| January 26 |  |
Editor says, what if King Edward and Queen Wallis had reigned? muses Jacquelyn Friedlander. Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the February 2011 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1938, at Winston Churchill's urging, King Edward VIII gives up his plan to abdicate and marries his divorced American sweetheart Wallis Simpson.
End of the Abdication CrisisWhile Parliament had been vehemently opposed to the match, Sir Winston reminded them that they could not afford to insult America while Germany was threatening war.
The new royal couple had their own way of dealing with Germany, though...going on several state visits to the Nazi state and assuring Hitler of their friendship. Like so many of the fuhror's so-called friends, these two were stunned and betrayed when he invaded Poland. England frantically raced to arm, but it was too late. Hitler offered to keep Edward as the King of Great Britain, but Edward refused that invitation "with the contempt it deserved" and was later killed leading the British resistance.
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Jacquelyn Friedlander
© Jacquelyn Friedlander, 2011-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: King Edward, Queen Wallis, Abdication Crisis, Britain, Royal Family. Editor says, in reality two years earlier, in 1936, Edward DID abdicate in order to marry Wallis. The couple did pay a state visit to Hitler...but Churchill had more time to warn the English of the Nazis' true intents, starting with the invasion of Poland. Hitler did offer to restore the throne to Edward, but, once again, the former king refused the invitation "with the contempt it deserved". The English evacuated Edward and Wallis from Paris before the Germans arrived .. but they were never allowed to return to England, until Edward's funeral.
~ What of the revitalized monarchy that a king actively engaged in war represented? Would the Windsor line become the new Plantagenets?
~ If Edward had died while leading the Resistance, he potentially could have gone down as one of the greatest monarchs in British history. He would have been revered for generations following the war.
~ I'm with you, John. The entire cabinet threatened to resign if Edward married Simpson and did NOT abdicate. I believe things ended off better than in this AH, because Edward would not have been a good wartime monarch. He was a little to cozy with Nazi ideology, which is why he was shipped off to be the governor of Bermuda during the war.
~ I don't think that Edward was so much "cozy with Nazi ideology" as glad to find _someone_ who would be polite to Wallis when he visited Germany (where, let us not forget, the British royals had and have a lot of relatives). That said, they were delighted to find an excuse to get rid of him---he neglected "the boxes" and was basically a scandal waiting to happen.
~ There was a major problem with him being king and thus leader of the Anglican Church with a previously divorced wife. Would he have separated the Church from the Crown and given the title to someone else?
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
