The 1936 Abdication Crisis | The Royal Forums The 1936 Abdication Crisis December 11, 2011 at 12:00 am by JessRulz The day is December 11th, 1936. Great Britain begins its day with an Edward VIII , and ends the day with a George VI . His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 had passed through parliament. From the TRF Avatar Gallery Sparking what was dubbed ‘The Abdication Crisis’, His Majesty King Edward VIII’s request to marry his lover, Mrs Wallis Simpson , was debated by parliamentarians, religious leaders, the press and the public during the month leading up to December 10 and 11. The Conservative government of the day, led by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, refused to grant permission for King Edward to marry. This refusal was also seconded by the Australian and Canadian governments. The marriage between King Edward and Mrs Simpson was opposed for a number of reasons. One of the strongest was Mrs Simpson’s status as a divorced woman, with living ex-husbands.

This posed an issue for the King as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, because the Church disallowed marriages of divorced persons whose former spouses were still alive. Divorce in England was also only considered valid at the time on the grounds of adultery, which was not the case for either of Mrs Simpson’s two divorces (firstly from Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., secondly from Ernest Simpson), so there was the possibility of a court challenge declaring the divorces void. There was also the rumour that Mrs Simpson was a Nazi agent/sympathiser. This did not sit well with the British Government, which was already concerned with the King’s interference in political matters. Opposition also came from the Royal Family and courtiers, who deemed Mrs Simpson ‘unfit’ to be Queen, based on her background and ‘activities’. View the full image at RBA Three options were surmised by the government as to what the outcome of the situation could be: marriage with full royal allowances (ie. Mrs Simpson becomes Queen), a morganatic marriage (ie. Mrs Simpson receives a secondary title, and does not become Queen), or abdication of the King and his future heirs.

A meeting between the British government and representatives of the four British Dominions of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa (along with a representative of Ireland) found that only option three was acceptable. If the King truly wanted to marry Mrs Simpson, he had to give up the throne – which Edward VIII did shortly thereafter, decreeing in a speech following the official announcement that he could not perform his duties “without the help and support of the woman I love.” View the full-size image at the National Archives Flickr The ‘Instrument of Abdication’ was signed by Edward VIII on December 10 at his Fort Belvedere residence, in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses The Duke of York, The Duke of Gloucester and The Duke of Kent , the King’s three younger brothers, who also signed the abdication document as witnesses. The document was then given to parliament, who gave their consent to the abdication, as did the Dominions (as was required at the time). King Edward VIII performed his final act as King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions, Emperor of India by giving his royal assent to the Act of Parliament which allowed him to abdicate.

His brother, The Duke of York, was now King (he was officially proclaimed His Majesty King George VI the following day). That same day, December 12, George VI gave his elder brother the title Duke of Windsor. When Edward married Mrs Simpson in June 1937, she became the Duchess of Windsor. Mrs Simpson for her part disagreed with the King’s abdication, trying to convince him several times to let her go and keep his crown. Edward VIII has the distinction of being the only British monarch to abdicate the throne since prior to the twelfth century. He is also one of the shortest reigning monarchs, having reigned for only 327 days (discounting the disputed nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey in July 1553 – King Edward V reigned in 1483 for only seventy-eight days). Click here to read more about the Abdication Crisis in the British Forum.

BBC NEWS | UK | Profile: Stanley Baldwin Wednesday, 29 January, 2003, 17:56 GMT Profile: Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin was the son of an MP As the Public Record Office releases more documents concerning the abdication of King Edward VIII, BBC News Online looks at the career of Stanley Baldwin - the prime minister who played a vital role in the crisis. The abdication crisis was one of the key moments of Stanley Baldwin's political career. It fell to the then Conservative prime minister to refuse King Edward VIII permission to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson - and to outline the situation to the Commons. The speech he made to MPs has been described as one of the greatest of the age. It prompted Harold Nicholson MP to report in his diary: "We file out broken in body and soul, conscious that we have heard the best speech we will ever hear in our lives. "No man has dominated the House as he dominated it today and he knows it." Our people...

will not stand for this sort of thing in a public personage Stanley Baldwin to King Edward VIII Stanley Baldwin - who was to become prime minister three times in the 1920s and 1930s - was born in 1867, the only child of a Worcestershire ironworks owner and local MP. The family was Methodist, and Baldwin himself was deeply religious. After attending Harrow School and Cambridge University, Baldwin joined the family firm in 1888. He entered Parliament in 1908. By 1923 he was prime minister. He was asked to form a government when Andrew Bonar Law resigned due to illness. Cunning His first stint leading the country was brief. He lost the December 1923 general election and Labour took over. But by November 1924 he was back in Number 10. Baldwin confronted Edward over his relationship with Wallis Simpson Baldwin's approach to government was to give his ministers the freedom to act while he maintained a general overview. Some saw this as laziness and pointed to Baldwin's insistence on taking long holidays, even if matters of state were pressing.

