Battle Royal: Edward VIII and George VI - Brother Against Brother Book

Behind every strong man stands a strong woman, the adage runs. It would perhaps be overly generous to label either Edward VIII or George VI a Hercules, but their respective wives were certainly clashing colossi, engaged in a titanic struggle that outlasted the Second World War, and which briefly threatened to alter its course dramatically. The story of the abdication crisis has been told and retold, but Kirsty McLeod's account cuts as striking a dash as one of Wallis's dresses (and at a fraction of the price). McLeod's main contention is that the bullying criticism of their father (George V) and the icy haughtiness of their mother (Queen Mary) cruelly impaired the two brothers and ill equipped them for their future roles. The sado-masochistic relationship David (as Edward VIII was known) entered into with Wallis provided a closure for the "black, black mist" which was his inheritance, along with the throne, from his father. His crime was to put his lover before his country--romantic to a people who warmed to his common touch, heinous to a family that put monarchic duty before, well, anything. In incurring the wrath of Elizabeth, the present Queen Mother, for forcing her husband Bertie to become George VI, he effectively sealed the fate of himself and his new wife to drift the world as "personae non grata". The loyal Bertie had continued to doggedly support his older brother until he lied to him about his finances when negotiating the abdication "pay-off"; the subsequent estrangement probably owed more to unacknowledged sibling rivalry and shared stubbornness as the potential for tragedy dissipated into pettiness. McLeod's conjectures are sometimes provocative but always interesting and the verve she brings to her subject defies any weariness it may provoke. It may be a familiarly familial tale, but a good story can stand a decent retelling. --David VincentRead More