I have just finished this book and it is bristling with post it notes covered in my scrawled comments. Somehow out of this inchoate mess I have to try and say what I think about it all and I am finding it somewhat difficult.
The author, Jane Marguerite Tippett, apparently came across an unknown cache of letters, memoranda and notes written by the Duke of Windsor when he was collaborating with Charles Murphy on the publishing of The King’s Story. Calling it a Lost Memoir is pushing it a bit to be honest as they are fragments which were discarded during the writing process but, I have to admit, they make fascinating reading.
I have always maintained that if you are writing your autobiography, letters or a diary, no matter how hard you try your inate character will be revealed. Many years ago I read the diaries of Laurence Olivier, a person who I never warmed to and whose acting did not appeal. Why I read them in that case is a mystery to me but read them I did and found by the end that a dislikeable character had been revealed all unknown to the author. A few months later I read the diaries of Noel Coward who many viewed as a dilettante, sarcastic and lacking in warmth. What a revelation when, on reading his diary entries, a person of great charm, integrity and loyalty was revealed.
I am sorry to labour this point but reading these ‘lost memoirs’ of the Duke of Windsor has, once again showed that my assertion is correct. The written notes and memoranda are penned through the prism of his need for justification and they reveal a total self absorption and lack of understanding of how others might have acted or felt at the time. This comes as no surprise and Charles Murphy, his ghost writer, was skilled enough to prune these outpourings and fine them down to publish in the book.
The author has taken a stance regarding the Duke, that he was misunderstood, hard working and a moderniser and seems determined to prove this no matter what. It all gets a little tedious as time after time his dilatoriness, his narrow mindedness or plain ignorance is excused or dismissed. In crime novels, of which I am a fan, I have lost count of the number of times it is made clear that it is dangerous to decide who committed the crime and then arrange the facts to support this theory. Well, this is what Ms Tippett does here.
Charles Murphy does not come out of this very well either. It seems that he and the Duke forged a friendship which lasted throughout the writing process but the more I perused the letters Murphy was writing to his publisher and the newspapers, once again, the real character came through and it was that of a person with a manipulative personality. He seemed to despise the Duke, he always referred to him in correspondece as 'Our Friend’ and speaks of him slightingly. Publication was constantly pushed back at the lack of progress and Murphy became ‘bored and weary.. He has stopped working for days without my knowing it or he will be present in the body but not the mind.’ The Duke and Duchess took themselves for three weeks rest in Italy ‘he considers himself fatigued and wishes for relaxation and detachment’
Murphy had to deal with the Duke in other ways. In a diary entry in 1973 he received a call from the Duke who was totally distraught. The Duchess had gone on ahead to New York where it seemed she was enjoying a’romance’ with Jimmy Donahue and openly gay, wealthy playboy. Murphy accompanied the Duke on his journey as ‘I truly feared that he might commit suicide’
Over the years I have developed a sympathy for the Duchess. How difficult it must be to be the focus of such total adoration which she must at times have found stifling. This episode with Donahue occurred when she was on her own and was probably escaping and just enjoying herself. She was well aware that the marriage had to succeed after the Abdication and one fact emerged from an interview she gave to Murphy when she was contemplating her own autobiography, was that Edward never asked her to marry him until after the Abdication. He went through with it and decided her future as well as his just assuming that she would be his wife.
And now we come to the section of the book headed The German Question and I wondered how the author would deal with this.
Was Edward a traitor? I hold the view that though his actions could be seen and were judged as traitrous, I doubt the thought even entered his head that his behaviour could be viewed as such. He did not have the intelligence or understanding to think that he could be in the wrong. The German high comand viewed Edward as a useful tool, knowing his views on the war, and full of confidence that they would win the war, spoke to Edward about his return as King with Wallis as his Queen. They knew his weakness and his longing to have her crowned.
A conversation with the Duchess re this visit is almost beyond belief. Tea was being taken with the Gorings and she describes how nicely furnished the rooms are with cretonnes and fine china. They were shown a map incorporating Austria into Germany and ‘I told him we had just been there for our honeymoon and how much we had liked it there’
The Duke then butts in ‘he actually was the nicest of all of them. He was the only, well, gent you could say’ and the Duchess agreed he had great charm and such a pretty wife.
After reading this I found myself totally sure that my theory on the Duke not being a traitor was confirmed. How could such a vacous, ill informed man like this plan on being a traitor? He did not have the nous or the intelligence to do so.
But once again the author is determined to forgive the Duke everything and this is backed up by the inclusion of an interview with the Duchess re the response to the visit:
“the strange thing is the British Government. You would have thought they would have wanted to keep the Duke out of the public eye….they knew if he went to Germany he would get into the public eye… they should have sent some official to France and said that this is the situation, because they ought not to have wanted him to get into the public eye in an unfavourable light. Or so, one could have done some long distant advising. You cannot throw a man out of a country, who has been advised by a government all his life, and then expect him to make wise decisions right off the bat”
And there you have it. The Duke revealed, inadvertently by his wife, has having no wisdom, no insight, nothing. All somebody else's fault.
I think this book fails on all fronts in its determination to rehabilitate Edward VIII. The endless excuses and justifications for his actions and behaviour become tedious after a while and merely become irritating. Once again, through their own words and behaviour, the Windsors are revealed as totally lacking in understanding and empathy and appear as shallow empty people.
It is all very sad and rather pathetic.
Edward himself says of his reign: ‘Had I remained my reign might have provided quarrel after quarrel with the government. I woud have clashed with them I am sure, over Germany’.
I reckon we had a lucky escape.
