EX-KING'S FAITH in A Poor Ideal

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 53, 18 March 1937, Page 5

EX-KING'S FAITH in A Poor Ideal

-Preaa Abbh.-

■ m*>. . w . — N.Z. AUTHOR' "LIFE" "Imagincd a Stafe pf Royal Dictatorship MEANNESS IMPUTED

(By Telegxapli-

—Copy right.)

(Received 18, 10.30 a.m.) LGNDQN, March 17. In a volump entitled ' 'Edward vm, His Life and Reign," Mr Hector Bplithe, the New Zealander, says: "With ail the tupiult and affection that King George V. e»joyed in the last year of his life, private grief anade him an unhappy and disappointed nian. He saw his eildest son retreating to a wilderness in which he could not help . "Edw&rd, uncertain of values in liying, confused over the strength and weakness of human "nature and bitteriy resentful of all interference and even affectionate advice, became a law nnto himself and built up the usual def ences oi a lonely man, Uncertain of his own strength, ha became increasingiy Btubborn and concejted over his popur larity. His natural graces seemed to sour within him, qonsideratipn for his gervants changed to pettiness and hiB troubled spirit found its focus in the introduction of Mis Wallis Simpson, who gave him eontentment nnhnown before. "TMs friendship was a perpetuai grief to his father, who called on the •ATchbishop of Canterbury to try and persuade Edward from his error. The Prince rejected the advice of both. "Upon his father 's death Edward apparently suffered no self-reproach in going to Eort Belvedere and staying away from his mother in the hours when his place was beside her. ' ' Tracing the changes in Edward character, Mr Bolitho says: "He was meyer a liberaj spender and, with the acquisition pf great land and a for? • tane, hp bepame curiously parpimonious, He dismissed old servants at Sandringham and pared expenses. He became a piteous figure as he estranged hlmself from those who had served and yespected him. Some murmured that there was fanlt " in his reason and wpndered 'how far it would bring the country into peril. 'Some said he imagined a state of Royal dictatorship without a constitution, but it is doubtr ful if he came so near that meglomaniq on which dictators thrive. "He assumed the CJrowa with a Prime Minister who. stood for safety and apathy which he could neither fe? spect nor endute, and with an Afchbishop tp whom he was hostile," Dealing with the yachting cruise of 1936, Mr Bolitho says: "Everywhere Mre Simpson was bpside the King, There was no denying that he was supremely happy whatever the tide of criticism welled up against him. The King's couraga was not at fault. Though he was incapable of conquest within himself he did not avoid frightening interyiews with Mr Stanley Bald. win, his mother and his brothers. He blundered on,- fiercely loyal to a poor ideal. The union he proposed showed how far he had wandered from know» ledge of his people. "Futurp authora will not write upon the rpmantip thpme oi a Mng who gave op Mu throne for Jove so mjmh as upon the theme of a man oi promis9 whq came to disasfer throngh the slow disintegration of his charaeter hastened by perpetuai f rustration. Hector Bolitho is the author *jf numeroua works of fiction and several biographies. His ifirst work was an acconnt of Ms tour throngh Hew Zear land with the then Prinee pf Wales ii| 1920. He has written a life of Queen Vietoria's consort "Albert the Good.'? A cable iu January reported him asj saying: "The idea of writing the book came when I accpmpanied him on his journey throngh New Zealand. My 'Life of the Prinee Consort J gave me a foundation from which it was intereBt; ing to trace Edward. 's inheritance of charaeter and., see the confliet hetween Jhe Cpburg sense of duty and the Hano: verian appetite for pleasuire. It is astOnishing to see how they remainecl sq dpfinpd. It was easy tp like him for his lack of humbug, his compassion and his fierce sincerity. These qualities rujned him bepause his capacity for jadgment was not great enough and not serene enough to aiscipline his empfcions. He kept the promise he made at Carnarvon to be a hnsband to his father 's people, but he failed at the end— the poisonous end — o.f the story] Nevertheless I do not think the people realise his loneliness. He was a great — a very great — Prince of Wales."