they started a relationship in 1934.

The speech ended with Edward saying he would now go away for an unspecified period "so that you may reflect calmly and quietly".

The reaction in Whitehall was anything but, according to the documents. A hurriedly scribbled note in pencil at the bottom of the address sums up the reason for the disquiet: "No word about abdication."

Baldwin, the Conservative leader of the all-party National Government, had already made clear the opposition of not only the Cabinet but also Clement Attlee's Labour Party to the King's proposal of a "morganatic" marriage under which Mrs Simpson would have none of the status of a royal consort.

In one Downing St memo, the Prime Minister said any attempt by Edward to remain King was likely to cause "the gravest injury to national and imperial interests".

The Cabinet resolved to block the King's proposed speech on a constitutional ground, saying any public statement could be made only with the approval of ministers.

A report on the address, hurriedly written on December 4, said if Edward went ahead, "constitutional monarchy would cease to exist".

It added: "The constitutional duty of the King is to take no public action which is calculated to divide his subjects into opposing camps. It is manifest that the King's broadcast must have this effect."

Letters received from the dominions also revealed growing opposition. Only New Zealand's Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage, expressed support for Edward remaining on the throne.

Underpinning the Cabinet's hard line was also the fear that Churchill, who had written to Baldwin saying it would be a "cruel thing" to pressure Edward into coming to a rapid decision, would form a breakaway political party in support of the King.

When told of the Cabinet's opposition to his broadcast, it seems Edward reluctantly accepted the futility of his position. At the end of the discussion at Buckingham Palace, during which Baldwin stalled for time by telling Edward the proposed speech was unconstitutional, the King said: "You want me to go, don't you?"

The documents, which were due to be released after 30 years but were made subject to a 100-year restriction lifted by the Government last year, offer few further insights into longstanding rumours about the main players in the abdication.

Those hoping the papers would lift the lid on suspicions that the couple, who became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, were Nazi sympathisers will be disappointed. The sole mention is a note in 1936 to Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain that Wallis had tried to contact the German regime and had mentioned "doing a flit" to Germany in 1937.


- INDEPENDENT