Others saw it as cunning and the only way he could maintain control over a party with significant internal divisions. Baldwin lost the general election of 1929, and Labour came back into power. Crisis role He came close to quitting politics in 1930 and spent much of the next two years fighting elements of his own party. But in 1931 he returned to government as a member of Ramsay MacDonald's National Coalition and in June 1935 he became prime minister again when MacDonald resigned. No prime minister has ever chosen a better moment to bow out Robert Blake, historian This term in office was dominated by affairs in Europe and by the abdication crisis. The latter saw Baldwin at his peak, the former was to dash his reputation after he had left office. When King Edward VIII came to the throne in January 1936, Baldwin did not approve wholeheartedly of the new monarch for reasons as diverse as his taste for light-coloured suits and what was believed to be his sympathy for certain aspects of Nazi Germany. When the King told Baldwin he wanted to marry Mrs Simpson, the prime minister told the monarch it would be unacceptable. "I think I know our people," he told them.

"They will tolerate a lot in private life, but they will not stand for this sort of thing in a public personage." Baldwin was blamed for not standing up to Mussolini In a series of meetings he spelled out Edward's options to him, which eventually boiled down to renouncing Mrs Simpson or abdicating - the King chose the latter. It was generally agreed Baldwin had handled the situation well. He retired a few months later, shortly after the Coronation of George VI in May 1937, and in the words of historian Robert Blake "no prime minister has ever chosen a better moment to bow out". But his reputation did not last long as he took some of the blame for not standing up to Hitler and Mussolini early enough. When World War II began in September 1939, Baldwin was blamed for having left Britain with insufficient defences. Key stories United Kingdom - Baldwin and the abdication crisis | history - geography | Britannica.com Baldwin and the abdication crisis Related People Nick Clegg Political events in the interwar years must always be seen in the context of the Great Depression , which set in internationally after the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929 .

In Britain, in addition to disruption to the financial system and the stability of sterling, there was a rapid acceleration in unemployment from the late 1920s, so that by the spring of 1931, 25 percent of the workforce was unemployed. The country was still in the aftermath of economic depression when, in June 1935, Baldwin rather abruptly took over the prime ministership from MacDonald, whose health was clearly failing. A general election followed on November 14, in which the Conservatives returned 432 members to Parliament to Labour’s 154. But because the so-called National Liberals and a few remaining National Labour members still participated in the government, it was technically a coalition. With the onset of World War II in 1939, this election was to be the last British general election for nearly a decade. Hence, Baldwin, in his final 18 months of office, presided over the beginnings of Britain’s appeasement policy and over the more spectacular but less important abdication of the new king, Edward VIII , who had ascended the throne on January 20, 1936, upon the death of his father, George V.

In the quarter century since his father’s accession, Edward, as prince of Wales , had become the most public and best-known heir to the throne since his grandfather, Edward VII . But, unknown to the British public, some years before his accession he had fallen in love with an American, Wallis Simpson , who was then married to a British subject, Ernest Simpson. Edward decided to marry her, and in 1936, after his accession, Wallis Simpson began divorce proceedings against her husband. Baldwin, well before his actual confrontations with the king, had determined that Edward could not marry Mrs. Simpson and remain monarch. He warned the king not to attempt to influence public opinion or to try to remain on the throne. The temper of the people and of Parliament was against Edward. Eventually, on December 11, 1936, he announced his abdication in a poignant radio broadcast and left Great Britain . Baldwin had triumphed. The king was succeeded by his younger brother, who became George VI and who had an eminently suitable family, including two young daughters.

After George VI ’s coronation on May 12, 1937, Baldwin resigned, amid every sign of popular affection; he was succeeded on May 28 by Neville Chamberlain. The duke of Windsor (formerly Edward VIII) and duchess of Windsor on their wedding day, June 3, … Camera Press/Globe Photos Kensington and Chelsea Chamberlain, rather than Baldwin, has always been regarded as the man of appeasement. Historically this is correct only in the sense that Chamberlain formulated a policy of accommodation with Germany and Italy . But Chamberlain was also the man who began British rearmament, pronounced appeasement a failure, and declared war upon Germany. Baldwin was equally zealous to avoid any sort of confrontation with the European dictators while doing as little as possible to strengthen Britain’s armed forces. Adolf Hitler ’s accession to power in Germany on January 30, 1933, occasioned only the slightest interest in Britain. Little was known of him. It was usually assumed that he was a tool of the right or the army and in any case would not remain in office long.

This illusion began to shatter in January 1935, when Germany overwhelmingly won a plebiscite in the Saar River basin; the Saarlanders voted to return their area to Germany, from which it had been separated by the Treaty of Versailles as part of German reparations, rather than remaining with France. This was an enormous boost to Hitler’s prestige, as well as a confirmation of the attraction of Nazi Germany and, by the same token, a setback for France and the idea of democracy . British Culture and Politics On the wave of popularity the plebiscite brought, Hitler reintroduced military conscription in Germany and announced the creation of the Luftwaffe (the German air force), both in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. In response, the former wartime allies and guarantors of the peace treaty, Britain, France, and Italy, met at Stresa , Italy, in April and there discussed collective action to uphold the disarmament terms of the treaty; this understanding became known as the Stresa Front . Its maintenance, specifically the challenge of keeping Italy a foe of Germany, formed the motivation for Britain’s foreign policy for the next 18 months; in effect it was the beginnings of appeasement .

