Prime Minister: If Your Majesty dares to marry her, I will resign! King: I don't want the throne, she, I'm married. What's going on? The king's name was Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, also known as Edward VIII, the second king of the Windsor dynasty of England, the eldest son of Queen George V and Queen Mary, and the half-brother of George 6.
George 6 is the father of the current Queen Elizabeth 2 of the United Kingdom. Edward VIII was born in June 1894 in a Palladian white wooden house in Richmond, Surrey, England. As queen Victoria's eldest great-grandson, he received the title of "Her Royal Highness Prince Edward" upon his birth, which has led to his continued training as heir to the throne.
In 1908, at the age of 14, Edward VIII entered the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth with a large group of royals and nobles. However, Edward VIII, as Crown Prince, seemed to have a somewhat cowardly personality. Once, an instructor saw him crying in a corner, and after all kinds of questioning, Edward VIII said why: "At school, classmates often kicked me. ”
When the instructor asked the students why they did this, they all replied, "Later we can show off to others, 'Hey, man! I've kicked a king's ass! In 1910, George V succeeded to the throne and Edward VIII officially became Crown Prince. In 1917, anti-German sentiment in Britain, which was in the midst of World War I, was highly prodigious and spies were caught everywhere, while the surname of the British royal family was the surname of Germany.
In order to reassure the British people, George V accepted the advice of his private secretary to abandon the German surname and change his surname to Windsor, which is the source of the Windsor dynasty. In 1928, George 5 gave Edward 8 a detached home, after all, his son was 34 years old. However, after Edward VIII moved out, he began to become debauched, even disregarding his own honorable status.
He either hangs out with the wind and dust women or cheats with the husbands of women, many of whom are older than him. To this end, Edward VIII also refused the courtship of many young women, including the marriage arranged by his mother, which laid the tragedy for his future throne. In addition, as the crown prince, he often said a lot of racial and sexist remarks.
For example, he once said: "Australian Aborigines are the most disgusting creatures I have ever seen, they are the lowest species of humans, that is, monkeys." "The improper style and unguarded mouth made George V and Queen Mary very disappointed in Edward VIII. To this end, George V once said: "Within 12 months of my death, this child will destroy himself." ”
Queen Mary also said: "I often pray that Edward will not marry and have children, so that there is nothing to stop the crown of George and Elizabeth." But even so, edward viii eventually succeeded to the throne, because he was the first in line to the throne, and no one could deprive him of his succession as long as he did not explicitly state that he would not be king.
On January 20, 1936, George V died of illness, and not long after, Edward VIII succeeded to the throne. On October 16 of the same year, George V summoned his Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, to the palace, saying that he was about to get married, and asked him to prepare for the cabinet. Prime Minister Baldwin was overjoyed to hear that the King was getting married, after all, Edward VIII was already a 42-year-old man.
But when the prime minister heard the name of the king's marriage, he was not happy at all, and even cried. Why? Because Edward VIII was going to marry a woman named Wallis Simpson. At the time, Wales Simpson was not suitable to be queen on all sides. As for the reasons, there are the following points: First, she is a serious American and a civilian.
Second, she was married twice: at the age of 20, she married a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, and then divorced. She then married a wealthy American businessman named Ernest Simpson; third, she was married to her husband during a rendezvous with Edward VIII. When Edward VIII announced that he was going to marry her, she still had not yet gone through divorce procedures with her husband.
Fourth, Wallis Simpson was Catholic, while Britain and the Royal Family were Protestant; fifth, she was a fanatical supporter of Nazi Germany, with whom she had close contacts with Georg Ribbentrop, the German ambassador to Britain and later promoted by Hitler to foreign minister, to whom she had been providing important political and military information. And Wales Simpson, also the secret lover of George Ribbentrop.
It is precisely because of this that Edward VIII's marriage to Wallis Simpson was opposed by all the British people, from the royal family, the prime minister's cabinet officials, down to the common people, all of whom came out to stop it, and even the Anglican Church came forward to exert pressure. Edward VIII, however, was not affected by these events and still insisted on marrying Wallis Simpson.
Just as the two sides were at a stalemate, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin began to "force the palace". He said to Edward VIII, "If Your Majesty dares to marry her (referring to Wallis Simpson) and insists on doing so, I and the Cabinet will resign." "For Edward VIII, there is no doubt that he knew what this move meant. If he insisted on marrying Wales Simpson, others would not be able to do anything about him, after all, he was the king.
However, if Edward VIII did so, he would go against the will of the people, causing the government to resign, and also violate the basic constitutional policy of maintaining political neutrality as a monarchy. This would bring great damage and trampling on the British Constitution, and it was very likely that the royal family would cease to exist and the British Empire would disintegrate.
So after much deliberation, Edward VIII said to Prime Minister Baldwin: "I don't want the throne, but as for her, I'm married." On December 11, 1936, Edward VIII officially issued a declaration of abdication, voluntarily relinquishing the throne and marrying Wallis Simpson instead. Since then, the prophecy of his father, George V, has come true. The next day, his brother George VI was put on the throne by the crowd in tears.
Subsequently, at his brother's abdication ceremony, George VI cried on the shoulders of his mother, Empress Mary, for a full hour, and finally fainted in her mother's arms. On 8 May 1937, Edward VIII's title was changed to Duke of Windsor. (If you like it, pay more attention, like more, favorite, retweet and comment, thank you!) My other articles are also very exciting, welcome to read! ）