Prince Charming in the mud

Antony Lambton

KING EDWARD VIII by Philip Ziegler Collins, £20, pp. 654 Ihope the Queen will make Philip Ziegler a knight. His Edward VIII is a good book. He writes with style and elegance and clearly conveys the mud into which the once enchanting Prince of Wales slowly sank. He has an eye for detail and he can make the mundane interesting. In this book and his earlier Mountbatten he fascinates readers for nearly 1,300 pages. But unfortunately both books are flawed because Mr Ziegler is so nice that he found it frequently necessary to wonder if he was offending the sponsors of the official biog- raphies. Sometimes he decided that he had gone too far and that it was necessary to eat his words. I prefer this theory to the belief held by some that ever since Ken- neth Rose in his classic biography of George V mentioned the King's betrayal of the Russian royal family, royal biographers must walk carefully. In other words, the Queen has become a literary censor and as a prominent courtier remarked, 'Kenneth has gone out to 33 to 1 for a knighthood.'

The King's life was a sad saga and little is added to it here. We are given the mixture as before: the life of a charming prince, his bored youth, his gradual decline, his hatred of official life, his inability to get on with his father, his weakness culminating in his capture by Mrs Simpson, the abdica- tion, his banishment to Europe, his loose talk encouraging the Germans to believe he was a Nazi who would make a sym- pathetic and pro-German King, the inces- sant struggle to get his wife called HRH, his government of the Bahamas, his retire- ment to France, the desire to be royal again. It is an old story, but it is beautifully retold.

Let me give an example of Ziegler's antics. It may sound trite, but Edward VIII was a silly little man, without gratitude or friends. Ziegler describes how the Duke's most loyal courtier, whom he had plucked out of the Indian Army, Edward 'Fruity' Metcalfe, was bitterly hurt when, in May 1940, the Germans invaded Paris and the Duke disappeared to the South of France leaving him without even a bicycle. As Metcalfe put it at the time, He's run like two rabbits; after 20 years I'm through. How utterly I despise him . . . He deserted his job in 1936; well, he's deserted his country now, at a time when every office boy and cripple is trying to do what he can. It is the end.

To the Duke he wrote briefly on 3 June to report he was leaving that day for England. For I have not had one word from you, Sir, and can only surmise that you intend to stay where you are now. I am sorry, Sir, to leave your service,but I feel sure that it is the only thing to do.

This is damning, but Ziegler at once takes a step back:

The Duke's reply to Metcalfe's letter sug- gested that it was he who felt the injured party. Metcalfe should have resigned before quitting his post.

It was a measure of the Duke's selfish- ness that he thought it was all right for him to disappear silently to safety while a deserted Metcalfe waited in Paris for his resignation to be accepted as the Germans advanced.

The royal biographer still wishes to show that everything in the garden is lovely and writes that the two men renewed their friendship without recrimination after the war. Unfortunately, his next mention of Metcalfe does not confirm this opinion, as Ziegler quotes a letter from the Duke of Windsor to a friend saying:

I would appreciate your ignoring Metcalfe's invitations until I have an opportunity of explaining my reasons for this request and telling you what a four-flusher Metcalfe is.

Of course the comic pair made it up in the end but Ziegler merely succeeds in making the Duke look silly. The trouble was that Windsor was selfish and petty. In his youth he was influenced by his momen- tary loves. Later he was possessed by Wallis Simpson and after he abdicated was jealous of his brother and anxious to play a European role. Ziegler makes it clear that he was not a traitor but his idiotic remarks made the Germans think he might be. This was embarrassing to George VI. Perhaps the worst of Ziegler's spasmodic twinges of conscience are to be found in his perora- tion, in which he discusses what Edward VIII should have been called. He starts by suggesting 'Edward the Unworthy', then jumps back and comes up with 'Edward the Obstinate' and vainly tries 'Edward the Amiable' before deciding on 'Edward the Well-Meaning'. It is sickening stuff and is as bad as when he said of Mountbatten, 'I found it necessary to place on my desk a notice saying: REMEMBER; IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING, HE WAS A GREAT MAN.'

Mr Ziegler behaves in the same way with the Duchess, and while he mentions every sort of rumour concerning husband and wife, he suddenly writes like a schoolmas- ter about the Oakes murder and says, referring to the Duke:

He can fairly be accused of impetuosity and bad judgment, and of allowing his dislike of de Marigny to impair what should have been his complete impartiality:This is bad enough, without dredging up fantastic slanders from the sludge of unsubstantiated gossip.

This defence is far more damaging than any repetition of wild rumours.

He is also wrong to isolate the case as an event which did not affect the last 18 months of the Duke's governorship. On another occasion he is idiotic about Mrs Simpson's affection for the effeminate Jimmy Donahue. They used to walk about like a happily married pair leaving the miserable Duke trailing behind like an unhappy dog. Ziegler, without putting Dowson's phrase in quotation marks, sug- gests she longed 'for madder music and stronger wine', but then suggests that the affair was platonic. This was not thought to be the case at the time and the story went the rounds that Donahue returned home to his mother one night and proudly announced, 'Mother, I am a man now.' Perhaps Ziegler would not have thought this funny. The trouble is that, despite all his talents, he lacks a sense of humour. His only example of the Duchess of Windsor's humour tells how when the ambassador to Spain, Sir John Balfour, picked up her bag, she remarked wittily: 'I like to see the English grovelling to me'.

Another complaint; the index is deplor- able. I counted over 40 people whose courtesy titles, knighthoods, baronetcies and peerages are ignored. This is only important because it makes recognition difficult. For instance, Diana Mosley is styled Lady Mosley while her husband is described starkly as Oswald Mosley. Lord Furness is styled a baron, his wife is called Thelma Furness. Ziegler has an unfortun- ate habit of dropping names. He refers to the late Lady Stanley in the text and index as Lady Sybil (Portia) Cadogan, the daugh- ter of Earl Cadogan and finally as Lady Edward Stanley. These facts are only interesting because every one of them is incorrect. But Ziegler is to be congratu- lated on bringing the story to life. After all, he has little new relevant information, and has had to go over ground already covered by Lady Donaldson.