In August 1935 Italy attacked the empire of Ethiopia in Africa, announcing that it had apprised Britain and France at Stresa of its intentions of doing so. British public opinion was torn between a desire to avoid war and an unwillingness to sanction unprovoked aggression. The compromise was a retreat to the fiction of “ collective security ,” which meant a dependence upon action by the League of Nations in Geneva . Support for the League of Nations became the Conservative position on foreign policy in the general election of November 1935. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Britain at this time remained interested in pursuing friendship with Italy. Immediately after the election the British foreign secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare , and the French premier, Pierre Laval , put together a plan for the rescue of part of Ethiopia that required the cession of certain areas to Italy. This plan found its way into the press, provoking a general denunciation of compromise with evil. Hoare had to resign, and the first attempt at appeasement failed. By the spring of 1936, with the League of Nations still debating what to do about Italian aggression—specifically, whether to impose sanctions on oil—resistance in Ethiopia collapsed.

Meanwhile, on March 7, Hitler took advantage of the disarray in the west and broke the first of the territorial clauses of the Treaty of Versailles by sending troops into the Rhineland , the German territory to the west of the Rhine River bordering on Belgium and the Netherlands . The Rhineland occupation turned the balance of power in Europe toward Germany and against the west. Although in Britain there was virtually no reaction—after all, it was German territory—the effect on France, particularly on the French army command, was devastating. As a consequence, France virtually gave up the unilateral direction of its foreign affairs. Diplomatic initiative rested entirely in London . Now that it was too late, the 15-year rupture between Britain and France came to an end. In July 1936 revolution against the Republican government of Spain broke out, led by conservative forces within the Spanish army under the command of Gen. Francisco Franco . It quickly became apparent that the revolutionaries were supported by Italy and, to a lesser extent, Germany, not only with money and arms but also with men. The British reaction, adopted also by the French, was peculiar.

Although, according to public opinion polls begun in 1937, less than 3 percent of the British population favoured a Francoist victory, British policy was to forbid the supply of arms to either side. By this policy of nonintervention the British and the French avoided involvement in war against Franco and by implication against the Italian government. The pursuit of friendship with Italy could continue. Meanwhile, the democratic Spanish government was unable to buy arms from the Western democracies . Franco eventually triumphed in the spring of 1939. (See also Spanish Civil War .) Related Topics Peace of Paris Chamberlain was determined to continue the policy of accommodation with Italy. He was convinced that at some point it could be reunited with the Western allies and the Stresa Front could be recreated. Italian leader Benito Mussolini and officials of his government gave many private intimations that this might be possible. But at the same time Chamberlain was determined to pursue a general policy of European settlement that would include Germany. The prime minister and many Britons felt that Germany had been badly treated by the Treaty of Versailles and that the principle of self-determination dictated that German minorities in other countries should not be prevented from joining Germany if they clearly chose to do so.

Hence, when Germany overran the Austrian republic in March 1938 and incorporated the small state into the Reich (see Anschluss ), Britain took no action. Similarly, when almost immediately Hitler began to denounce what he characterized as the Czech persecutions of the militant German minority in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia , Chamberlain searched for a means not to prevent the Czech borderland from being transferred to Germany but to ensure that it was accomplished peacefully. Because Czechoslovakia had a military alliance with France, war would surely result if it resisted the Germans and called upon French aid. The attempted settlement of the Sudeten crisis, culminating in the Munich Agreement , was the climax of the appeasement policy. Between September 15 and 30, 1938, Chamberlain traveled to Germany three times to meet Hitler. From the last meeting, held at Munich on September 30, he took back what he believed to be an agreement that the German portions of Czechoslovakia constituted Hitler’s last territorial claim in Europe and that Germany, as well as Britain, would renounce war as a means of settling international claims.

He had, he said with some pride, brought “peace for our time.” Chamberlain’s policy failed because he believed that Hitler sincerely aimed only at reuniting Germans, whereas in fact Hitler’s appetite for territory, particularly to the east, was unlimited. On March 15, 1939, the German army, virtually without warning, occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, even though it was not inhabited by Germans. On March 18 Chamberlain, distinctly angry, made an announcement that amounted to the end of appeasement; in the following weeks Britain offered a guarantee of Polish territory (where Hitler would clearly be looking next), signed a military alliance with Poland , and undertook serious preparation for war, including the first peacetime military conscription. World War II The Polish crisis precipitated the war. Through the summer of 1939, German propaganda grew more strident, demanding cession to Germany of the city of Gdańsk (Danzig) while gradually escalating demands for special rights in, and finally annexation of, the Polish corridor.

Because the only country able to defend Poland was the Soviet Union , a British-French mission in the summer of 1939 began negotiations for a treaty with Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin . Poland, however, announced that it would not allow Soviet troops to enter Polish territory, even for the purpose of defending the country against Germany. Hitler put a stop to these negotiations on August 23 when he announced the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact . On September 1 German troops invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3. The phases of war From the British perspective, World War II fell readily into three distinct phases. The first, the so-called phony war and the period of German victories in the west, ended with the decision of France on June 18, 1940, to ask for an armistice with Germany. The second, heroic phase, when Britain stood alone, began with the battle for survival in the air over the British Isles and ended in the first week of December 1941 with the successful Soviet defense of Moscow after Hitler’s attack on June 22 and with the Japanese declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire on December 7.

