William Shawcross, the d.u.c.h.ess of York's official biographer, by way of defence quotes Elizabeth's distraught letter to her mother-in-law written some days later. 'I feel that the whole difficulty is a certain person,' the d.u.c.h.ess wrote. 'I do not feel that I can make advances to her & ask her to our house, as I imagine would be liked, and this fact is bound to make relations a little difficult ... the whole situation is complicated and horrible and I feel so unhappy about it sometimes.'

Not long afterwards, the d.u.c.h.ess of York wrote a kind and gentle letter to 'Darling David' thanking him for lending them Brickhall. But from now on her sweetness was derided as cloying. The relationship between the two brothers as well as that between the two women was irreparably damaged. In Aberdeen itself someone daubed a wall with graffiti: 'Down with the American harlot.' Six weeks later the Balmoral debacle had become such an issue that a joke went the rounds stating that when Wallis took a taxi and asked for King's Cross, the driver answered: 'I'm sorry, lady.' Chips Channon believed the weekend was a turning point. 'Aberdeen will never forgive him,' he reported six weeks later.

On their return from Scotland the King, somewhat reluctantly as he considered it oppressive and gloomy, finally took up residence at Buckingham Palace. He disliked eating meals there so would escape lunch and manage with just an orange all day; this became a lifelong habit. He rented a house for Wallis in Regent's Park at 16 c.u.mberland Terrace, one of the fine Nash terrace houses topped with magnificent ionic statuary on the outer circle of the Park. But it was being redecorated and not yet ready. So, after a brief spell at Claridge's, in early October she took up residence in Felixstowe, as required in order to establish residency (just as it had been in Warrenton nine years earlier), before her case could be heard at the local court. Her friends George and Kitty Hunter gallantly came to keep her company in the depressingly faded rented house and the King ordered a Scotland Yard detective to guard against intruders. From there she wrote to Ernest, stayi SErntedng with some Kerr-Smiley cousins who had taken pity on him. It was Sunday evening, two days before the case was heard. Wallis was feeling lower than she had for years. 'I really can't concentrate on ... anything at the moment my dear,' she told him, the only man she could still turn to.

I have had so MUCH trouble and complications with everyone. Also I am terrified of the court etc and the US press has done untold harm in every direction besides printing wicked lies I feel small and licked by it all. I shall come back Wednesday afternoon but remain in seclusion as last time I went out I was followed everywhere by cameramen, so horrible I can't think what sort of mess ... I am leaving for. I am sorry about the club ghosts, I am sorry about Mary I am sorry for myself. I am sorry for the King. I hate the U.S. press, I hate stuffy British minds and last but not least I don't understand myself, which is the cause of all the misery.

Give me courage.

2.15 Tuesday.

Love Wallis.

I am so lonely.

Although the British press was still heavily self-censored (with the exception of Cavalcade, a magazine unafraid of publishing pictures of Wallis and the King), American magazines were sold in Britain but with whole pages scissored out. It was easy enough for those with access to international news to read expansive accounts of the affair. The coverage was, Nancy Dugdale confided to her diary, 'vulgar in the extreme'. The American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst had weeks beforehand sent over one of his top reporters, Adela Rogers St Johns, who worked on the story for months interviewing anyone close to the couple. One enterprising reporter in New York had traced Ernest's first wife Dorothea, who issued a statement saying: 'If what the newspapers say of my former husband's present financial standing is true, Audrey and I wish he could find it possible to provide adequately for her education and maintenance ...' Wallis decided that she now needed to have some society photographs taken, so she arranged to sit for the fashionable photographer Cecil Beaton.

If Wallis had any lingering doubts about how excited the American and international press was by her story, the arrival of hundreds of clamouring journalists at Ipswich dispelled them. Policemen outside the court smashed two press cameras with their truncheons as Wallis, wearing a simple and carefully chosen navy-blue double-breasted coat, with a matching skirt and navy-blue felt hat with veil, had to be hustled through the throng to enter the courtroom. Once inside she sat, immobile, in the barristers' well with a lawyer either side of her surrounded by seven policemen and four plainclothes detectives. The judge, described by Time magazine as 'the jovial, golfing Sir John Anthony Hawke, who was for five years attached to the present King in the capacity of Attorney General to the Prince of Wales', opened by asking why the case had come to Ipswich. After some hurried whispering and nodding he carried on.

Wallis was led through her questions by her a.s.sured barrister, Norman Birkett KC , and rarely had to say anything other than answer in the affirmative. Asked if, from the autumn of 1934 she had complained about her husband's indifference and the way he often went away for weekends alone, she answered, 'Yes, I did.'

st="0"> But the essential piece of evidence that Ernest Simpson had been served breakfast in bed at the Hotel de Paris with a woman who was not his wife was not in doubt. Ernest, who did not defend the case and was thus spared taking the witness stand, had hoped that his companion could remain nameless, and indeed the first pet.i.tion did not name her. But within a day of lodging his statement, having been told that the absence of any name might lead to worse problems as the press ferreted one out, he agreed to name the woman as Mrs Elizabeth Kennedy, known as b.u.t.tercup. She was almost certainly Mary Raffray, the name probably deriving from a hat she once wore, and the mild subterfuge is typical of Ernest trying to act the gentleman. He would have hated the idea of taking a paid stranger to bed for this purpose and yet equally he could not possibly allow Mary to be publicly named.10 It was all over in fourteen minutes and Birkett asked for a decree nisi to be granted with costs. Hawke hesitated at first, apparently puzzled by the request, but concluded: 'I suppose I must in these unusual circ.u.mstances. So you have it with costs.'11 'King's Moll Reno'd in Wolsey's Home Town' was one of the less lurid headlines that appeared in the American press. 'Cutie Simpson cuts out bloodless British women in royal choice' was another. Others announced that the King, who as long as he remained on the throne was immune from investigation himself, was to 'Wed Wally' and some even gave a date for the forthcoming nuptials.

Wallis returned immediately to London and dined that night with the King. Only now did he tell her of the visit he had had one week previously from Prime Minister Baldwin. His deliberate shielding of this fact from her until after the hearing reveals his awareness of Wallis's nervous and volatile state. On 20 October Baldwin had been summoned from Downing Street 'and made aware of the King's firm intention of marrying Mrs Simpson. As can well be imagined,' wrote Nancy Dugdale, 'the shock was severe. This twice divorced woman of low birth with an intermittent career of coquetry behind her, whose first marriage was dissolved in America; whose second marriage took place in England where it is doubtful if her first divorce would be acknowledged as legal, whom the king now proposed should take Queen Mary's place.' Nancy Dugdale, of all those close to events, might have been expected to be sympathetic towards Wallis since she was divorced herself, following a painful and abusive first marriage. That even she so bitterly opposed the idea of Wallis Simpson marrying the King is indicative of the widespread reverence for the inst.i.tution of the monarchy and of the views of most who met Wallis at this fraught time that she was 'a third cla.s.s kind of woman ... but no heart' or 'a hard bitten b.i.t.c.h'.

