Why did fascism and communism fail to sway England, despite widespread poverty and the ineffectiveness of the political elite? It has been argued that Mosley’s movement was doomed because its mass meetings, uniforms and leadership cult had no antecedents in English politics, yet this explanation is unsatisfactory. Political violence was often seen on England’s streets in the Thirties, while the English taste for military pageantry and for organizations such as the Boy Scout movement suggests that the Fascist ethos was not entirely alien to its culture.
Even so, a belief in parliamentary democracy and the rule of law was deeply embedded in English life, however undemocratic and fallible the political and legal systems were in practice. Through successive reform acts, the entire adult population of the country had been enfranchised, which had given the political system some legitimacy. The English governing class was allowed to govern by the people, ultimately because it offered them protection, whether actual or perceived, in return for their obedience, according to the traditional social contract.
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This is absolutely terrible
At the beginning of 1936 it became obvious that the health of George V was declining rapidly. Regular BBC radio bulletins kept people informed about his deteriorating condition. On 20 January, the announcer read out the words of George’s physician, Lord Dawson – ‘the King’s life is moving peacefully towards its close’. Dawson then administered two lethal injections of morphine to the monarch. A swift denouement guaranteed a relatively painless end for the king, and also ensured that his death could be announced in the morning edition of The Times rather than in the evening newspapers. George remained a model of decorum to the end.
Lord Dawson also accelerated the king’s death in order to ‘preserve dignity’. As he lay dying, his mind wandered and his speech was irritable. On being informed that he might soon be well enough to revisit the town of Bognor, he exclaimed ‘Bugger Bognor!’ The official version of George’s final words was ‘How is the Empire?’ – he was the last British monarch who might have plausibly mentioned imperial matters on his deathbed. By the time of the next royal passing, the empire would be diminished beyond recognition.
George V had been a relatively popular king, to judge by the public grief that followed his death. Yet this may also have been evidence of anxiety concerning the future, as well as nostalgia for the supposedly stable nineteenth-century world in which his character had been formed. As George’s coffin was drawn through London, it received a jolt when it crossed a set of tramlines and the sapphire cross and ball of diamonds on top of the imperial crown fell down into the street. Some regarded this as an ill omen.
George V was succeeded by his son Edward, who commanded as much popular affection as his father, though for different reasons. Nicknamed ‘Prince Charming’, Edward VIII was a dashing twentiethcentury dandy with a distinguished war career and countless love affairs behind him. As Prince of Wales, the carefree Edward had shown as little interest in marriage as he had in preparing himself for his future public role. His current inamorata was Wallis Simpson, a striking American who had married a British-American businessman following a divorce from her first husband. George V had disapproved of the affair, as well as of his son’s behaviour. ‘After I am dead,’ he prophesied, ‘the boy will ruin himself in twelve months.’ Edward VIII set the tone of his reign in his first weeks as king by repeatedly breaking with protocol. He was also unorthodox in his outspokenness on political matters, expressing sympathy for the unemployed as well as for the Indians who demanded full autonomy for their country. None of this went down well at court or in Downing Street. Neville Chamberlain resolved to tell the new king to ‘settle down’, but was dissuaded by Baldwin from doing so.
A few months into his reign it was rumoured that the king intended to marry Mrs Simpson, who had filed for her second divorce. The problem was that the government, along with the dominions, the Church of England, the wider royal family and the royal household, objected strongly to the proposed marriage. Edward was the titular head of all of these institutions, and bound, by precedent and protocol, to heed their views. Society, still dominated by the aristocracy, was equally disapproving, while the public’s view was summed up by MacDonald – ‘they do not mind fornication, but they don’t like adultery’.
Edward underrated the strength of conservative opinion within the establishment, and overrated his ability to influence it. He espoused the view that his marriage was a private matter; yet most of the governing elite begged to differ. Adopting a firm yet tactful manner, Baldwin told Edward he would resign if the marriage proceeded; this was effectively an ultimatum, since it might provoke a ‘king versus government’ constitutional crisis. Edward’s champions, who included Rothermere and Beaverbrook as well as Churchill, suggested a marriage by which Simpson could become Edward’s wife but not queen. But Baldwin, along with the empire and the royal family, refused to compromise.
As the crisis dragged on, many people became tired of it, and blamed Wallis Simpson for threatening the survival of one of the oldest institutions in the world. Meanwhile, Edward was increasingly seen as brazen, dictatorial and unbalanced. In the end he was forced to make a choice between Wallis or the crown: ‘I am going to marry Mrs Simpson,’ he told Baldwin, ‘and I am prepared to go.’ He then made a farewell radio broadcast to the nation and became the Duke of Windsor once more, retiring from public life on a vast salary. He was succeeded as king in 1937 by his younger brother, George.
‘This is absolutely terrible,’ George VI told a cousin. ‘I never wanted this to happen. I’m quite unprepared.’ Diffident and volatile, George sometimes spoke with a pronounced stammer, and he responded to the news of his brother’s abdication by sobbing like a child. Generally regarded as a ‘good sort’ with unexceptionable qualities, he emerged bewildered from a cloistered family into the limelight. As a young man he had been taught that routine, discipline and manliness were paramount, just as duty and loyalty were imperative. He learned that he must sacrifice his private interests for his public role. This upbringing moulded a ‘sound’ character, quite different from that of Edward. In one of his first public utterances as king, George said that he would respect ‘the duties of sovereignty’ and declared his ‘adherence to the strict principles of constitutional government’.
Yet George’s sheltered youth had hardly prepared him to rule over a country living through a difficult period of its history, with division inside its borders and menaces without. So far as foreign affairs were concerned, he supported the government’s policy of appeasement. No one could deny that George had pluck – he had demonstrated this at Jutland, where he had seen active service in 1916, and he would draw on that experience in the years to come. The stolidity of his character reminded people of his father; some observers came to see his reign as contiguous with that of George V, with no intervening abdication. The flashy Edward was soon forgotten.
Baldwin had emerged triumphant from the abdication episode. To the surprise of many, ‘Master Stanley’ had seen off a series of apparently insurmountable challenges – a constitutional crisis, an economic depression and confrontations with Lloyd George and Churchill, the greatest politicians of the age. People now hoped that he would succeed in calming the confrontation brewing on the Continent. Yet the prime minister decided, at the beginning of 1937, that it was time to bow out. While his decision to retire was prompted by exhaustion and increasing deafness, it ought to have alarmed political observers: the supreme political survivor may have sensed that he would be unable to steer the nation through what Churchill called ‘the gathering storm’ of continental diplomacy.