Then followed what Churchill termed the period of the Grand Alliance, lasting from December 1941 until Germany’s capitulation in May 1945. Perhaps the most important event of the first phase was the announcement on September 3, 1939, that Churchill, assumed to have reached the end of his career in 1936 as a result of his having embraced the king’s cause during the abdication crisis, would reenter the government as first lord of the admiralty. Churchill thus was in charge of the Royal Navy on April 9 and 10, 1940, when Hitler without warning overran Denmark and Norway , greatly extending his northern flank and virtually destroying the naval blockade of Germany that had been established at the beginning of the war. The Norwegian campaign destroyed the Chamberlain government. The obviously poor planning and the incapacity of the British forces in an area where the Germans were at a serious disadvantage caused a rebellion within the Conservative Party. A bitter debate lasting from May 7 to May 9, 1940, resulted in Chamberlain’s resignation the next day.

Although Churchill himself, as first lord of the admiralty, was heavily involved and did not attempt to deny his responsibility, Chamberlain quickly discovered that the coalition government he hoped to establish with either himself or Lord Halifax as prime minister could, at the insistence of the Labour Party, be headed only by Churchill. Thus, on May 10 Churchill was announced as prime minister. Chamberlain, to his immense credit, consented to remain in the cabinet and to control, on Churchill’s behalf, the Conservative Party. Winston Churchill, photographed by Yousuf Karsh, 1941. Karsh/Woodfin Camp and Associates On the same day, May 10, 1940, the German army struck in the west against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg . France held out for just 38 days. (Listen to an excerpt of Churchill’s first address to the House of Commons as prime minister, on May 13, 1940.) When on June 18 the French government resolved to ask for an armistice, Churchill announced on the radio that Britain would fight on alone; it would be the nation’s “finest hour.” So began the second phase of World War II for Britain.

Through August and September 1940 Britain’s fate depended upon 800 fighter airplanes and upon Churchill’s resolution during the terrific bombardment that became the Battle of Britain . In the last six months of 1940, some 23,000 civilians were killed, and yet the country held on. Perhaps the important political lesson of World War II lay in the realization that a democratic country, with a centuries-old tradition of individual liberty, could with popular consent be mobilized for a gigantic national effort. The compulsory employment of labour became universal for both men and women. In 1943 Britain was devoting 54 percent of its gross national product to the war. Medical services were vastly extended. Civilian consumption was reduced to 80 percent of the prewar level. Yet by and large the political tensions that had accompanied an equally desperate war 25 years before did not appear. Politics, as opposed to the direction of the war, certainly for the voters, became almost irrelevant. There was some parliamentary criticism of Churchill’s leadership, but public approval, at least as measured by repeated opinion polls, hardly wavered.

Nonetheless, the idea of a “united” country was overplayed then, and, in the eyes of some, has been overplayed since. The old divisions of class and gender were never far below the surface, and it is only with considerable qualification that World War II can be called the People’s War. Political developments German hostilities in the west ended at midnight on May 8, 1945. Six months earlier Churchill had promised in the House of Commons that he would ask the king to dissolve the sitting Parliament, elected in 1935, soon after the German surrender unless the Labour and Liberal parties seriously desired to continue the coalition government. Accordingly, he began conversations with Clement Attlee , the leader of the Labour Party, in the middle of May, proposing that Labour remain in the coalition until Japan surrendered, an event he estimated to be at least 18 months away. Churchill believed Attlee to have been initially sympathetic, but other members of the Labour Party pressed for departure. As a result, Churchill dissolved the government on May 23, appointed a new, single-party Conservative government, and set election day for July 5.

Because it was necessary to count the military vote, the results could not be announced until July 26. Clement Attlee. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Considering that the leading figures in each party had been cabinet colleagues only a few weeks before, the electoral campaign was remarkably bitter. Largely on the advice of William Maxwell Aitken , Baron Beaverbrook, the Conservatives focused chiefly on Churchill himself as the man who had won the war. Churchill denounced Labour as the party of socialism and perhaps of totalitarianism while promising strong leadership and grand but unspecific measures of social reform. Labour, even though the war in the Pacific continued, concentrated on peacetime reconstruction and fair shares for all. Quite clearly, Churchill’s rhetoric and his attacks on former comrades angered many voters. But the mood in the country that gave Labour its overwhelming victory was obviously determined by the recollection of the hardships of the 1920s and ’30s; Britons voted against Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain. In the end Labour won 393 seats, almost double the Conservative total of 213 and far more than it had expected.

On July 26, 1945, as soon as the results were clear, Churchill resigned and Attlee became prime minister. United Kingdom - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) The United Kingdom is an island country of western Europe. It consists of four parts: England, Scotland, and Wales, which occupy the island of Great Britain, and Northern Ireland, on the island of Ireland. The country’s full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Sometimes the name Great Britain, or simply Britain, is used for the country as a whole. The capital of the United Kingdom is London, located on the Thames River in southeastern England. Area 93,628 square miles (242,495 square kilometers). Population (2016 est.) 65,630,000. Article Contributors BBC News | UK | Abdication: The story so far... Wednesday, 1 March, 2000, 13:35 GMT Abdication: The story so far... Edward abdicated in 1936 so he could marry a divorcee What was the abdication crisis?