In the autumn of 1936 Stanley Baldwin was sixty-nine, hard of hearing and, as he had told close colleagues, ready to retire. He had only recently returned to active politics after three months' rest following exhaustion and felt that his duty was to remain at the helm in a crisis, if at all possible. His private view of Wallis was relatively broad-minded; he 'wouldn't mind if she were a respectable wh.o.r.e ... kept out of the public view'. But he did not relish the prospect of discussing with the King his personal life and had declined earlier suggestions from Palace officials and government ministers that he should do so. 'Poor Stan how he hated the idea,' his wife recorded in her diary. Nonetheless he u Sethernment minderstood the necessity of facing the King and so on 20 October he went to Fort Belvedere and did his duty. He urged the King, who was 'at his most courteous and nicest', to call off the divorce. Later, recounting the events of that day to the influential Australian High Commissioner, Stanley Bruce, Baldwin told how the the King had insisted that he could not possibly interfere in a private decision taken by Mrs Simpson which he had nothing to do with whatever. 'This statement, the PM said quite bluntly, was a lie.' 'Poor S', wrote Lucy immediately afterwards, 'asked for a whisky and soda in the middle of the confab for he felt the strain of it all intensely.' There are various accounts of this first meeting, which the Prime Minister kept secret 'except for 3 or 4 of his elder colleagues'. According to his niece Monica Baldwin, recounting the conversation as told to her by her uncle: I said to him, was it absolutely necessary that he should marry her? In their peculiar circ.u.mstances certain things are sometimes permitted to Royalty which are not allowed to the ordinary man.

To this he replied immediately: 'Oh there's no question of that. I am going to marry her ...'

Baldwin's suggestion to the King that he could keep Mrs Simpson as his lover, just not marry her, may not have been made on this occasion. 12 But it was certainly what he felt. He had even discussed it with Archbishop Lang, who responded, not unreasonably, that this would be a difficult line for a man of the cloth to advocate. The King himself affected, somewhat disingenuously, to be shocked by the hypocrisy of the suggestion. But in fact the exchange reveals a deep-seated belief in the 1930s in the importance of maintaining public standards, just as it indicates the distance between private mores and public values, a distinction that was considered virtuous until the 1960s. Thus Violet Bonham-Carter, daughter of the former Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and an active Liberal politician herself in the 1930s, was echoing the views of many in 1936 Britain when she admitted to Churchill that the King faced 'a dilemma that many human beings have had to face and meet with less at stake. Many after all have died for this country not so long ago. The sacrifice now demanded falls far short of life.'

If the King's Proctor were to be involved in investigating that the decree had not been obtained by agreement or even by faked evidence, that the wife had not herself committed adultery and that there was no omission of material facts, it would be now, once the first stage of the divorce had been granted. Any private citizen could (on the payment of half-a-crown) intervene to 'show cause' why any decree nisi should not be made absolute. It was not long before Mr Francis Stephenson, an elderly gentleman described as a solicitor's clerk, did exactly that, writing to object on the grounds that he believed this was a collusive divorce and that the pet.i.tioner had committed adultery with King Edward VIII. And so Sir Thomas Barnes, the King's Proctor, had the unenviable responsibility of investigating whether or not Wallis Simpson was 'innocent'. If Barnes found that anything was suspicious, he could intervene to put the facts he had discovered before the court. The court then had the power to rescind the decree nisi, thus leaving Wallis in a permanent state of limbo, separated from one husband but not free to marry another. It was a ghastly prospect and Wallis had good reason to be terrified, for although only a tiny proportion of divorces overall were blocked at the second stage S seother, the overwhelming majority of cases where there were proctorial interventions did indeed result in cancellation of the divorce. For example, in 1935 Barnes intervened in twenty-three cases, twenty-one of which were rescinded, and in 1936 he acted in twenty-six, leaving twenty-five individuals without their final decree.

Nearly seventy years after they were written, the public may today view the files of letters written to the King's Proctor preserved in the National Archives at Kew in south-west London and closed until 2003. Once I have been granted special permission to read them, just three at a time, I am placed in a closed invigilation room, locked behind double doors under supervision and with video cameras trained on me. The King's Proctor files contain such sensitive material, I am told, that they come into the same category as files on Jack the Ripper. But, as I puzzle over what I am reading, I realize that the sensitivity derives not from p.o.r.nography, criminality or espionage. What it reveals is much more shocking, especially given the self-censorship of the British newspapers until December 1936. For even though the royal affair had been hidden from the general public, enough was known for Barnes to be deluged with angry letters. Reading these mostly well-argued and articulate letters from a range of social cla.s.ses, from both men and women, shows clearly that there was a powerful belief that the law had been subverted so seriously that the entire legal structure had been brought into disrepute and threatened the continuance of the monarchy. As Elspeth Huxley, the author and journalist, wrote in an American newspaper: 'There is a letting down all over the world but one looks to England to preserve its highest standards.'

There was a furore that the King had not been named as corespondent, that less than a week before the hearing he had stayed the night at Mrs Simpson's rented house in Felixstowe, that there was no discretion statement by the pet.i.tioner (a formal admission of her own adultery but asking the court to take this into sympathetic consideration and still grant a decree) and, if there had been, the case could not have been tried in Ipswich. There were letters calling Wallis a prost.i.tute, a Yankee harlot and worse. None seems to have complained that Wallis's first divorce in the United States, on the grounds of desertion, would not be recognized by the Church of England and, if challenged, might have been rejected under English law where adultery was the only grounds for divorce. According to this argument, her marriage to Ernest would have been bigamous and invalid. But above all there was enormous public resentment, especially among women, arising out of the belief that Mrs Simpson was being allowed 'to get away with a divorce which would certainly not have escaped the attentions of your staff if the position of the Crown had not been indirectly involved'. Many complained that the decree smacked of one law for the rich and another for the poor. Others expressed a deep-seated view that Britain could not possibly have as queen a woman who should prima facie be in the dock at the Old Bailey for perjury and that if the King's Proctor did not intervene in this case he should intervene in none. Some wrote insisting they had names of servants who had evidence that the King had been seen leaving Mrs Simpson's house many mornings at 8 a.m.

