“I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties………I now quit altogether public affairs and lay down my burden. It may be sometime before I return to my native land, but I shall always follow the fortunes of the British with profound interest, and if at any time in the future I can be found of service to HM in a private station I shall not fail”-
“Everybody was still in tears when he came but he was jubilant. He was like a schoolboy going on holiday. “It’s all over! He kept saying. It’s finished, thank God!”
He said his final goodbyes and the brothers walked to the door.
“I knew that I was now irretrievably on my own, he later wrote. “The drawbridges were going up behind me”.
“Can you imagine a more terrible fate ….then to face morning, noon and night, a middle age boy with no other purpose in life than a possessive passion for you?”
“She not only intended to come back here but aided by what she expects to be a generous provision from public funds, set up a Court of her own…”
“(He) was ruined by his liking for vulgar society and by his infatuation to this person”.
“It was taking some time for the Duke to accept his new situation. The Welsh Guards did not want him as their Colonel in Chief and he no longer remained a member of the Privy Council but there were compensations. Los Angeles offered him and “his lovely lady” a million dollars and a Hollywood mansion to star in “a stupendous historical film”.
“All he is living for is to be with her. It is very pathetic. I have never seen a man more madly in love….I feel sorry for him. He never does what she considers the right thing”.
“I was stuck by the clarity and vitality of her mind. She may well have limitations, she may be politically ignorant and aesthetically untutored, but she knows a great deal about life”.
“I remember like yesterday the morning I woke up and there he was standing beside the bed with his innocent smile, saying, “And now what do we do?” Here was someone whose every day had been arranged for him all his life and now I was the one who was going to take the place of the entire British government trying to think up things for him to do”.
“His Royal Highness the Duke and the Duchess should not be treated by HM’s representatives as having any official status in the countries which they visit…..and should not have any hand in arranging official interviews for them or participation in any official ceremonies. I entirely agree…and feel strongly that nothing should be done to make them appear other that what they are, i.e. private stunts for publicity purposes”.
“Is she really that ambitious? Perhaps, and the opinion at the Palace has no doubt of it, but it is certainly violently prejudicial. On the other hand in marrying a man she has pulled him down from a very high place. There are lots of women who have done the same thing…and then try to stick him up on as high a stool as can be found”.
“He is so lonely, so bored”.
“Leading a little knot of people came a small, tight-lipped, dark-haired woman…followed by a man with a very red face and the general demeanor of a happy grocer’s boy”.
“Regret that in view of your reply to my last message I cannot agree to returning until everything has been considered and I know the results. In light of past experience my wife and myself must not risk finding ourselves once more regarded by the British public as in a different status to other members of my family”.
“…as long as we never forget the power she can exert over him in her efforts to avenge herself on this country, we shall be all right”.
It was not only the isolation from his family but from the world.
“Although our life is a busy one, it seems cramped and isolated so far from the centres of interest and we certainly feel very much out of touch with the people who are directing the momentous events and framing the policies which will profoundly influence the future of mankind”.
The man who wrote these words, and who is quoted and commented upon in the above paragraphs is not the Duke of Sussex but his great uncle the Duke of Windsor and former King Edward VIII who deserted his country and his people “for the woman I love”. They both did.
It is noteworthy that seventy years on you can switch Harry for David and Meghan for Wallis - also American divorcee- and get it right, almost to a T. You cannot make this up.
Note: Quotes from “Traitor King” by Andrew Lownie
(Pages: 3,10,12,16,19,42,43,45,67,109,115 and 179)
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