In January 1936 George V died and his son Edward VIII - the current Queen's uncle - acceded to the throne. "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love" Extract from Edward's abdication speech In November of that year Edward told the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, that he intended to marry Wallis Simpson. She was an American socialite who had been divorced from her second husband only a month previously. But marriage to her was constitutionally impossible. The Church of England, of which the monarch is the head, did not allow divorcees to remarry. There was no precedent for the monarch to marry a commoner. The cabinet made it clear they would not accept it. Yet there was no provision in the British constitution for an abdication, either. In his abdication speech, Edward said the decision was "his alone" For about a month the elite furiously debated the issue, although according to the mores of the day the press was virtually silent and the public thus unaware of the crisis.

Edward decided to go ahead with an abdication, which he did in December 1936. His brother, George VI - the current Queen's father - took over. Who was Sir Walter Monckton? Sir Walter, later Viscount Monckton, was Edward's lawyer and confidant throughout the crisis and in the years immediately afterward. Lord Monckton: Lawyer and confidant He drafted the Instrument of Abdication - the legal document which enabled Edward to stand down. He also acted as go-between between Edward and other major players, including George VI, the Queen Mother, the Queen and Winston Churchill. He gave his archive of documents of this time to his old college, Balliol at Oxford University, in 1950. They were given to the university's Bodleian library in 1974. Most of it was immediately open to the public, but 11 boxes were, in line with Public Record Office policy, restricted for 50 years. Lord Monckton died in 1965. What happened after the abdication? Upon abdication, Edward and Mrs Simpson were created the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and went to France in voluntary exile.

They married in June 1937 and had a whirlwind social life. The Queen Mother was furious that George VI had to become king But the country and the Royal Family was deeply divided by the scandal - the biggest weathered by the monarchy this century. It began a lengthy and bitter feud between Edward, and George and his wife, the current Queen Mother. Shortly afterwards, Lord Monckton broke the news that the new King would no longer take the Duke's telephone calls. The Queen Mother described the Duchess as the "lowest of the low", and reportedly blamed George's premature death in 1952 on the stresses of kingship. The Duchess was not recognised by Buckingham Palace until 1963, when she and Edward returned for a brief visit to Britain. The couple had no children. They both died in Paris - the Duke in 1972, and the Duchess in 1986. What did it have to do with Hitler? Edward is widely believed to have sympathised with Nazi Germany - but the extent of his involvement with the regime is still hotly debated.

The couple are greeted by Hitler in 1937 It is known that the Duke and Duchess met Hitler in Munich in 1937 (while ostensibly on a tour to study housing and social policies). It is also known that Edward sent Hitler at least one telegraph - on August 24, 1939, 10 days before the outbreak of WWII. In that he wrote of "my entirely personal, simple though very earnest appeal for your utmost influence towards a peaceful solution of the present problems". Hitler replied that it depended "upon England whether my wishes for the future development of Anglo-German relations materialises". There has also been speculation about the circumstances in which the couple left France after it fell to Germany in 1940. They lived in the Bahamas from 1940 to 1945, where Edward served as governor. Edward and Mrs Simpson on their wedding day How much did it matter? Opinions vary, though some argue that Edward could have committed treason. Harold Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burkes' Peerage, says the whole affair could have had a huge impact on British history. "An association between Great Britain and Nazi Germany would have been disastrous," he said.

"I think Wallis saved the crown and to some extent saved Great Britain." Are there more papers to come? One box of the Monckton 11, which had been expected to be opened on Wednesday, was withdrawn until 2037. The couple visited Britain in 1963 It is thought that this may contain the most sensitive documents of all the correspondence, and in particular throw light on the Queen Mother's role in the crisis. Other papers relating to the crisis are closed in various archives until January 2017, others for even longer. The Royal Family remains deeply sensitive about the issue. The Queen Mother has never spoken publicly about it - and Prince Edward did not interview her for his recent television biography, "Edward on Edward". Buckingham Palace has made no comment on the Monckton archive.

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Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use. Subscriber: University of Washington; date: 20 January 2017 Abdication Crisis A Dictionary of Contemporary World History Author(s): Jan Palmowski Abdication Crisis (UK) This crisis in the British establishment was provoked by King Edward VIII 's desire to marry a twice-divorced American, Wallis Simpson. He made this announcement to senior politicians and churchmen on 16 November 1936. Prime Minister Baldwin , the Cabinet, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Cosmo Lang), and the Dominions' representatives were all vehemently opposed to passing the special legislation necessary, partly on the grounds that marriage to a divorcee would be inconsistent with the King's role as head of the Church of England. One compromise proposed by Edward was a ‘morganatic marriage’, whereby Wallis Simpson would not acquire his rank: he could become King, but she would not become Queen. This was also rejected by the political and religious leaders.

The British press did not cover the crisis until 3 December, by which time the abdication was virtually certain, as the political parties all agreed that the King should accept the advice of his ministers. Edward announced his abdication on 11 December, and was succeeded by his brother George VI . Was This Useful? Edward VIII facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Edward VIII COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. Edward VIII Edward VIII (1894-1972) was King of England for only one year, 1936, abdicating the throne to marry the "woman I love," the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson. He was Duke of Windsor after his abdication. The eldest son of George, Duke of York, and his wife, Princess Mary of Tech, Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David was born on June 23, 1894, at Richmond Park, Surrey. Upon the death of the gregarious Edward VII in May 1910, the young Prince's father became George V and Prince Edward became the heir to the throne.

