"AN UNTIMELY BOOK"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 74, 24 September 1938, Page 29

"AN UNTIMELY BOOK"

ABOUT DUKE OF WINDSOR

Keviewing "The Windsor Tapestry," by Compton Mackenzie, "The Times Literary Supplement" remarks that this life of the Duke of Windsor was at one time intended to be an "authorised biography," but in circumstances outlined in the preface the Duke withheld his authority before publication. His Royal Highness has certainly been well advised. He has no ill-wishers who matter among his former subjects, with whom his reputation is far more secure than Mr. Mackenzie imagines; and he neither needs**nor can derive any benefit from this untimely book. Mr. Mackenzie is obsessed with the idea that a campaign of calumny is being waged against the former King; but, except for some episcopal criticisms immediately after the abdication, which were obviously conscien* tious and without malice, he seems to have reached his conclusion on the basis of second-rate journalism in the remoter parts of the Empire.

"His own enthusiasm for the Duke as Prince of Wales and King is mani* festly sincere," "The Times" review continues, "and wherever he can confine himself to appreciation of his hero's eminent qualities his writing is eloquent and attractive. But from the first he is mainly preoccupied to present a defence against the supposed hostile propaganda; and, since this propaganda is so insubstantial, he can find no defence except by taking every occasion, from the very birth of the Prince, to counter-attack the men who in later life were to bear the chief responsibility in Church and State during the final crisis. Sometimes he attacks with argument; more often with a sneer.

"Mr. Mackenzie is haunted throughout by the suspicion that the abdication crisis was, if not created, at least manipulated by a combination of interests hostile to the King, not on any grounds connected with hi& marriage, but because he might disturb official com* placency with social or even foreign policy. The villain of the piece is 'the great Goliath of Philistine opinion encased in the brassy armour of privilege,' incarnate especially in the Primate, the then Prime Minister, and, for some strange reason, 'The Times.' In sober fact such sentiment as was prepared to compromise with the King's matrimonial project was almost, entirely confined to the socially-privi-leged classes. Those who have convinced themselves of the serpentine duplicity of Lord Baldwin are not likely to be dissuaded, except perhaps by closer personal acquaintance; but to. throw doubt on the face value of the plain narrative of events that he laid before the House of Commons requires concrete evidence, and not the accumulation of rumours with which Mr. Mackenzie tries to conjure up an atmosphere of conspiracy. The most circumstantial of these relates to an alleged interview between the King arid the Prime Minister, in addition to those described in Parliament. It is supposed to have taken place on November 27, Mr". Baldwin secretly visiting Buckingham Palace and informing the King that the Government would resign unless he renounced the marriage—or the throne. The insinuation is that the King was thus forced to take his decision to abdicate before the Dominions had been consulted, and these afterwards had to 'toe the line.' Now this rumour, was indeed current, like many other rumours of.no greater authority, in newspaper offices on the actual day. It was investigated then and there, and proved to be baseless. With;ife.. collapses the attack on Lord Baldwin's;,bona fides.

"Mr; Mackenzie's own solution of the problem ithat then confronted King and people is, that of morganatic marriage. He supports it with hundreds of pages of historical and theological digression —all of it irrelevant. What is most unfortunate about this publication is that itsvfcharges against public men who twpyears ago bore an agonising responsibility can only be fully answered byStyruaging the Du'ie and Duchess into issue." Rather than anything so unseemly as a public controversy on such a subject it is better that the attacks should go unanswered.