EDWARD VIII

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 85, 12 April 1937, Page 9

EDWARD VIII

THINGS DONE & UNDONE

STRONG COMMENT

"POOR LITTLE LIST OF CRIMES"

(United Press Association— By Electric eraph—Copyright. (Received April 12, 11 a.m.) LONDON, April 11. "There was more in the drama of King Edward's Abdication than conflict between the Prime Minister and a the King over Mrs. Simpson," states Mr. Geoffrey Dennis, editor and Chief of Document Services at the League of Nations ( Secretariat, in his "Coronation Commentary," just published.

"There were things done and said in ■ his infatuation, his lover's . prodigality, and his shrill King's ,rage against those who denied her to him," he says, "and there were things left undonein his infatuation, duty neglected, papers held up, and papers curiously neo-Kaiserishly annotated. He had no sound understanding of the technique or limitations .or the necessary dignity of. his. office. There were irregular hours, irregular, habits, muddling, fuddling, and ■ meddling." Yet Mr. Dennis sees in these things "a poor little list of crimes for which to have broken an adored and devoted King. Dereliction of duty was hoped for. and pounced upon, and was it! hot a dereliction of duty by the Government complacently to leave half of England derelict?

"His contempt for the dignity of his office meant the evasion of certain excesses of Court etiquette. Irregular hours meant his once having kept the Right Honourable Jack-in-Offlce waiting for - five minutes. His meddling meant trying to help the unfortunate. In wanting to get rid of him for . his : other- misdeeds they may have been wrong or they may have been right, but until this marriage was mooted they had no notion of how to get rid of him. She whom they pretended was a disaster was in fact a godsend. Her two divorces were a gift from Heaven."

While Mr. Dennis expresses the opinion that Edward's association with Mrs. Simpson was a source of courage, strength, and stimulus to Edward, he sums up the national opinion, as follows:—"For Que^n of England, a twice-divorced woman with two former husbands-living: was not good enough. She. clashed too crudely with the nation's idea and ideal and with the nation's dream and myth of 'feminine Royalty." : , ' ".'

Mr. Dennis says also: "You can't run an ancient Monarchy on saxophone and eocktail'party lines."