The new king and queen were strict, serious, and self-disciplined parents who sought to imbue their children with a strong sense of duty. In order to prepare Prince Edward for his future responsibilities, his parents decided to have him trained for the Royal Navy. Accordingly, he was sent to Osborne in 1907 and from 1909 to 1911 attended the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. There he was treated like the other cadets, a novel situation which he much enjoyed. In 1911 he was invested as Prince of Wales in an impressive ceremony at Caernarvon Castle, Wales. To complete his education he was sent to Oxford in 1912, where he studied—not very strenuously—until the outbreak of World War I. During the war the prince served as an aide-de-camp to the commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France, Gen. Sir John French. Although he was in a position of considerable trust, he was gravely disappointed that he was not allowed to be sent to the front. "What difference does it make if I am killed?" he asked.

"The King has three other sons." His observation of the conduct of the war and the death and devastation which it caused affected him deeply, as it did many other members of his generation, making him loathe war and desire constructive social change. Conduct as Prince After the war the prince began his true career as prince of Wales, participating in many royal ceremonial duties and, by touring the dominions and other countries, serving as a goodwill ambassador. Prince Edward filled the role admirably: he was probably history's most popular prince of Wales up to that time—a handsome, sociable, debonair young man with considerable charm and a skilled conversationalist endowed with a natural and spontaneous, if rather superficial, sympathy. His activities were recorded enthusiastically in the press, and he was accorded a status very like that of a rock idol of the 1980s, complete with a sycophantic entourage and groupies. As the heir apparent to the world's most prestigious constitutional monarchy, he was expected to be both discreet and wise. As he was naturally neither, his activities sometimes caused friction between him and his parents.

His expression of compassion for the wretched unemployed miners of Wales ("Something must be done") for example, earned his father's disapproval because of its possible political implications. His parents also strongly disapproved of the rather "fast" and trendy company he kept and of his unfortunate tendency to fall in love with married women. In June 1931 Prince Edward met Wallis Warfield Simpson, the 33-year-old wife of a well-to-do American-born British subject, Ernest Simpson. Wallis Simpson herself was American-born and bred and grew up in a wealthy Maryland family. She was sent to private schools and made her debut in Baltimore in 1914. In 1916 she married a Navy pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Earl Spenser Junior. The marriage was not a success, and after separations and attempts at reconciliation it ended in divorce in 1927. While touring Europe with her aunt, Wallis met London resident Ernest Simpson and they were married in 1928. Wallis adjusted quickly to life as a wealthy wife in London and became a fashionable hostess.

As they moved in the same social circles, it was inevitable that she and the Prince of Wales should meet, and when they did, an immediate friendship sprang up between them which rapidly became a love affair of great intensity. Although their relationship was an open secret in royal and fashionable upper class circles and was the subject of some comment in the foreign press, the British press maintained a decorous and self-imposed silence on the subject. The Abdication Crisis When George V died on January 20, 1936, Prince Edward became King Edward VIII. Despite his family's disapproval (because the monarch is the head of the Church of England and also is seen to serve as the exemplar of the British way of life, with an emphasis on domesticity and morality), King Edward continued his liaison with Mrs. Simpson. Their vacation together aboard a yacht in the summer of 1936 was sensationally reported in the foreign press and caused considerable anxiety in British royal and governmental circles. The crisis began in October 1936, when Wallis Simpson was granted a decree nisi—a divorce which would become final in six months—from Ernest Simpson.

A few weeks later the king told the prime minister, the staid Conservative Stanley Baldwin, that he wanted to marry Wallis Simpson and that if he could not do so and remain king, he was "prepared to go." The prime minister, with the support of the cabinet, the hierarchy of the Church of England, the rest of the royal family, and the bulk of public opinion at home and in the dominions, told the king he could not, as King of England, marry a woman who was twice divorced. The king, with some support from a "King's Party" consisting of Winston Churchill and press magnates Lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere, hoped he could, and desparately sought a solution. The idea of a morganatic marriage, in which the king would legally marry a woman who would not be raised to his royal rank, was suggested but ultimately rejected as being a concept alien to the English constitution. Finally, on December 10, 1936, after days of wild newspaper speculation about the constitutional crisis, the king abdicated.

He could not, as he said in his famous radio speech on December 11, 1936, continue to perform his duties without the support of the "woman I love," and he left the throne to his brother, who became George VI. Throughout the crisis Edward, separated, if only temporarily, from his beloved Wallis, plagued by the controversies reported in the press, unable to find (or unwilling to listen to) wise advisers, and under great stress, acted inconsistently and unwisely. And if no other vindication for the views and actions of Baldwin and his party existed, it would be enough that the abdication of a popular king was accepted by the public so calmly and the succession of a new monarch occurred so smoothly. Edward lived for another 35 years, but the rest of his life, though far from uneventful, served as an epilogue to the abdication crisis. He left England for Europe immediately after the abdication and, as soon as her divorce became final, married Wallis on June 3, 1937.