While these investigations were under way, preparations for the Coronation were simultaneously if somewhat nervously proceeding with hoteliers and other British businessmen who had an interest in souvenirs of the event suddenly worried by the possibility that it might be postponed. Desperate for news of what was going on, many were making costly transatlantic telephone calls to have American newspapers read to them and London insur S Lo goance brokers were suddenly swamped with an avalanche of anxious customers. Finally the market became so top heavy that brokers were unwilling to take at any price the risk of what Edward VIII might do. It was not only trade but numerous charities and voluntary organizations that regarded this prospect of the King being married to that woman most unsettling.

Hilda Runciman, wife of President of the Board of Trade Sir Walter Runciman, and a formidable Liberal politician in her own right, was another who kept a diary at this time. Hilda was deeply involved in issues of education, housing and welfare and, as a leading Methodist, had served as president of the Women's Free Church Council. She wrote in measured tones of her concerns: 'ever since Mrs Simpson's divorce in Ipswich we have felt really anxious about their future relations, because there seemed no adequate reason for the disadvantage of the divorce scandal unless marriage was intended'. Walter, who 'as a member of the cabinet and a Christian feels his responsibility acutely', was having discussions with both Baldwin and Archbishop Lang about what all three perceived as the dangers for the monarchy if the King persisted in his plan to marry Mrs Simpson. Hilda wrote of a meeting on 15 November between her husband and Sir Frederick Maurice, one of the founders of the British Legion, of which he was now president, at which Maurice said frankly that his organization 'certainly would not tolerate W.S. as a Queen of England'. He then wrote to Runciman to make it completely clear that the British Legion 'could not stand the shock of the proposed marriage of the King and Wallis Simpson'.

The Church had been worried about the new King long before the accession. 'One trembles to think of the loneliness of his position. Things will inevitably be very different here,' Don recorded after the old King's funeral. That the new King did not attend church was a serious problem for the Archbishop, who admitted that 'the thought of my having to consecrate him as King weighed on me as a heavy burden. Indeed I considered whether I could bring myself to do so.' In a.s.sociation with the Coronation, the Church was also planning an evangelical campaign, 'A Recall to Religion', which would urge the people of Britain to rededicate themselves to serving G.o.d and country. This was not just a question of 'religion' narrowly interpreted. The King was meant to serve and sacrifice and help. Previous coronations and special thanksgiving services held in St Paul's Cathedral had been with kings who did attend church. The monarch had responsibilities to the Dominions and his or her regular church attendance was seen as a means of bringing people in, making them feel they were part of the British Empire. The throne was the vital link. Yet now there was fear that the new King would break that.

Even as those at Lambeth Palace were reading all the American newspapers, sickened by what they read and heard, most churchmen still believed that restraint and making no criticism was the best policy. 'And yet HM protests that Mrs S is not his mistress but he spends immense sums of money on her is he quite normal?' Alan Don asked rhetorically. That was precisely the question worrying Lord Wigram as well. He believed that the King was not 'normal ... and might any day develop into a George III'. He thought it was necessary to pa.s.s a Regency Bill as soon as possible 'so that if necessary he could be certified'.

Westminster now buzzed with politicians clamouring to know what was going to happen. At the state opening on 3 November the King looked 'like a young, happy Prince Charming', serene and dignified, according to Chips Channon. But several people commented on his str Sed youange American accent he said 'rowts' instead of 'roots' and ended with 'And Moy the blessing of Almoighty G.o.d rest upon your deliberoitions,' an affectation considered to be yet another unattractive result of Wallis's influence. Not unnaturally, Wallis wanted to watch the proceedings, 'and was in the Royal Gallery in the House of Lords yesterday ... in full view of everybody. She must be a brazen-faced woman to appear thus among the a.s.sembled aristocracy within a week of the divorce,' wrote Don, voicing widespread criticism of those who felt she should demonstrate contrition at the breaking of such a serious promise by staying quietly at home.

But it was not until 10 November when (as Chips Channon recorded) the Labour MP John McGovern answered a question about the forthcoming Coronation by shouting, '"Why bother, in view of the gambling at Lloyd's that there will not be one?" There were roars of "Shame! Shame!" and he called out, "Yes ... Mrs Simpson"' that her name was actually uttered publicly in the House of Commons. November was an agonizing time for Wallis as she could no longer fail to be aware of how much she was disliked, not just in royal circles but by the small but ever widening section of the public who knew about her. She had her defenders and flatterers who still wrote to her supportively, believing that she was good for the King at least she had controlled his drinking, a merit even Queen Mary acknowledged. But they were few in number and dwindled as the crisis progressed. Perhaps she derived a shred of comfort from her old friend Herman Rogers, who wrote warmly to her: 'You are still my one living example of a perfectly wise and complete person.' And she had Aunt Bessie, who had now arrived in London to help.

Events moved swiftly after 13 November when the King opened a letter from Alexander Hardinge, written with the backing of senior ministers, warning him that the British press would not keep its silence about his relationship with Mrs Simpson for much longer and that the effect would be 'calamitous'. Until now Mrs Simpson's affair with the King had been a problem for Palace officials rather than government ministers. That was no longer the case. Hardinge warned that the government might have to resign, in which case the King's private affairs would be the chief issue in any election. He therefore recommended that the best course of action would be for Mrs Simpson to go abroad without further delay, and 'I would beg your majesty to give this proposal your earnest consideration before the position has become irretrievable.'

The King was furious. He responded, typically, by ending all contact with Hardinge, but without sacking him, and increasingly turned to Walter Monckton, a lawyer he had known since university days, to act as intermediary and adviser. The King had always had his way and until now never allowed the idea to enter his consciousness that this time would be any different. Instead, he summoned Baldwin, who the day before had had a meeting at Chequers with Stanley Bruce, the influential Australian High Commissioner, at the latter's request. Bruce pa.s.sed on the views of his Prime Minister, Joseph Lyons, who, as a devout Catholic, could not support the marriage of a divorced person, that if there were any question of marriage with Mrs Simpson the King would have to go as far as Australia was concerned. Now he told Baldwin forcefully how offensive the King's behaviour was to ordinary Australians, as reflected by an old Anzac soldier who had said 'it's a bit thick, his taking that woman with him to Gallipoli'. This was a reference to a stopover the King made while cruising in the Nahlin a few months earlier to enable him to visit the cemeteries and battlefields on the peninsu Sn t thla where thousands of Australian and New Zealand soldiers had lost their lives in 1911.

