The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication

The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication

by Alexander Larman
The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication

The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication

by Alexander Larman

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Overview

The thrilling and definitive account of the Abdication Crisis of 1936

On December 10, 1936, King Edward VIII brought a great international drama to a close when he abdicated, renouncing the throne of the United Kingdom for himself and his heirs. The reason he gave when addressing his subjects was that he could not fulfill his duties without the woman he loved—the notorious American divorcee Wallis Simpson—by his side. His actions scandalized the establishment, who were desperate to avoid an international embarrassment at a time when war seemed imminent. That the King was rumored to have Nazi sympathies only strengthened their determination that he should be forced off the throne, by any means necessary.

Alexander Larman’s The Crown in Crisis will treat readers to a new, thrilling view of this legendary story. Informed by revelatory archival material never-before-seen, as well as by interviews with many of Edward’s and Wallis’s close friends, Larman creates an hour-by-hour, day-by-day suspenseful narrative that brings readers up to the point where the microphone is turned on and the king speaks to his subjects. As well as focusing on King Edward and Mrs. Simpson, Larman looks closely at the roles played by those that stood against him: Prime minister Stanley Baldwin, his private secretary Alec Hardinge, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang. Larman also takes the full measure of those who supported him: the great politician Winston Churchill, Machiavellian newspaper owner Lord Beaverbrook, and the brilliant lawyer Walter Monckton.

For the first time in a book about the abdication, readers will read an in-depth account of the assassination attempt on Edward’s life and its consequences, a first-person chronicle of Wallis Simpson’s scandalous divorce proceedings, information from the Royal Archives about the government’s worries about Edward’s relationship with Nazi high-command Ribbentrop and a boots-on-the-ground view of how the British people saw Edward as they watched the drama unfold. You won’t be able to put down The Crown in Crisis, a full panorama of the people and the times surrounding Edward and the woman he loved.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781250274854
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date: 01/19/2021
Sold by: Macmillan
Format: eBook
Pages: 352
Sales rank: 94,536
File size: 17 MB
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About the Author

Alexander Larman is a British historian and journalist. His acclaimed books of historical and literary biography include Blazing Star, Restoration, and Byron's Women, and he has edited and ghostwritten for a variety of publications. He writes for the Times, Observer, and Telegraph, as well as The Spectator and The Critic. He lives in Oxford with his wife Nancy and daughter Rose.
ALEXANDER LARMAN is a historian and journalist. He is the author of Blazing Star (2014), the life of Lord Rochester, and writes for the Observer, the Telegraph and the Guardian, as well as the New Statesman and the Times Literary Supplement.

Table of Contents

Dramatis personae ix

Introduction xv

Prologue 1

Chapter 1 The Royal Concubine 13

Chapter 2 'The Most Modernistic Man in England' 29

Chapter 3 God Save the King 51

Chapter 4 'Flatterers, Sycophants and Malice' 71

Chapter 5 'Power Without Responsibility' 89

Chapter 6 'The Most Serious Crisis of My Life' 107

Chapter 7 'Something Must Be Done' 125

Chapter 8 'A Clever Means of Escape' 141

Chapter 9 'Make Britain Great Again' 157

Chapter 10 'The Best Story Since the Resurrection' 175

Chapter 11 'This Is a Bugger' 189

Chapter 12 'Wherever You Go, I Will Follow You' 207

Chapter 13 Failing Tragically 223

Chapter 14 'Pity and Terror' 241

Chapter 15 'A Far Better Thing I Go To' 257

Epilogue 275

Acknowledgements 289

Permissions 293

Select BIbliography 295

Notes 299

Index 325

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