![]() ![]() ![]() Joachim von Ribbentrop, close friend to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, thought so as well. Some scholars have speculated that the king’s Nazi sympathies-rather than his romantic ties-were the true motivation behind the political push for his abdication. Indeed, according to Andrew Morton’s book 17 Carnations: The Royals, The Nazis and the Biggest Cover-Up in History, the king urged Baldwin to take no action against the Nazis after they occupied the Rhineland in March 1936. “I am convinced his friendly disposition towards Germany will have some influence on the formation of British foreign policy,” the German ambassador to Great Britain reported in 1936. When the Nazis came to power, Edward welcomed it as a counterweight to the Soviet Communists, whom he had never forgiven for killing his godfather, Czar Nicholas II, in 1918. Indeed, German bloodlines ran deep in the British royal family, and the king spoke fluent German and traveled to Germany regularly in his student days. “Every drop of blood in my veins is German,” he once bragged to the wife of British Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. Many wonder, however, if the opposite would have occurred had Edward VIII remained on the throne. Edward's Nazi Sympathies May Have Prompted Abdication PushĨth December 1936: Latest newspaper editions on sale, with up to date news of Edward VIII’s abdication. The fortitude demonstrated by King George VI against the Nazis strengthened the bond between the monarchy and the British public. During the London Blitz, the royal family endeared itself to its subjects by remaining at Buckingham Palace, even after it took nine direct hits, and visiting heavily damaged sections of the East End. Painfully shy and plagued by a stammer since childhood, the reluctant King George VI proved to be a popular sovereign. A week later, the king signed away his throne.Įdward VIII had not even ruled long enough to make it to his planned coronation, but the ceremony continued as scheduled on May 12, 1937, with the crown being placed on the head of his younger brother, Bertie. On December 3, the crisis finally became front-page news in Britain and debated openly in Parliament. Baldwin rejected the monarch’s proposal for a so-called morganatic marriage, in which his wife would be granted no rights, rank or property. Given the king’s role as titular head of the Church of England, which deemed remarriage after divorce morally wrong, the prime minister protested that a twice-divorced American would be unacceptable as a British queen and would result in the cabinet’s resignation. Simpson obtained a preliminary decree of divorce and the king informed Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in November of his intentions to marry her, however, a constitutional crisis erupted. ![]() The relationship was known to Scotland Yard detectives, who secretly followed the couple, and to British journalists, but not to their readers, who were kept in the dark for much of the king’s reign. The two had met in 1931 at a party thrown by Edward’s then-mistress, Lady Thelma Furness, and their romance continued after Edward ascended to the throne in January 1936. The object of the royal’s affection was a married American socialite working on her second divorce, Wallis Warfield Simpson. “I have found it impossible,” he confessed over the crackling airwaves, “to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties of king, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.” The next evening, millions of Britons huddled around their radios to listen to an address by their former king. With a scrawl of “Edward R.I.” at the bottom of a two-paragraph document, the 42-year-old bachelor king shocked the world on December 10, 1936, by signing away the crown and becoming the first English monarch to voluntary renounce the throne. This Day in History: - Edward VIII Abdicates ![]()
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