Bruce came to believe that his conversation with Baldwin, who until that time 'had not got the thing clearly in his own mind', had been decisive. He maintained that he had warned him over lunch on 15 November of 'the alarming and devastating possibility that the King should marry the woman ... the people of this country and the Dominions would never accept the woman as Queen, quite possibly the House of Commons would cancel the Civil List, the throne would be imperilled, the Empire would be endangered, the Government would resign and it would be impossible to get an alternative government. '

Baldwin put to the King the feelings of both Bruce and William Mackenzie King, the Canadian Prime Minister, that marriage to Wallis would break up the Empire, but the King responded by telling him: 'I want you to be the first to know that I have made up my mind and nothing will alter it. I have looked into it from all sides. I mean to abdicate and marry Mrs Simpson.' Baldwin was stunned. He simply could not imagine that the King would insist on marriage to this woman with such a high cost attached. And, in spite of the divorce, Wallis had continued to reiterate even to close friends that she was not intending to marry the King and that the action had been forced on her by her husband's adultery. It was a necessary answer in view of the law, but she also believed that marriage to the King would eventually be prevented by those more powerful than her. According to Lucy Baldwin, who made 'a faithful record' of the meeting as soon as her husband told her about it on his return: S. said he felt a streak of almost madness. The King simply could not understand & S. couldn't make him. The King was obsessed by a woman & that was the long & short of it ... she was the best friend he had ever had & he couldn't live without her. S. was so impressed by the want of sanity & clear vision in it all that he feared that really he might completely go 'off it' if at the moment he was more directly opposed & Mrs Simpson disappeared. On leaving, the King held Stanley's hand for a long time & there were almost tears in his eyes as he said good-bye.

Baldwin now had to see the Queen who, he said, 'came trotting across the room exactly like a puppy dog and before I had time to bow she took hold of my hand in both of hers and held it tight. "Well, Prime Minister," she said, "here's a pretty kettle of fish!"' And a few days later the King himself wrote to his mother telling her how relieved he was finally to have been able to share with her his 'wonderful secret. A dream which I have for so long been praying might one day come true. Now that Wallis will be free to marry me in April it only remains for me to decide the best action I take for our future happiness and for the good of all concerned.' Nancy Dugdale recorded that when the Queen remonstrated with the King, calling up the obvious arguments of duty and responsibility, his answer was: '"The only thing that matters is our happiness." After that there was no more possibility of understanding between two people whose point of view was so divergent.'

Baldwin was in constant contact with elder statesmen from the three main political parties, as well as with Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and Indian leaders appalled at the effect in the Dominions of the prospect of 'Queen Wallis'. He was only too aware of the seriousness of a possible government collapse in view of the fragile world situation. At the same time P Se s toarliamentary Counsel were now instructed to draw up an Abdication Bill and a.s.sociated measures, while the King went about his business with renewed vigour looking for all the world like a confident young monarch full of new ideas. He surpa.s.sed himself when he toured the mining villages of South Wales for two cold and damp days in mid-November, meeting the unemployed and dest.i.tute, offering his famous words of comfort, 'Something must be done,' without having any clear idea of what. This former Prince of Wales, uttering greetings in Welsh when he could, was welcomed by more than 2,000 cheering people, including flag-waving children and the Dowlais Aged Comrades Choir, which gave a spirited rendering of G.o.d Save the King. There is no doubting his genuine sympathy for the poor as he travelled around the desperately depressed mining towns and villages walking among his loyal subjects. But when he left all he could offer was 'to think about what can be done'.

And while the politicians were scrabbling around for a way out of this crisis, Wallis was feeling 'really miserable', as she admitted to Sibyl Colefax, her most trusted confidante that autumn. To Sibyl she had admitted that 'Ernest and myself' living apart this winter had left her 'in a rather upset and confused state of mind'. She could not see friends 'until I can break the sh.e.l.l I have temporarily gone into'. The situation had plunged dramatically out of her control and she felt manipulated by politicians and caught up in the inexorability of the legal process. But those who urged her to abandon a situation that had become untenable 'do not understand that if I did so, the King would come after me regardless of anything. They would then get their scandal in a far worse form than they are getting it now.' In her memoirs Wallis blames 'the fundamental inability of a woman to go against the urgent wishes of the man she loves'. But the most likely reason for staying put was, as ever with Wallis, fear in this case fear that the King would come after her and abandon everything. 'If the country won't approve our marrying, I'm ready to go,' he told her now. 'It was the first mention between us that he had ever entertained any thought of stepping down from the Throne,' she claimed in her memoirs, insisting that she had begged him now to let her go. 'I tried to convince him of the hopelessness of our position ... to go on fighting the inevitable could only mean tragedy for him and catastrophe for me.'

Quite probably they had both failed to confront reality until this very last moment when it was foisted upon then. The death of George V had come too soon for any plans. Blinded by single-mindedness and solipsism, Edward was convinced that his popularity would allow him to marry whomever he wanted and Wallis was afloat on his buoyancy. But now, unnerved by the growing pile of threatening letters, exhausted by the King's demands and unhappy at being an object of hate blamed for the feared destruction of the British monarchy, she wanted to leave while she still had a shred of dignity. Yet again, though, she did not. She was almost paralysed by fear.

Matters changed slightly at the end of November. While the King was away in Wales, Esmond Harmsworth took Wallis to lunch at Claridge's in order to put to her the possibility of a morganatic marriage, whereby she would marry the King but, instead of becoming queen, would take another of his t.i.tles and become d.u.c.h.ess of Cornwall or Lancaster. This very unEnglish idea seemed briefly to offer a way out of the crisis and Wallis urged the idea on the King that weekend at the Fort with her aunt. Initially reluctant, the King soon espoused the idea enthusiastically. He agreed to discuss it with Baldwin, as legislation would be required not just in Britain but in the Dominions.

Baldwin, appalled that the suggestion had come from Harmsworth 'a disgustingly conceited fellow' was convinced that neither the House of Commons nor the British people would accept the idea, which in any event would require legislation that he did not think would be pa.s.sed by Parliament. But, to avoid a confrontation, he agreed to meet the King again on 25 November. He sounded out opinion in advance and individually summoned the Labour Party leader Clement Attlee, Sir Archibald Sinclair, leader of Liberals, 'and the possible snake in the gra.s.s, Winston Churchill, whose very freedom from loyalties makes him a dark horse in a loose box', according to Nancy Dugdale, mixing her metaphors to imply that Churchill, whom she and others did not trust, could change sides whenever it suited. There was always a lurking fear of the country being split and Churchill being called upon to lead a King's party which accepted the marriage to Wallis. Just a few days beforehand Churchill had been arguing that the King should 'be allowed to marry his Cutie. Noel [Coward] summing it up for most people said: "England does not wish for a Queen Cutie."'

