King Edward VIII: A Biography

The young Edward seemed to have it all. Handsome, courtly, wistful, his slight form, blonde hair and blue eyes were the stuff of fairy tales, the Prince who might have been pursuing Cinderella. Ziegler's fine biography must surely reveal the real, the definitive Edward. He puts the tapestry of Edward's life before you, but that tapestry begins to unravel as Edward reaches adulthood. Hopelessly ill-educated- Oxford not withstanding- Edward is a strange case of arrested development, too long a teenager. Even his letters are riddled with exclamation points and he babbles on like somebody sixteen. When he discovered sex he never looked back but seemed to prefer older married women- perhaps he was really looking for a mother. He soon developed into a womanizer playing the field for all it was worth, but his two great loves were Freda Dudley Ward and Mrs. Simpson.Running through all of Edward's correspondence is a self-pitying whine which given his enormous largesse is hardly comprehensible. He constantly bemoans his wretched childhood with his martinet father wielding the whip. George V was a strict disciplinarian but highly supportive of his son. When Edward's little brother Johnnie died at thirteen of complications of epilepsy, Edward wrote his mother a cruel letter implying the little boy was better off dead. Queen Mary was terribly hurt by her oldest son's callousness but callousness is a part of Edward's character- he hurt many people and stepped on people he no longer wanted in his life.Freda Dudley Ward had been the Prince's mistress some fifteen years and she was one of the people he shut out of his life by telling the switch board operator to block her calls. He did not tell her himself but he had met Mrs. Simpson and Freda became a throwaway. If ever there was an idee fixe, it was Mrs. Simpson to Edward. Perhaps a man so idolized around the world, a rock star for whom was prepared "a monstrous banquet of pleasure" would inevitably be forever spoiled to the point that he cared for no one's opinion except his own.Author Ziegler has Wallis pegged as "shallow and greedy." "Even men she didn't want she didn't want anyone else to have." Perhaps because of the humiliation of her impoverished childhood money and material possessions came to mean everything. Edward had never met a person so un-awed by his position. Wallis neither respected the office nor the man and the Prince, used to being "swaddled in a protective cocoon" and no doubt a masochist, fell like a sack of potatoes and figuratively threw himself at Wallis' feet for life, happy in his surrender. That he should consider the harsh, domineering, often rude woman as the perfect woman really does boggle the mind and as long as their story is told probably will boggle many more minds down the road. What Wallis Simpson actually had that would precipitate the abdication is not a matter discussed in detail by Author Ziegler for the simple reason he is as much in the dark as the rest of us. But the fact she was plain and angular, about as far from the softly feminine Freda Dudley Ward as you can get, didn't figure in the equation. He wanted to be horse-whipped and she obliged him.Ziegler's discussion of the Abdication crisis may leave you breathless, it was a brouhaha of immense proportions. Edward, however, proceeded on his merry way. He had to wait six months before he could wed Wallis which threw him into one of his dark depressions. Married and on the loose, the British government was at loggerheads about what to do with Edward. The Duke and Duchess' ill-advised visit to Nazi Germany which included private meetings with Hitler has suggested to many historians that Hitler wished to have Edward re-instated as king of a the newly fascist Great Britain. Author Ziegler suggests that Edward was less pro-Nazi than anti-communist and hoped Russia and Germany would slug it out.And he actually believed he had a role to play in reconciling England and Germany.Edward was installed as the new governor of the Bahamas in Nassau more or less a ploy to plunk Edward where he could do no harm politically or otherwise. Both Duke and Duchess loathed the Island, but they did make some headway in relieving poverty; however the murder of a local magnate, Sir Harry Oakes, erased the slate. The Duke made some crucial errors in investigating the sensational murder and when their tour of duty was finished in the Bahamas he spent the rest of his life trying to secure a suitable job for himself. The last two decades of his life saw the pair drifting aimlessly from one watering hole to the next, as many have said, parasites.In his last paragraph Author Ziegler sums up his feelings about Edward. His remarks actually brought tears to my eyes:"the greatness of the sacrifice he made for her, the fortitude with which he battled for her over the thirty six years of their marriage, the steadfastness of his love until the day he died, are matters which should not be forgotten when any final judgment is assayed of the life and character, if not the reign, of King Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor."Whether the Duchess deserved such devotion is not our call. Don't miss this wonderful biography, which surely portrays the real Edward, his character laid before you with both compassion and strict adherence to the facts.

This account of the life of Edward VIII fills in some blanks about the king. His early life and family relationships are recounted in some detail and well supported by letters and documents. This sets a good foundation for the rest of the book where his abdication and post abdication life are discussed. Wallis Simpson appears a bit one dimensional but this is after all a book about the former King so perhaps that is appropriate. All in all a good supplement to the other books out there about his life.

