A Game of Thrones, 1936-Style: How Three Canadians Shaped the Abdication of Edward VIII

Abstract

King Edward VIII’s 1936 abdication has remained fixed in modern memory as a traumatic constitutional crisis wrapped in what many consider the most fateful love story of the century. The King’s determination to marry Wallis Simpson, “the woman he loved,” still feeds the mills of popular and academic history. The narrative, however, habitually focuses on the Anglocentric world of the Court of St. James, the Anglican hierarchy, and Stanley Baldwin’s Conservative government. This focus overlooks the key role of non-British participants in the crisis. This article views the abdication through a significant Canadian prism. In London, Ontario-born banker Sir Edward Peacock (1871–1962) served as the Receiver-General of the Duchy of Cornwall, the investment trust designed to support the duties of the Prince of Wales. As such, Peacock became Edward’s most intimate financial advisor as abdication loomed, a role now fully elaborated in light of hitherto unconsulted papers held at Queen’s University. Press baron Lord Beaverbrook played a more public role, joining with Churchill, as the King’s champion, using his mass-circulation newspapers to curry public sympathy for the beleaguered monarch. In Ottawa, Prime Minister Mackenzie King trod a characteristically cautious line between guarding Canada’s autonomy, won under the 1931 Statute of Westminster, while still preserving its filial tie to Britain.