Baldwin asked Attlee, Sinclair and Churchill: if the King insisted on marrying Mrs Simpson would they come down on the government side against the marriage or would they form a government if summoned by the King? 'The first two pledged their absolute loyalty to Mr Baldwin by saying they would not form an alternative government. Mr Churchill said although his outlook was a little different, he would certainly support the Government.' Baldwin, now authorized to do so by the King, put to the Dominion governments specifically the idea of a morganatic marriage and asked for their views. The telegrams conveying this request were, many historians now believe, couched in such a way that a negative response was inevitable. It was pointed out at the Cabinet, as the Marquess of Zetland, Secretary of State for India, told Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy, in 'the most secret letter I have ever written', that if the King persisted in his intention of marriage and the Government resigned this 'would give rise to a const.i.tutional issue of the first magnitude viz the King v the Government. It seems that the K has been encouraged to believe that Churchill would in these circ.u.mstances be prepared to form an alternative Government ... this clearly would be fraught with danger of the most formidable kind.' In reality, however, the idea of a King's party was faint; supporters were a miscellaneous collection who could never have commanded a majority in Parliament. The Australian Prime Minister, Joseph Lyons, cabled that in his country there would be outspoken hostility to His Majesty's proposed wife becoming queen while any suggestion that she should become consort and not queen 'would not be approved by my Government'. He went further and indicated that abdication might be the best solution in any event as the Crown had already suffered so grievously. South Africa considered that abdication was the lesser of two evils, as marriage would prove a permanent wound.

The Irish Free State, then still a member of the Commonwealth, was a cause of serious concern for Baldwin. Prime Minister Eamon de Valera had already alarmed Sir Harry Batterbee, a.s.sistant UnderSecretary at the Dominions Office, by saying in November that 'it was politically impossible for him at the present time to ask the Dail to do anything regarding the succession to the Crown or to declare their consent to the UK Parliament legislating'. Malcolm MacDonald, then Dominions Secretary, tried warning de Valera that if the Free State failed to pa.s.s legislation approving the abdication and the succession of George VI, Edward would remain king of Ireland and Mrs Simpson, once they married, would be queen of Ireland. Sn oucc De Valera may not have welcomed that scenario but, always nudging his country towards independence, used the crisis to bring in legislation which removed from the British monarch the formal functions which still remained to him in the Free State. The British, relieved at having resolved the crisis with relative speed and ease, hardly objected as long as Ireland was prepared to legislate. But it was a step along the road towards weakening the const.i.tutional ties with Ireland, so crucial in the coming war when the British were constantly fearful of the Axis powers taking advantage of Irish neutrality.

New Zealand believed that a morganatic marriage might be possible but agreed to be guided by the 'Home' government, while Canada, where Edward was still warmly remembered and had a ranch home, showed a more nuanced view. Mackenzie King, admitting that Canadians would prefer abdication to Wallis becoming queen consort, warned Baldwin that he did not want it put about that Canadian opinion had been a determining factor in the situation. In his diaries Mackenzie King makes clear his personal sympathy as well as his belief that voluntary abdication was the only honourable course if the King were to retain both his own self-respect and respect in the eyes of his people and other nations.

These were enormous issues of international importance with much to play for at any time, but as 1936 drew to a close it is impossible to exaggerate their significance. Wallis, in the eye of this hurricane, was seriously unwell by the end of November. She was also terrified. She told Ernest how loathsome she found most of her so-called friends for accepting money in return for revealing stories about her. 'Herman was offered ten thousand dollars for a snapshot of me in his garden! [he refused] however a few gentlemen still seem to be alive.' And she confided to him something of her deepest feelings in a letter full of self-pity but also revealing how much she despised herself: Such awful things have happened to me inside during the past month that I have a new girl to know and she's not very nice ... I've been pretty flattened out by the world in general and have certainly had the full crack of everything from the beginning used by politicians, hated by jealous women, accused of everything and, though I have no resilientse [sic] at the moment, I trust I'll be able to lift my weary body up from under the load some day and laugh and play once more. The other side of the story, if written in my life time, will be the answer to them all.

By the time she came to attempt writing her own answer in 1956, the belief that she had been ill used had hardened: 'As a woman in love I was prepared to go through rivers of woe, seas of despair and oceans of agony for him.' The hyperbole may seem excessive, but Wallis genuinely saw herself as suffering.

The King had done his best to shelter her by giving her his chauffeur George Ladbroke and the royal housekeeper Mrs Mason, and sending red roses daily at 5 a bunch from Constance Spry. But none of that could allay her palpable and not unreasonable fear of violent attacks. In addition to receiving poison-pen letters written with an increasingly menacing tone, there were stones thrown at her windows in Regent's Park. She could no longer make her regular visits to hair and beauty salons such as Elizabeth Arden or even go shopping without risk of being accosted. Baldwin himself thought 'that some woman might shoot her', and an American news agency reported an attempted bomb plot. When the police advised that they could no longer guarantee her safety, the King had Wallis moved down Ss mtemto the Fort.

And on the last day of November, Crystal Palace burned down. The destruction of this magnificent symbol of Victorian confidence and splendour was, as Winston Churchill was only too aware, the end of an age. But that catastrophe was not on Wallis's mind when she wrote to Sibyl Colefax, Foxy Gwynne and Ernest. She told her former husband what she had not yet told the King: ... I shan't be able to see you after all for which I'm very sorry for I've decided to [go] away some time this week. The US press has done such harm here and worked people up to such an extent that I get the most alarming letters threatening my life unless I leave. Naturally I am upset over it all. I cannot tell HM I am going because I know what would happen so I am really simply telling him the old search for hats story I shall stay safely away until after the coronation, or perhaps for ever, one cannot tell. But I can never forgive my own country for what they have done to the King and to myself ...

And in the midst of all her woes she voiced two other concerns: 'the expense of it all has been appalling and the money which I spent on the decoration, which I've never been able to enjoy as being in the place makes one nervous as I am threatened with bombs etc. I haven't told Aunt B the danger side, simply that my very presence here was hurting the K.' Aunt Bessie, she explained, was going to remain at the house for a while as she did not want to give the waiting journalists and voyeurs the idea that she was not returning.

Finally, she could not resist telling Ernest of her fury with Mary, the woman he was about to marry, whom she accused of having 'thrived on the publicity she has got through me and never refuses any of it. I know what I am writing. Anyway you are no longer in a position to say I am trying to upset your and Mary's social career in London ... well, my dear, I hope you have a happy life if I am put on the spot, Ipswich etc will have been a great waste of time, as far as I am concerned, won't it?'

