The First Royal Media War

Edward VIII, The Abdication and the Press

Adrian Phillips

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Hardback

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English

Pen & Sword History
01 June 2023

Biography: royalty; History; British & Irish history

Find out more about Edward VIII, the first celebrity monarch.

The abdication crisis of 1936 demolished the wall of silent deference that had protected the British royal family from press comment and intrusion since the days of Queen Victoria. King Edward VIII was a child of the burgeoning age of media and the first celebrity monarch, but the immense personal popularity created by his charm and good looks was not enough to save him when he came into conflict with a government that embodied the conservative ethos of the time. Nor did the support of powerful media barons. In the United States William Randolph Hearst, who inspired Citizen Kane, dreamed of giving Britain an American Queen and manoeuvred with Wallis Simpson to place her on the throne. In Britain the Anglo- Canadian newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook hoped to use the confrontation between the King and the government to force the prime minister, his bitter enemy Stanley Baldwin, out of power. Edward was blocked from broadcasting his case directly to the public, which was the source of deep resentment to him. The government treated the couple's media initiatives as declarations of war and was prepared to respond savagely. The British press remained tactfully silent almost until the end of the crisis, but behind the scenes, a cold war was being fought. For the rest of his life, Edward fought to air his grievances against the ill-treatment to which he thought that he had been subjected. He believed that he had been forced to abdicate by a coalition of reactionaries grouped behind the Archbishop of Canterbury. Edward resented bitterly the ostracism to which he and Wallis were subjected by his brother and sister-in-law, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, especially the refusal to grant his wife royal status. With sometimes farcical results, Edward tried to find authors who put over his side of the story. Beaverbrook supported Edward but tried to bend Edward's quest to fit his own agenda. The establishment did its utmost to restrain Edward and maintain a discreet silence over the crisis, but gradually members of the royal court abandoned reticence and fought back. The abdication challenged the British monarchy as an institution. A large part of the legacy is today's no-holds-barred media environment where the royal family's issues are fought in a ruthless glare of worldwide attention.

AUTHOR: After a career as an investment analyst and strategist in London and Frankfurt with a special focus on the political influences on markets, Adrian returned to university for a postgraduate degree in history, which had long been his passion. He focused on how top level decisions were taken in Whitehall and how bureaucrats could often wield greater power than politicians. This features in his books: The King Who Had To Go, which covered the abdication and Fighting Churchill, Appeasing Hitler, which covered appeasement. Rearming The RAF applies his knowledge of how the hidden mechanisms of power operate to military strategy.

30 b/w illustrations

By: Adrian Phillips
Imprint: Pen & Sword History
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781399065412
ISBN 10: 1399065416
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 01 June 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Unspecified

Adrian Phillips broke new ground with The King Who Had To Go, the first account of the political dimension of the abdication crisis of 1936. It exposed the remorseless strategies developed in the corridors of power that confronted King Edward VIII's glamourous love for a socially unacceptable, twice-divorced American woman. He now directs his understanding of how decisions are made at the highest level together with an intimate knowledge of the individuals involved, to probe how each side in the conflict manoeuvred to control the media during the crisis and in its bitter aftermath.