The Duke of Windsor's libel action has been settled, and
the less said about the matter now the better. But one word is relevant on the singular variety of judgements expressed by reviewers on the volume that gave rise to the action. It might well be supposed by anyone reading the statement made by Sir William Jowitt on behalf of the Duke of Windsor in Court on Monday that there could be only one opinion on the offending chapter in what is otherwise an excellent book—that expressed by the Lord Chief Justice in half a dozen scathing sentences. Yet at least one reviewer in a signed notice in a paper of considerable reputation recorded his view (I quote from memory) that the chapter on King Edward's Abdication dealt with the events of that period with admirable taste and restraint. The Spectator reviewer, it may be added, used language not much less emphatic than that of Lord Hewart. The action will have had one good effect. Sir William Jowitt's categorical declarations must dispose finally of more than one rumour about the Duke— the Aberdeen rumour in particular—which were at the time of the Abdication circulated with such a wealth of circumstan- tial detail that a great many normally hard-headed people implicitly believed them.
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