Which king abdicated to marry

With the death of George V on January 20, , the call to duty arrived for Edward. He immediately broke with tradition by watching the proclamation of his own accession, with Simpson by his side, and soon became the first British monarch to fly in a plane when he traveled to London for his Accession Council.

As feared by royal aides, Edward showed little interest in any sort of day-to-day governorship. He was mainly preoccupied with marrying Simpson, and from her husband, at least, there was no pushback, as the businessman agreed to let the king have his way.

Convincing the Church of England and the rest of the government was another story. Around the time Simpson was granted a preliminary divorce in October , Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin finally confronted Edward about the severity of the situation.

Over several meetings, he expressed his belief that the Edward-Wallis marriage would not be supported by the government or the British people and explained why Parliament, as representative of the people, could determine who was suitable to be queen. Edward proposed a morganatic marriage, in which Simpson would not receive a royal title, but this was rejected.

So, too, was Edward's request to make his case to his subjects by way of a radio address. With no path for compromise, Edward informed Baldwin on December 5 that he would abdicate.

A bill was introduced in the House of Commons on December 10, and two days later the Declaration of Abdication Act went into effect, formally freeing the former king of the "heavy burden" he spoke of. Now known as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Edward and Simpson spent much of their remaining years in France, at odds with the British royal family.

They were shipped off to serve as governor and first lady of the Bahamas through World War II, narrowly avoiding capture by Nazi agents. With George VI enduring a bout of poor health in the late s, royal insiders reportedly hatched a plan to have Edward reinstalled as regent over the young heir, George's daughter Elizabeth , should the king fail to recover.

She was now reduced to hanging around outside major social events waiting for the royal party to depart. Only then did she and the others tarred with the Simpson brush gain reluctant admission.

Others were equally guilty of studied betrayal. At a dinner a few weeks after the abdication, the Churchills, Chips Channon, and Lord and Lady Granard were among the party.

When the peer tactlessly attacked the former king and Mrs. Simpson to your house and put her on your right?

A long and embarrassed silence followed. After the fall came the deluge, as the woman in question faced a daily torrent of vitriol and anonymous hatred in the morning postbag at Lou Viei.

Herman [Rogers, a close friend of Simpson's for whom she reportedly had romantic feelings. She discovered that the Canadians were the most censorious, followed by British expats living in America.

These, though, were slim pickings. She could not continue this daily diet of venom for long, becoming so sick and depressed that Herman, seeing the effect on her, took charge. One morning he sat her down, held her hands, and had a long heart-to-heart conversation, sympathetically outlining the home truths she was deliberately avoiding. It makes me feel cheap.

It makes me feel disreputable. It makes me want to run away and hide. When he expressed a desire to marry Simpson, a crisis erupted: Edward was the head of Church of England. The Prime Minister at the time, Stanley Baldwin, visited the king on November 16 and told him the public would never accept their union.

On December 10, Baldwin entered British parliament with a document in his hand. He handed it to the speaker. Edward and Simpson moved to France. Essentially, however, they were exiled: they could not return home without the permission of his brother, the new King George VI, for fears it could cause public unrest. To keep him in line, the government threatened to suspend payments from his financial settlement. He was in office until March , two months before V-E Day. In September, he returned to England for the first time in nearly six years.

He was allowed one brief visit in —a trip to the War Office. By October, the prime minister was seriously alarmed: it had become obvious that Edward VIII was still determined to marry Wallis, and she was making plans to divorce her husband.

The compliant Ernest went along with the scheme, and gallantly undertook to pose as the adulterer. He took a family friend, Mary Raffray, to the Hotel de Paris at Bray, near Maidenhead, where they were duly spotted in bed together by hotel staff on two successive mornings.

The hotel was used to such ruses, and to supplying staff as witnesses in divorce cases, but the Simpsons had to be careful: if there was any suggestion of artificial collusion, the divorce could be denied — and it nearly happened. The decree nisi was granted but the couple would have to wait six months before it was made absolute and Edward and Wallis could marry. Baldwin had first discussed the case with the king a few days earlier.

He did not see the king again for a further month. Various solutions were discussed. The king could not be persuaded to give up Mrs Simpson and find someone more suitable. She in turn made only a half-hearted attempt to let him go. Edward made it clear that he was determined to marry her as soon as possible, and would rather abdicate otherwise. The possibility of a morganatic marriage — whereby Edward could marry Wallis but she would not be queen, and any children would not succeed to the throne — was briefly considered but the idea was quickly abandoned.

But ultimately even he came down on the side of abdication, though he used the crisis to remove all mention of the British monarch from the Irish constitution.

The storm broke in Britain only on 1 December, when the aptly named Bishop Blunt of Bradford told his diocesan synod that the king ought to live a more Christian life. Poor Blunt, who knew nothing of Mrs Simpson, merely meant that Edward VIII should show an example by attending church more regularly, but his words gave the British press the excuse they needed to break the story.

Pressure on the king was now steadily applied. He was cornered and forced to make a choice.