To Sibyl too she wrote that she was planning to go away, alone for a while: I think everybody here would like that except one person perhaps but I am constructing a clever means of escape after a while my name will be forgotten by the people and only two people will suffer instead of a ma.s.s of people who aren't interested any way in individual feeling but only the workings of a system. I have decided to risk the result of leaving because it is an uncomfortable feeling to remain stopping in a house when the hostess has tired of me as a guest. I shall see you before I fold my tent.

But she did not. Overtaken by events, she had to leave before she was ready. Wallis often wrote about herself being neither good nor nice but never about being weak. Nonetheless, in those final few days in England while she desperately tried to formulate a plan, she lacked both physical courage and emotional strength to leave. For years, she lived in fear of violence, and photographers would recount her fright whenever a flashbulb exploded. Once she was away in the South of France, she admitted her failure to Sibyl: Brain is so very tired from the struggle of the past two weeks the screaming of a thousand plans to London, the pleading to leave him, not force S> him, I know him so well. I wanted them to take my advice but no, driving on they went, headed for this tragedy ... If only they had said 'let's drop the idea now and in the Autumn we'll discuss it again' and Sibyl darling, in the Autumn I would have been so very far away I [would] have already escaped.

Some day if we ever meet I shall tell you all. The little faith I have tried to cling on to has been taken from me when I saw England turn on a man that couldn't defend himself and had never been anything but straight with his country.

9.

Wallis on the Run.

'Concentrate on the legal side now'

On a cold and foggy afternoon in early December 1936 the King told Wallis that it was no longer safe for her to stay at the Fort. She must leave the country as soon as could be arranged. He had telephoned Perry Brownlow, a personal friend and lord in waiting, that morning and asked him if he would be prepared to escort her abroad. Brownlow offered Wallis his own home, Belton House in Lincolnshire, as a safe refuge, but she declined, so he made preparations for the journey to France. He drove to Windsor where he found the King 'rather pathetic, tired, overwrought, and evidently dreading Wallis's departure, almost like a small boy being left behind at school for the first time'.

The dramatic change in the situation resulted from an outspoken speech delivered by the inadvertently historic figure Dr A. W. F. Blunt, Bishop of Bradford, to his Diocesan Conference on Tuesday 1 December. Bishop Blunt preached on the King's need for divine grace in the months before the Coronation service, adding that 'it could be wished that he showed more awareness of this need'. The Bishop claimed he had written his speech six weeks earlier following a discussion with a businessman about the commercial versus religious aspects of the Coronation and had no intention of referring to current rumours about Mrs Simpson, only to the King's negligence in churchgoing.

The British press could restrain themselves no longer. All the newspapers now reported this attack on the Sovereign, which opened the floodgates of publicity. Suddenly pictures of Mrs Simpson appeared in British newspapers. For most readers these were the first images of the American woman who was said to be the King's 'close friend'. The Bishop's speech came to Mr Baldwin 'as did the ravens feeding Elijah in a predicament in the wilderness', in Nancy Dugdale's phrase, while her husband believed that Bishop Blunt's address 'could not have been brought about in a more desirable and less scandalous way ... purely religious, non political, non sectarian just SB's luck!'

In spite of widespread a.s.sumptions that either the Archbishop of Canterbury or Baldwin had written the speech, it came as a shock to both men to see the report in the press the following day. But while Baldwin might have been relieved, the Archbishop was aghast; if any clerics was to give the King advice, it should be him. Yet he was only too aware of how he had failed V> Baldwin and Dugdale already had a secret appointment to meet the King set for 9 p.m. on 2 December the secrecy at the King's behest to report back on the morganatic marriage proposal. But, in the wake of the Blunt speech, this had taken on a desperate urgency. While Dugdale paced up and down the garden with detectives, Baldwin informed the King of the answer obtained from the Dominion prime ministers, from the British Cabinet, from the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Attlee, and from the leader of Liberals: they all said a morganatic marriage was impossible and were strongly opposed to it. 'The King was ill tempered and petulant at this meeting, ' Nancy Dugdale recorded, 'and very angry about Bishop Blunt. Mr Baldwin had to calm him and generally treat this wrong headed little man like a doctor treats a case, never putting his back up, never giving in. The King suggested broadcasting, placing himself at the mercy of his people.' The audience lasted one hour and the King's att.i.tude to the Dominions was 'there are only very few people in Canada, Australia and the colonies ... meaning that the question of colonial responsibility did not count for a great deal'.

According to Nancy Dugdale, at the end of the meeting Baldwin said to the King 'and it won over his complete confidence "well, sir, whatever happens I hope you will be happy."'13 Subsequently the King alluded many times to this phrase saying: 'Not even my so called friends who are on my side have ever wished me happiness.'

The two men left the Palace feeling 'sad at heart for the little man, despising him, loving him, and pitying him all at the same time and hating the woman who goaded him on to fight until the struggle became one between the Prime Minister and Mrs Simpson through the person of the King'. Dugdale, quoting Flaubert, believed that the King was that day 'Vaincu enfin par la terrible force de la douleur'.

The King drove down to the Fort and immediately reported the latest events to Wallis, telling her she must now leave. He had heard that The Times, the newspaper he feared most, was preparing to run a fierce attack on her the next day and, although he had asked Baldwin to stop it, his request had been refused. This was not within the Prime Minister's power, even had he wished to stop such an article. In any case, the Times editor, Geoffrey Dawson, was a staunch supporter of the government, unlike Beaverbrook or Harmsworth.

The final evening for Wallis at the Fort was painful. Brownlow asked the King if he intended to abdicate. '"Oh no," he replied. He had just told me the first and last important lie of our friendship.' Brownlow believed that Wallis 'had taught him to lie'. In fact there was an element of truth in the King's reply as he had it in mind to go to Switzerland and then see if he was called back with Mrs Simpson at his side. As they departed the King 'leant across to her to ge [ tond t one last touch of her hand there were tears in his eyes and on his cheeks, and his voice was shaking wherever you reach tonight, no matter what time, telephone me. Bless you, my darling.'

Others remember the departure more prosaically. Mrs Simpson left by walking through the King's bedroom on to the lawn without saying goodbye to any of the staff, with whom her relationship had never been easy.

'Well, that's the end of that,' said one of the footmen to the butler, Osborne, who had always believed Wallis 'had got her knife into them'.

'Don't be too sure,' Osborne replied.

'We'll keep our fingers crossed.'