Dear Lynn, Thank you so much for your kind words on my receipt It's so nice to see that Merchants still take the time to thank the the customer! I am also pleased to see that they're still independent bookstores Even though it's on Amazon! I'm so pleased with the book Well worth the price! My Great Grandad came from Essex At the turn of the century And his daughter my grandmother Has always taught me the British way From tea to decorum..I have learned to Learn British history From her Follow the Royal Family I never really paid attention until Charles marry Diana..I was 8 when they married recall my Gran and Aunt waking waking me up to watch the wedding..I love history and learning about the past royal family . Read many books from Edward IV on up ! Love this book already from the pics..haven't read it yet because I'm in another book!! But again Thank you! It came in faster than I thought!! I'm excited to read! 🥰❤

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"It is truth universally acknowledged ..." many will no doubt recognize this as the opening line of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" (Ch. 1). You can find this sentence in its entirety at the opening of Ch. 5 ("L'Education Sentimentale") by Philip Ziegler in his biography of Edward VIII, and without any attribution to Ms. Austen. No, the Bibliography does not have the credit listed. I find it fascinating that Ziegler reports that Edward was unschooled in English classics (and he may have been) (Ch. 1 "The Child" p16-17), but Ziegler cannot be similarly uninformed.Curiously, a similar borrowing has been noted in Ziegler's Mountbatten (1985), where the Austen text is from the opening chapter of "Persuasion". Here, he suggests that Mountbatten was absorbed in his own geneology, which once again Ziegler notes was far from his actual character.

I am hoping that when I read this book that I find that this author actually tells a more truthful account of what happened what really happened about a skirt chasing King who could not get his way so he quit or abdicated the throne over a woman whom was married and divorced twice and married again who ran around on a ex-king after she tires of him and further more he let her .You can't make this up this is just a bit of what truly happened when an inept little spoiled man who didn't want to be king to begin with did to his family and to his Kingdom his people .Well the people spoke as they chanted we want King George VI we want the King they were not speaking of David or the Duke of Windsor what a spoiled little boy .

I look enjoyed reading the book.

An excellent study of David and Wallis. Did he jump or was he pushed? His strange obsessions for Walli and, for meaningless titles and his hypocritical sympathy for the working man and for fascism on the other. A man who said he did not want to be king, but did not want to be nobody either. Finally one feels dubious about any of his motives.

the inimitable Ziegler !

Livro excelente e muito bem escrito, recomendo!

The book gives a clear account of the character of King Edward VIII. It shows his strengths and weaknesses. The research that lies behind the book is amazing in its depths and thoroughness.

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Philip Ziegler's biography of Edward VIII(1894-1972) was first published more than twenty years ago and, as the author comments in his preface to the latest edition of his biography, there have been more than twenty further books dealing with Edward VIII's life or certain aspects of it, in addition to a proliferation of newspaper articles, plays and television documentaries. Mr Ziegler's scrupulously researched biography, however, still stands the test of time and gives the reader a full and interesting account of the life of the king who chose to abdicate rather than live a life without the woman he loved as his consort. So in a chronological format we learn of Edward's early years and of his entry into the Royal Naval College in 1907 when he was almost thirteen years old; we read of his time at Oxford, (which he did not enjoy); of his involvement in the First World War, where although he spent time in the trenches, he was rarely, to his frustration, allowed close to the real action at the Front; we learn of his punishing schedule of royal tours after the war; of his years of heavy drinking and smoking and of his habit of staying up until the early hours, contrasted with his self-imposed regime of extreme exercise. We read of his relationships with married women, his dislike of the duties that came with his position as the Prince of Wales and of his parents' (and others') concern of his suitability as a future King. And, of course, we read of his relationship with the twice-married Wallis Simpson, a woman described by her detractors as hard-boiled, vain, shallow and grasping, but a woman for whom Edward developed an obsessive passion that resulted in him giving up his right to the throne.Mr Ziegler has extensively researched his subject, drawing on Edward VIII's diaries, his private papers, his correspondence and love letters, and the private papers of certain prime ministers, and this scrupulous research has resulted in an authoritative, even-handed and elegantly written account of a man who seemed to never really grow up and who wanted all of the privileges but few of the responsibilities that came with being King. The author examines closely the events that led up to the abdication, but he also focuses carefully on Edward's post-abdication years: the haggling with his brother, King George VI, over his financial settlement; his refusal to accept the magnitude of his abdication and its aftermath; his naive expectation that his family would, in time, come to accept Wallis as a member of the royal family and to allow her to be addressed as Her Royal Highness (they didn't, of course, and had no intention of ever doing so); his unwise and indiscreet comments and behaviour at the beginning of the Second World War, which have since led to accusations of his being a traitor - an accusation that Mr Ziegler refutes by commenting that although Edward was often "silly, indiscreet and egotistical" the author is absolutely certain that "with all his faults, he was a patriot who would never have wished his country to be defeated or have contemplated returning to Britain as a puppet king." All of which makes for a very interesting, informative and compelling reading. Recommended.5 Stars.