Edward was created duke of Windsor upon his brother's succession; several months later he—but not his wife—was granted the title of "Royal Highness," a slight which hurt the duke deeply and which he continued to feel for the rest of his life. After their marriage the duke and duchess lived in considerable style in France, where they bought a villa on the Riviera. In 1937 they made a much-publicized trip to Hitler's Germany. Although the duke's purpose—to view German labor conditions, a topic in which he had been much interested since his Prince of Wales days—was blameless, and although he was not the only prominent Englishman to visit and even to express admiration for German efficiency in the mid-1930s, he was at the time and thereafter blamed for being sympathetic to the Nazi cause. Service in World War II Upon the outbreak of World War II the duke hurried to England to offer his services to the government. Then, as later, the government did not quite know what to do with him. He had left the throne under something of a cloud, and he was estranged from his family. After some hesitation he was given the job of liaison officer between the British and French high commands in France.

He retained this position until shortly before the fall of France, when he fled with his wife first to Spain and then to Portugal. While in the Iberian Peninsula in the summer of 1940 he was the subject of much Nazi interest. A shadowy plot was hatched through which the Nazis hoped to use the duke, whom they felt was a friend of Germany, to overthrow the British government. The details of the plot and the duke's part in it—or even his awareness of it—remain obscure, and on August 1, 1940, the duke and duchess sailed for the Bahamas, of which the duke had been appointed governor and where they remained until 1945. After the war the Windsors returned to Europe and lived as international jet-setters. They were, by all accounts, a devoted couple. They had a home in Paris, a country house outside Paris, wintered in Biarritz, and spent several months every year in New York. The duke had much leisure to pursue his interests, which included golf and gardening, and the duchess, whose interests were mainly social, entertained and was entertained frequently.

In 1951 he published A King's Story, his version of the abdication crisis. Her autobiography, The Heart Has Its Reasons, appeared in 1956. In 1972, while dying from throat cancer, the duke was reconciled with his family at last. His niece, Queen Elizabeth II, with her husband and oldest son, came to visit the duke and duchess in Paris. He died a few days later, on May 28, 1972, and was buried at Windsor. At the funeral his wife was scrupulously accorded the respect appropriate to her rank. The duchess returned to France immediately after the funeral, where she, increasingly infirm, retired from all active life. She died April 24, 1986. Further Reading There is a wealth of material on the Duke of Windsor— biographies, autobiographies, and monographs—much of it poorly researched. The best place to start is with the duke's autobiography, A King's Story (1951), and with the duchess's The Heart Has Its Reasons (1956), which present their views on the abdication crisis.

Many books simply and uncritically glamorize the story, such as Geoffrey Dennis' Coronation Commentary (1937) and Ursula Bloom's The Duke of Windsor (1972). Of greater interest because of his personal participation in the events of 1936, but still flattering to the duke, is Lord Beaverbrook's The Abdication of King Edward VIII (1966). Highly readable but superficial, The Woman He Loved, by Ralph G. Martin, was published in 1973. Books expressing views critical of the duke have been published since the 1930s. Among these are Hector Bolitho's King Edward VIII: An Intimate Biography (1937) and Brian Inglis' Abdication (1966). Frances Donaldson's Edward VIII (1974) is a learned, well-documented biography based on many primary sources and interviews which provides a portrait of a man who was stubbornly wrong-headed and almost self-destructively unwise. Two books on the duke are concerned with his relationship with the Nazis in 1940.

Peter Allen's The Crown and the Swastika: Hitler, Hess and the Duke of Windsor (1983) takes an extreme view of the duke's activities, charging him with either treason or nearly criminal stupidity. Michael Bloch's Operation Willi: The Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor July 1940 (1984) is a detailed and interesting account of the events of July 1940 in which the duke is depicted as a loyal Briton but an unwise and indecisive man. Bloch also edited Wallis and Edward Letters, 1931-1937: The Intimate Correspondence of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (1986). Additional Sources The Oxford Companion to British History © The Oxford Companion to British History 2002, originally published by Oxford University Press 2002. Edward VIII (1894–1972), king of Great Britain and Ireland , emperor of India (1936). Edward was the eldest son of George, duke of York, later King George V. His parents were strict disciplinarians, and his private tuition was seriously deficient.

But an easy-going manner and outward-looking personality more than counterbalanced these disadvantages. A brief period at Oxford was followed by non-combatant but arduous service in the British Expeditionary Force in France . As heir to the throne he was not permitted to serve in the front line, but none the less courted danger—and achieved genuine popularity—in visiting the troops, sharing their cigarettes, and listening to their stories. Edward, much like his grandfather Edward VII, was ‘one of the boys’, able to communicate with ordinary people at their level—a refreshing antidote to the austere George V and the prudish Queen Mary. In 1919, at Lloyd George's suggestion, he undertook a tour of Canada and the USA; in 1920 he visited Australia and New Zealand , and toured India and the Far East in 1921–2; in 1925 and 1931 he journeyed to South America . All these voyages were resounding successes, demonstrating that the British monarchy took its imperial role seriously. But Edward had two weaknesses. Each, by itself, need not have been constitutionally fatal: together, they cost him his throne.

Edward was a notorious ‘ladies' man’, engaging in a succession of sexual liaisons with married women, one of whom, Lady Furness, introduced him to Mrs Wallis Simpson , with whom he became infatuated. He also revelled in his assumed role as the champion of the common man. He made it his business to visit the depressed areas, and his public statements, though they could be construed as nothing more than sympathy for the plight of the deprived, might also be interpreted as critical of current social and economic policy, and thus as political pronouncements. Most famous, or infamous, in this category was a donation of £10 he made to a relief fund set up for the miners after the collapse of the General Strike (1926) had left them at the mercy of the coal-owners. The donation was made (the covering letter explained), because ‘it would be an unsatisfactory end to any dispute that one side should have to give in on account of the sufferings of their dependants’. Never before—or since—has the heir to the throne made such a blatant intervention in a matter of public controversy.

