In 2018 we have had the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, closely followed by the nuptials of Princess Eugenie of York and then the announcement that Meghan was expecting a baby. Then off go the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on a tour of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji and the papers are full of it. What will she wear? How will she hide her bump? And so on and so on. The interest in the Royal Family seems limitless and never ending despite the snide comments of those who think they are a waste of space.
I am old enough to remember when the Queen came to the throne and how totally glamorous she was and how devestatingly handsome was the Duke. If you think the level of sycophancy is bad now you should have read the papers and magazines back then. The Duke has gone on record as saying that the adulation was immense and he had to make the decision to ignore it and not be seduced by it as, ultimately, it will rebound on you. Wise words that the late Princess Diana might have done well to remember.
But before the recent events there was Edward, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII. The level of adoration for him was quite staggering. I have never been an admirer of the Duke of Windsor, as he later became after the abdication, viewing him as selfish, self absorbed and totally unaware of how his actions and words rebounded on his family and social circle. His obsession with Mrs Simpson is, to many people, inexplicable. Over the years I have read many biographies about this couple and though I cannot say I warm to the Duchess, I am pretty sure that the life she led with him was stifling and boring in many ways as his adoration was overwhelming.
Prior to meeting her the Prince was sent off by his father, George V, on a series of world tours. These went on for months and were totally exhausting and draining. He was a tremendous sucess, especially with the women, but on reading the amount of people he met, the travelling from place to place he had to do, I began to feel a pang or two of sympathy for him. At one stage he had shaken so many hands that he had to start using his left hand as his right was so painful and sore.
Edward was a superstar and a huge celebrity wherever he went, but particularly in the United States. "His status was all the more remarkable in that he was a European prince who only made two brief visits to the USA..........in Britain he was royalty, in America he was a celebrity"
He hated it and wanted to leave it all behind. He loathed the trappings of tradition, the work, the red boxes which he had to deal with when he ascended to the throne. He did not want the responsibility and viewed Mrs Simpson as the one who could save him from all this. When she realised the level of dissension in the country she tried to withdraw but he panicked and threatened to kill himself if she left him. I do feel that Mrs Simpson who, it seems to me, just wanted to be Queen Bee of society, had bitten off more than she could chew and there was no escape,
I began to warm to him a little, just a little, and then of course after the Abdication this sympathy wanes as the reality of the life he had chosen began to impinge on his consciousness. He did not want to be King but he still wanted and expected to be treated like one with all the pomp and luxury that entailed. When he found that he could not pop backwards and forwards to England whenever he felt like it and that his exile was permanent, the selfish side of his character came to the fore once more.
This book is sub-titled An American Life and the blurb on the dust jacket tells us that he author, Ted Powell, challenges the conventional view of Edward as a shallow pleasure seeking Nazi and seeks to reveal "a complex and vulnerable man struggling to reconcile his destiny as heir to the British throne and his love affair with the American Dream". I do not think he succeeds in this, though this is my opinion only. Edward was in love with an American not necessarily the country where he only visited a few times. He made the mistake of thinking that he could leave all his irritations and unhappiness behind but he merely took it with him.
Tommy Lascelles, his private secretary felt the Prince suffered from a form of arrested development "for some hereditary or physiological reason his normal mental development stopped dead when he reached adolescence... his only yardstick in measuring the advisability or non advisability of any particular action was "Can I get away with it?" - an attitude typical of boyhood"
I have only skimmed the surface of this book in my review.There is so much depth and interest in this aspect of the King's life but I feel it would be better if you got hold of a copy and read it for yourself as I do not think I can do it justice. I will admit that I felt a slight softening of my feelings towards the Prince as I read it, but then by the end I began to lose patience again with his neediness, his ego and his indifference towards others. Starting with so much promise which obviously overwhelmed him and, in the end, led him to a futile and sterile life.
This book is published by OUP and, as with all their publications, beautifully produced and packed with photographs and has obviously been impeccably resarched by somebody very much interested in showing us another side of King Edward VIII. A fascinating read - I read it straight through over three days and sat up late one night to finish it as I found it so absorbing.
And the Royal caravanserai goes on....
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