DUKE OF WINDSOR

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXVI, Issue 9062, 22 April 1937, Page 4

DUKE OF WINDSOR

CASE WITHOUT PRECEDENT VOLUNTARY EXILE THE WOMAN IN THE CASE ■ Never, so long as he lives, will the Dulce of Windsor be permitted to become just another name in the telephone directory. All professions are closed to him —that much is certain, writes Elsa Maxwell in "Redbook." He can uo more attempt to set up a business in Wall Street or raise cattle in Argentine than you or I can attempt to run for the Presidency of the Soviet Republic. A member of the family that still rules over the British Empire, he cannot afford to do what Royalty, expelled by a revolution, has always done. It is quite all right for a Romanoff to work as a floor-walker in a Fifth Avenue store, or for a Bourbon to organise a real estate Arm in Philadelphia, or for a Hohenzollern to accept a job from Henry Ford; but it is utterly impossible for a Windsor to accept a paying position. The Romanoffs, the Bourbons, and the Hohenzollerns have long since gone with the wind; but the Windsors still live in Buckingham Palace. His case is without precedent. The only voluntary exile in the long history of the Old World rulers, he has to overcome all the handicaps that faced his dethroned predecessors, and he is permitted none of their liberties.

Edward is forty-three, Mrs Simpson forty-one. Had he remained King of England and she Mrs Simpson, both would have been considered sufficiently young in any event to enjoy life. But he is not King any more, while she is about to become Duchess of Windsor. This means that at the age of fortythree and i forty-one respectively, both will be called upon to blue-pencil everything that has happened to them before, and develop brand-new personalities. He will have to forget that he ever ruled over 489,000,000 subjects, that for forty-three years of his life he was first the worlds' darling, then the world's most eligible bachelor; that wherever he went in those fortythree years he was given the Number One position, whatever he saw in those forty-three years could havo been his for the asking. She, in turn, will have to forget that she was born in an impoverished family in Baltimore, that she has known privation, that she has shared whatever a young navy officer has to share with his wife, that she has led the gay and care-free existence of a dashing guardsman's wife, that the overwhelming shadows of Victoria. Edward VII, and George V never interfered with her pleasure. Can so much blue-pencilling be done? I doubt it. Not at the ago of fortythree—nor the age of fortyone. A stockbroker can sell his seat oa the New York Stock Exchange and become a stamp-collector. A grocer can settle on a farm and raise chickens. A chambermaid can make a hit on Broadway. A Hollywood star can enter a convent. But no king, least of all a king of England, can become a "private person" at the age ol forty-three. And no "private person" can become a true Windsor .-.it the age of forty-one. "The Duke and the future Duchess oi! Windsor expect to live the lives of private citizens."

Thus speaks our wayward Press. What nonsense —what arrant nonsense! Shadowed by reporters. Watched by the British Government, ever mindful of any possible embarrassment they could cause King George VI, the Duke and the future Duchess of Windsor will find less privacy in the most secluded castle in Austria than they could have had on Piccadilly Circus. Way back in London they were two people who liked each other's company; while- in their future retreat —whether in Austria or at the North Pole—they will be the Two Great Lovers of our generation, and God's answer to the reporter's prayer. Way back in London they went around with gay people who believed in youth and its right to blunder, while in their future retreat they will wake up some day and realise that they are a. persecuted, maligned, misunderstood, middle-aged couple who can forgive but not forget.