DUKE OF WINDSOR

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21975, 26 December 1936, Page 11

DUKE OF WINDSOR

A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM MR LLOYD GEORGE j (Received December 25, 10.15 p.m.) LONDON, December 24. Mr Lloyd George has sent the following message to the Duke of Windsor: “Best Christmas greetings from an old Minister of the Crown who holds you in high esteem, will ever regard you with deep loyal affection, deplores the shabby, stupid treatment accorded you, resents the mean unchivalrous attacks, and regrets the loss to the Empire of a monarch who sympathised with his lowliest subjects.” BISHOPS’ COMMENT ON ABDICATION REFERENCES IN DIOCESAN LETTERS LONDON, December 23. The Archbishop of Canterbury (the Most Rev. Dr. Cosmo Gordon Lang), at 7.55 a.m. (Greenwich Mean Time) on December 27, will broadcast throughout the Empire a call for the rededication of service to Christianity just as the King at the Coronation will be consecrated and dedicated to kingship. It is understood that the Archbishop will refer only in passing to the Duke of Windsor, as he feels that the circumstances of his abdication should be forgotten. Four more bishops have referred in diocesan letters to the abdication. The Bishop of Manchester (the Rt. Rev. Dr. Guy Warman) and the Bishop of Coventry (the Rt. Rev. Dr. M. G. H. Haigh) paid tributes to the Duke’s gifts and service, but they consider his abdication was unavoidable. The Bishop of Ely (the Rt. Rev. Dr. B. O. F. Hey wood) says that Britain was not opposed to his marriage to Mrs Simpson on account of her rank or nationality, but they could not accept a queen with two husbands living. If the King had sacrificed his personal inclination there would undoubtedly be unfeeling of uneasiness qualifying loyalty to the Throne. The Bishop of Bradford (the Rt. Rev. Dr. A. W. F. Blunt) says that the Duke’s marriage to Mrs Simpson would have immensely diminished the influence of the Crown. The issue, therefore, was clear and stark. “CRITICISM BY PRELATES UNJUST” LORD BEAVERBROOK ON THE BRITISH CRISIS (Received December 25, 10.50 p.m.) NEW YORK, December 24. Lord Beaverbi'ook arrived aboard the Europa to take a rest cure in Arizona for asthma, which he interrupted earlier in the month because of the British crisis. He asserted that the criticisms of the Duke of Windsor by prelates of the English Church were unjust and expressed the opinion that the laws in England provide for divorce and there was no reason for such prejudice against it. He said that the standing of the Throne in the world was unimpaired by the constitutional crisis. MANY CHRISTMAS GIFTS PORTRAIT FROM QUEEN MARY (Received December 25, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, December 23. Thousands of Christmas packages are arriving at Enzesfeld for the Duke of Windsor from all over Europe and the United States, including Queen Mary’s gift of an ivory-framed portrait of King George V. and herself. The Duke instructed that gifts of perishable food should be distributed to the ‘jLocal poor.- - -