Since Wallis would not fly, driving to the Herman Rogers villa, Lou Viei, near Cannes, was seized on as the only option. Wallis talked almost incessantly on the journey but it was only as they crossed to Dieppe that Brownlow discovered to his horror that he was also responsible for Wallis's jewels, which she had brought with her, 'presents from the King worth at least 100,000 to carry them savoured a little of the deportee or exile', he felt. Though they were travelling under the pseudonyms of Mr and Mrs Harris, the King's Buick was quickly recognized and they were followed for much of the journey, forcing the King's chauffeur to take sudden side-turnings in towns he did not know in the hope of throwing off their pursuers. They arrived at the Grand Hotel de la Poste in Rouen at 5.15 a.m., spoke to the King for fifteen minutes and finally got to bed around six o'clock for a few hours' sleep. After two days on the road, they arrived at Lou Viei a twelfth-century converted monastery, which Brownlow rather uncharitably described as 'small and dark ... unsuited to winter conditions' with Wallis humiliatingly crouched in the back of the car, covered by a blanket. She felt every inch the hunted animal. The journey was an agonizing experience and 'the feeling of desperation that was my invisible and relentless companion during the entire trip is not difficult to recapture'. Still manipulating the agency wires where he could, Bernard Rickatson-Hatt loyally delayed announcing Mrs Simpson's destination until she had reached Cannes.

'Tell the country,' she had scribbled in one final note to the King, referring to the very modern idea they had discussed before she left, that he should broadcast an appeal directly to the country to be allowed to marry and remain king. Television broadcasts were completely new and untried and even Christmas radio broadcasts by the monarch had been used only since 1932. But Wallis, admitting that a radio broadcast was her idea, said she had in mind the 'extraordinary impact on public opinion of President Roosevelt's "fireside chats"'. Back at the Fort, without Wallis, the King's confidence quickly drained. He no longer believed he could have both Wallis and the throne, in spite of Churchill urging that he should not be rushed and that, with time, something could be done short of abdication an unpopular line which even his wife Clementine disagreed with. Churchill in 1936 was viewed as a man of flawed political judgement, yet his opinions were coloured not just by romance. His own mother was American and had been vilified for her love life. However, by the time he rose to speak in the House of Commons on Monday 7 December the mood had changed and he was shouted down on all sides. Baldwin gave thanks for the power of a weekend.

The King now abandoned the idea of using a broadcast as an appeal remain as King and marry Wallis. Nonetheless, [Nonem"emboldened by what he perceived as the successful South Wales tour, he still wanted to speak directly to the nation before departing. This was a misreading of the situation, however, as there were many Nonconformists in South Wales who were extremely critical of Edward's behaviour. Likewise in England, as Mrs Hannah Summerscales a.s.serted when she wrote to the King's Proctor: 'Even though the King thinks that working people are with him, I know that they are not. I was born a working woman and I know that working people want the moral cleanliness of their homes and moral cleanliness of the crown and throne ...' But it was also deeply unconst.i.tutional for the King to go above the heads of his government and the notion had a whiff of dictatorship about it at a time when any threat to democracy was a very serious matter. Baldwin pragmatically explained to the King that if he made such a broadcast 'he would be telling millions of people throughout the world, including a vast number of women, that he wanted to marry a married woman', and had his Home Secretary, Sir John Simon not known as Sir John Snake for nothing swiftly draft a paper to show that const.i.tutionally a king can broadcast only on the advice of his ministers. Aware of the stark choice, the King now prepared himself for abdication.

Sir Edward Peac.o.c.k, the King's Canadian-born princ.i.p.al financial adviser who was very close to him at this time, stated that the wavering in the final days was 'as I know, upon the insistence over the phone of the lady that he should fight for his rights. She kept up that line until near the end, maintaining that he was the King, and his popularity would carry everything. With him this lasted only a very short time then he recognized the falsity of the position and put it definitely aside ... the lady persisted in her advice until she saw that that tack was hopeless.'

The long-distance telephone calls between the pair, on a crackly and faint line, which punctuated the next few days were something none of the partic.i.p.ants ever forgot. The King was always distraught waiting for Wallis to call but wrung dry after she had. They were in daily contact not easy in 1936, even for a king and the lines had to be kept free for at least two hours for her exclusive use. William Bateman, the King's private telephone operator at the Palace, had been instructed to give priority to all calls and messages from her. But it was difficult to hear clearly, so Wallis shouted, and the King found these conversations emotionally draining as all his negotiating power was evaporating in the face of his one remaining desire: to marry Wallis. He often had Ulick Alexander, Keeper of the Privy Purse, or his solicitor, George Allen, by his side to prompt him while speaking to Wallis and at a critical moment in one conversation he covered the phone with one hand and asked Allen what he should say to summarize the situation to her. Allen wrote, and the King relayed, 'The only conditions on which I can stay here are if I renounce you for all time.' She knew he was never going to do that.

He had hoped to secure the right to a substantial pension, the right to return to the Fort as his home in due course, the right of his future wife to share his royal t.i.tle and, most urgently, an Act of Parliament making Wallis's divorce absolute immediately to ensure that they could be married. Monckton, managing astutely to remain the King's adviser while retaining the trust of the politicians, took up the latter issue urgently on the King's behalf. He was genuinely alarmed by the cruel possibility awaiting the King if he abdicated and then found that Wallis was not free after all. He suggested the idea of a special Bill to free her immediately at the same time as the abdication, an obvious way of tidying things, pointing out that divorces [thal t by Bill were once the only way of getting a divorce. But, although in those fraught final days Baldwin was prepared to consider this, ultimately he had to remind the King that 'even his wishes were not above the inexorable fulfilment of the law and he was afraid he could not interfere'. However, it was more complicated than that because any such action might have been misinterpreted as a government ploy to persuade the King to abdicate, which it could not be seen to do. In the event, the King in his all-consuming desire to have Wallis, played into the government's hands and failed to secure any of these rights before he too left.

Within hours of her arrival in Cannes, a confused and exhausted Wallis tried to persuade the King to stay on the throne. She issued a statement claiming that she was anxious to avoid damaging His Majesty or the Throne and stating her readiness 'if such action would solve the problem to withdraw forthwith from a situation that has been rendered both unhappy and untenable'. Hardinge, not surprisingly, insisted that she was not sincere in this and was merely posturing, knowing what the King's response would be. Nancy Dugdale described the statement as 'undisguised humbug. After having done her utmost to split the country from Land's End to John O'Groats she now played the part of the gilded angel who, having failed to accomplish this, only wanted to act for the best.'

