The puzzled ex-king

Press, 22 July 1989, Page 24

The puzzled ex-king

The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor. By Michael Bloch. Bantam Press, 1988. 3O3pp, illusts, appends, refs, index. $34.95. (Reviewed by Joan Curry) The Duke and Duchess of Windsor have been at the centre of comment and speculation ever since they met in the 1930 s and caused so much trouble in English constitutional circles. In the half century since the Abdication of Edward VIII the world has eagerly observed the course of one of the more public love affairs of our age. The world has been rewarded (if that is the word) by a story that has turned out to have all the drama of a small-screen soap opera. There has been scandal, intrigue, politics, love, sex, money, exotic locations, mystery, even murder — and a full cast of celebrities to gawp at. This book covers the years from the marriage of the Windsors in 1937 to the time, well after the Second World War, when they gave up trying to negotiate a place for themselves in English social and political affairs.

Years of unofficial exile followed but are not covered here except briefly, to finish off the story. Essentially the emphasis here is on the legal and political aspects of the Simpson divorce, the Abdication, the distribution of the duke’s English properties, the question of the couple’s rank and standing, and the complicated and emotionally charged negotiations that all of these matters entailed.

The problem of what to do with an ex-king who had blotted his copybook exercised the minds of many people for a long time, and the ex-king himself was grieved and puzzled by the treatment he received, even from his own family.

If some of his concerns seem a little absurd — his abiding wish to have the duchess accorded a “Royal Highness” for example — the reader might nevertheless end up feeling sorry for this sad and lonely man who gave up what he considered to be a meaningless public office in favour of private domestic happiness.