Winston Churchill played a “venal and unscrupulous” role in the United Kingdom’s abdication crisis in 1936 when King Edward VIII stepped down from the throne, according to a briefing paper prepared for Éamon de Valera.
Edward VIII wanted to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, but he was strongly opposed by British prime minister Stanley Baldwin, whom Churchill saw as blocking his political ambitions.
The detailed briefing note, whose author is unknown, is scathing of Churchill, and handwritten notes attached show that it was exchanged between De Valera, then president of the Free State’s executive council and minister for finance Seán McEntee.
Arguing that Churchill was trying to exploit the king’s determination to marry to further his own political ends, the note described him as Baldwin’s “deadly enemy”.
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If Edward succeeded in marrying Simpson in the face of Baldwin’s objection, Baldwin would have had no choice but to resign, clearing the way for Churchill to ascend to the office he had wanted his entire life – one he eventually got in 1940.
Describing him as “venal and unscrupulous”, the Irish note charged that Churchill came from a family “whose house was founded by a man who betrayed his first patron, James, duke of York, and who allowed his wife to pander to an erotic queen”.
“He is a figure of great potentialities and of overweening ambition. He has already given indications of a desire to challenge the cabinet’s attitude on the proposed marriage,” it went on.
“His whole political life has been a gamble ... By taking the king’s side there is the fact that if the king were to win, his new prime minister would exercise a personal domination that has not been known in Britain since the days of Walpole,” it went on.
The briefing was prepared for the Free State’s executive council because Edward VIII was still its head of state, and De Valera was regularly briefed throughout by Baldwin as the controversy heightened.
Irish officials were then unsure how the crisis could be resolved, but pondered how the “serious cleavage in Great Britain which will persist for a very long time” could be used to Irish advantage.
“Just as the British have used political divisions here for their own political advantage we are entitled to and are bound to turn their present difficulty to our own account,” the note argued.
“If the proposed marriage takes place, whether by special legislation or otherwise, it will undoubtedly weaken the British monarchy as an institution and weaken the constitutional position in Great Britain of the British cabinet.”
The note recognised “the personal popularity of the king, particularly with the workers and ex-servicemen”, while “a very large portion of the British people have very lax views in regard to marriage and divorce,” it said dismissively.
King Edward VIII was the Free State’s second head of state after his father, King George V. Edward’s successor, King George VI, held the role until the republic was declared in 1949, severing all links with the monarchy.
While King Edward abdicated in December 1936 with the throne going to his younger brother, prime minister Stanley Baldwin decided to retire immediately after the coronation of the new king. He was succeeded by Neville Chamberlain.
Churchill was scathing of Baldwin, especially his attitude to the need to rearm in the face of the growing threat from Nazi Germany, describing one of Baldwin’s Commons speeches on the issue as “a squalid confession”.
By contrast, Baldwin was generous in his praise of Churchill, even telling friends in 1935 that Churchill would be the man needed to be prime minister if war broke out, which it did four years later.
In a letter to his friend JC Davidson about Churchill, Baldwin wrote: “If there is going to be a war – and no one can say that there is not – we must keep him fresh to be our war prime minister.”
Churchill succeeded Chamberlain in May 1940 and went on to serve as prime minister for 10 years over two terms until his retirement in 1955.
