A Lonely Man With A Troubled Spirit

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 386, 18 March 1937, Page 5

A Lonely Man With A Troubled Spirit

EDWARD VIIHHIS LIFE AND REIGN

FRANK COMMENT BY NEW ZEALANDER AUTHOR

KING GEORGE DIED UNHAPPY IN FATE OF HIS ELDEST SON.

HECTOR BOLITHO PUBLISHES INTIMATE STORY.

(Press Association—Copyright.) Received 10.30 a.m. LONDON, March 17. In a volume entitled “Edward VIII, His Life and Reign,” the New Zealander, Hector Bolitho, says that with all the tumult and affection which the late King George V enjoyed in the last year of his life, private grief made him unhappy. He was a disappointed man. He saw his eldest son retreating to a wilderness in which he could not help him. Edward was uncertain of values in living. He confused over-strength and weakness in human nature. He was bitterly resentful of all interference, even of affectionate advice. He became a law unto himself and built up the usual defences of a lonely man uncertain of his own strength. He became increasingly stubborn and conceited over his popularity. Natural graces seemed sour within him. Consideration for his servants changed to pettiness. His troubled spirit found its focus in the introduction of Mrs. Simpson, who gave him contentment unknown before. This friendship was a source of perpetual grief to his father, who called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to help him in trying to persuade Edward from his error. The Prince rejected the advice of both. DISREGARD FOR HIS MOTHER S FEELINGS. Upon his father’s death. Edward apparently suffered no selfreproach, going to Fort Belvedere and staying away from his mother in the hours when his place was beside her. CURIOUSLY PARSIMONIOUS AND INCONSIDERATE. Tracing the changes in Edward's character, Hector Bolitho says that he was never a liberal spender, and with the acquisiiton of great lands and fortune he became curiously parsimonious. He dismissed the old servants at Sandringham and pared expenses. He became a piteous figure as he estranged himself from those who had served and respected him. Some murmured that there was a fault in his reason and wondered how far he would bring the country into peril. Some said he imagined a State Royal dictatorship without any Constitution, but it is doubtful if he came so near such a state of meglomania on which dictators thrive.

OPPOSITION TO PRIME MINISTER SHOWN. He assumed a Crown with a Prime Minister who stood for safety, a path which he could neither respect or endure, and with an Archbishop with whom he was hostile in dealing. On his yachting cruise in 1936, from which the consoling figure of Mr. Simpson was now withdrawn, Hector Bolitho says that everywhere Mrs. Simpson was beside the King. There was no denying that he was supremely happy, whatever tide of criticism was welling up against him. BLUNDERED ON, LOYAL TO HIS POOR IDEALS. The King’s courage was not at fault ,and though he was incapable of a conquest within himself, he did not avoid any frightening interviews with Mr. Baldwin or with his mother or brothers. He blundered on, fiercely loyal to a poor ideal. For him to imagine that the traditions of British respectability could withstand the union he proposed, showed how far he had wandered from a knowledge of his people. Future authors will not write upon the romantic theme of the King who gave up his Throne for love, so much as upon the theme of a man of promise who came to disaster through a slow disintegration of his character, hastened by perpetual frustration. CONFLICT BETWEEN DUTY AND PLEASURE. "The idea of writing the book,” says Mr. Bolitho, "came when I accompanied him on his journey through New Zealand. My Life of the Prince Consort’ gave me the foundation which it is interesting to trace Edward’s inheritance of character and to see the conflict between the Coburg sense of duty and the Hanoverian appetite for pleasure. It is astonishing to see how they remained so defined. “It was easy to like Edward for his lack of humbug, his compassion and fierce sincerity; but these qualities ruined him, because his capacity for judgment was not great enough and not serene enough to discipline his emotions. He kept his promise at Carnarvon to be husband to his father’s people, but failed in the end—this poisonous end to the story. Nevertheless I do not think people realise his lonliness.”