The altruism and generosity of the donation may be applauded, but it made Edward many enemies within the Conservative Party (then in office), and marked him out as a future monarch whose judgement (as they saw it) could no more be trusted in matters of constitutional propriety than in matters pertaining to the sanctity of the marriage contract. Edward's infatuation with Mrs Simpson was not reported in the British press, but within ruling circles was a matter of common knowledge. Wallis came from humble stock in Baltimore . Her first marriage, to an American naval officer, had ended in divorce; she married again, to an English businessman, Ernest Simpson, and lived in London. She lacked beauty, but compensated with sophistication, charm, and measured informality. Edward was not content to have her as a mistress. He determined to make her his wife. Mr Simpson acquiesced in a divorce, which was granted nisi, at Ipswich, at the end of October 1936. By then Edward had been on the throne for nine months. His brief reign was dominated by ‘the King's matter’. Stanley Baldwin , the prime minister, advised that a marriage to Mrs Simpson would not be popular.

Whilst it is impossible to test the truth of this statement, and whilst the king could certainly have married his mistress and insisted on retaining his throne, had he wished, it is equally true that some of those who supported him, such as the British Union of Fascists , were peripheral elements in British public life, whilst others, such as Winston Churchill , were mavericks. It was not so much that Mrs Simpson was a commoner: rather, she was an American, twice-divorced commoner. Edward's suggestion that a morganatic marriage be contracted—she would be his wife but not his queen—was counter-productive, since it implied that she was unfit to be queen. Rank-and-file Conservatives regarded the king's morals as an affront to Christian values; but unlike his grandfather, he now proposed to compound sin by marrying the mistress whose bed he shared. They were reminded, too, of his embarrassing political interventions. During a visit to south Wales , in mid-November 1936, the king fuelled this prejudice by remarking, in relation to the unemployed, that ‘something must be done to find them work’—a comment widely interpreted as an attack on Conservative economic policy.

Baldwin was not prepared to countenance a morganatic marriage; neither was Attlee , the Labour leader, nor were the dominion prime ministers. On 10 December Edward signed the instrument of abdication, and ceased to be king the following day, when he and Wallis travelled to France, where they were married by a Church of England parson acting without his bishop's authority. The new king, Edward's younger brother George, agreed to confer on him the title duke of Windsor; but Wallis was not permitted officially to call herself HRH. Relations between Edward and the royal family were, and remained, bitter. It was said that he had brought the monarchy into disrepute, and it was also feared that he would be regarded as a king in exile, and a threat to his brother. Edward's much publicized visit to Hitler (October 1937) was not so much sinister as naïve. None the less, when Edward and Wallis fled to fascist Spain after the fall of France, Churchill, now prime minister, packed them off to the Bahamas, of which Edward became governor. His wartime meetings with American President F. D. Roosevelt caused further embarrassments.

But when, following his death in Paris , he was buried in the royal mausoleum at Frogmore, Wallis was permitted to be present at the interment. Edward was a weak and in some important respects a selfish man. His political judgement was unsound, but there is probably some truth in the view that during the inter-war period he gave the British monarchy the human face so lacking in his austere, class-prejudiced parents. Geoffrey Alderman The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright The Columbia University Press Edward VIII, 1894–1972, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1936), known in later years as the duke of Windsor; eldest son of George V . He attended the naval colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth and Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1911 he was made prince of Wales. During World War I he served as a staff officer in France, Italy, and Egypt. Between 1919 and 1936 he made state trips to the United States, Japan, South America, and the dominions. On the death of his father (Jan., 1936), Edward succeeded to the throne.

He enjoyed immense popularity with his subjects until the crisis precipitated by the announcement of his intention to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson (see Windsor, Wallis Warfield, duchess of ), an American then suing her second husband for divorce. The government, headed by Stanley Baldwin , opposed the marriage, and the issue developed into a struggle between monarch and cabinet. Edward insisted on his right to marry the woman of his choice, even though her marital background made her unacceptable to the public and the government. The government saw in his challenge to its wishes a threat to constitutional procedure. A proposal that there should be some kind of morganatic marriage came to nothing. Since no resolution seemed possible, the king executed a deed of abdication, ending a 325-day reign as the first English monarch to relinquish his throne voluntarily. On Dec. 11, 1936, Parliament passed a bill of abdication, and Edward's younger brother became King George VI . The ex-king was granted the title of duke of Windsor. On June 3, 1937, he married Wallis Warfield in France. In 1937, on a trip to Germany, he visited Adolf Hitler and other Nazi officials.

In World War II the duke went to France as a major general, serving briefly as a liaison officer between British and French headquarters. From 1940 to 1945 he was governor of the Bahamas. After that time he lived in France but traveled a great deal. He died in Paris but was buried at Windsor. See his memoirs, A King's Story (1951); biography by F. Donaldson (1975). Cite this article

Question: Who was Prime Minister of Great Britain during the Edward VIII abdication crisis?
Answer: Stanley Baldwin