As Zetland pointed out: 'She did NOT say she was ready to withdraw her pet.i.tion for divorce.' But she did send the King a long and rambling letter urging him not to abdicate. 'Don't be silenced and leave under a cloud, I beseech you and in abdication no matter in what form unless you can let the public know that the Cabinet has virtually kicked you out ... I must have any action of yours understood by the world [or] we would have no happiness and I think the world would turn against me.'

Reading this, along with her earlier note to Sibyl Colefax, it is clear she was finally trying to extricate herself, painfully aware now how history would view her as the woman who forced a man to give up his throne. Wallis was utterly genuine in her desire to disappear from the King's life, if only to preserve her own sanity rather than from motives of altruism or to protect the King let alone the inst.i.tution of monarchy. She, not the King, retained a keen awareness of the world beyond. But she also knew better than anyone, other than Monckton perhaps, how difficult it was going to be to leave him. 'With the King's straightness and directness,' he wrote, 'there went a remarkable determination and courage and confidence in his own opinions and decisions. Once his mind was made up one felt that he was like the deaf adder that stoppeth his ears ... for myself ... I thought that if and when the stark choice faced them between their love and his obligations as King Emperor they would in the end make the sacrifice, devastating though it would be.' Nancy Dugdale was perhaps right in claiming that Wallis's renunciation statement 'came many, many weeks if not years too late and was despised by everyone except the vacuous women of society whom she had vamped and who were touched by her magnanimous gesture', but wrong in failing to recognize how sincerely Wallis wanted to get out of a predicament she now loathed, even without any clear plans as to how she would fend for herself if she had to.

Theodore G.o.ddard also understood, through awkward conversations on 'a very bad phone line with much shouting and confusion', that his client was completely 'ready to do anything that would ease the situation but that the other end of the wicket was determined'. Since Wallis, not the King, was his client, G.o.ddard faced another [acebutproblem. He had information which made him seriously concerned that, following the Francis Stephenson intervention with the King's Proctor, the divorce might not be granted after all. This potentially disastrous situation made it imperative for him to meet with his client for her sake, even though the King, a semi-prisoner himself at the Fort, was strongly opposed to his going or to any action which might put pressure on Wallis to withdraw. Nonetheless, G.o.ddard ignored royal opposition and bravely flew, for the first time in his life, in a small government plane to the South of France. It was a terrifying flight as one of engines broke down, forcing him to land at Ma.r.s.eilles, and he eventually arrived at two o'clock on the morning of Tuesday 8 December. Also in the party was a doctor G.o.ddard had a weak heart. But since Dr Kirkwood was a gynaecologist, rumours immediately spread that Wallis was pregnant. Brownlow was infuriated by this further annoyance and had to issue a statement that Dr Kirkwood was there only as G.o.ddard's personal physician.

At nine the next morning G.o.ddard had a long talk with Wallis 'and asked if she was sure that what she was doing was wise? Two things stand out,' G.o.ddard stated later. 'She was definitely prepared to give up the King and he was definitely not prepared to give her up ... he intended to abdicate and eventually marry her.' Nonetheless, after increasingly tense phone calls between Cannes and Fort Belvedere, Wallis signed a further, much stronger statement which, according to G.o.ddard, the King agreed to only in order to protect her from criticism. G.o.ddard returned, by train this time, with a doc.u.ment in which Mrs Simpson unambiguously expressed her readiness to withdraw from her entanglement. But nothing was done with this statement: 'It was not available until the afternoon of Wednesday the 9th and, as you know,' the Downing Street adviser Sir Horace Wilson explained to Monckton, 'you and others had been at the Fort the previous evening on what proved to be the final attempt. During Wednesday morning's cabinet, decisions were taken which with Tuesday's proceedings made it clear that nothing would come of the statement nor of G.o.ddard's efforts. I see that after hearing his account on Wednesday afternoon I noted that I did not think that G's client had fully taken him into her confidence!' There also exists in the Bodleian Library in Oxford what Alan Lascelles in depositing it there called 'a curious little doc.u.ment', found among Baldwin's political papers. It was a half-sheet of grey notepaper bearing the heading 'Lou Viei, Cannes' but with no date. On it is written in pencil, in what is believed to be Brownlow's handwriting, 'With the deepest personal sorrow, Mrs Simpson wishes to announce that she has abandoned any intention of marrying his Majesty.' It is signed (in ink) 'Wallis Simpson'. This statement is unequivocal.

But it, too, presumably also arrived among Baldwin's papers via G.o.ddard and never saw the light of day. For, as G.o.ddard relayed to Dugdale, he had found his client 'in a most terrified state of nerves, complete capitulation and willingness to do anything'. The atmosphere at the Rogers villa was appallingly tense for all. The King had given orders that Wallis should have police protection, but Inspector Evans and his colleague begged to be allowed to return to England, complaining in particular of Brownlow and his high-handed ways. They particularly resented being told to take their hands out of their pockets when speaking to him. G.o.ddard believed Wallis's desire to disappear from Europe was genuine she had contemplated going to the Far East but by 9 December neither plans nor statements were of any use, as Wallis probably feared all along. Although the King now was resolute in his decision to abdicate, with Wallis gone he had no friends with whom to discuss the mat [scuughter. Churchill, out of sympathy and pragmatism, continued to beg him not to rush. He even wrote to Baldwin saying how cruel and wrong it would be to extort a decision from the man in his present state. He had visited the King and believed that he should see a doctor as 'the personal strain he had been so long under and which was not at its climax had exhausted him to a most painful degree'.

But none of this washed with the House of Commons and by Tuesday 8 December Baldwin, who paid his last visit to the Fort that day, knew it was all over. There were still many unresolved questions about the King's future status and finances but nothing could persuade him to remain. American newspapers were already reporting the abdication. Baldwin had found all his conversations with the King difficult, partly because it was: like talking to a child of 10 years old. He did not seem to grasp the issues at stake, he seems bewitched ... He has no religious sense. I have never in my life met anyone so completely lacking in any sense of the the what is beyond ... And he kept on repeating over and over again: 'I can't do my job without her ... I am going to marry her, and I will go' ... There simply was no moral struggle and it appalled me.

Even when the Prime Minister warned the King that he risked the destruction of the monarchy he 'would keep on throwing his arms out with a curious gesture repeating: "SHE is beside me ... the most wonderful woman in the world."' But on the night of the 8th the King was in 'what I can only describe as a perfectly exalted condition. He would spend nearly the whole day telephoning to that woman and would come in from the telephone box with the most beautiful look I have ever seen on his face, like a young knight who has just seen the Holy Grail and say: "I've just been talking to Her: talking to the most wonderful woman in the world." It was hopeless to reason w