George VI became King of the UK, etc. – and his daughter Elizabeth eventually became Queen – only because his elder brother Edward VIII was determined to marry a twice-divorced (and still married when she met him) American woman considered unsuitable, and decided to abdicate rather than give her up.
If that had gone differently – if Edward somehow had managed to keep the throne and Wallis both – how would it have affected history? Was Edward really such a Nazi sympathizer as he is portrayed in The King’s Speech and Bertie & Elizabeth? How might that have affected the course of WWII? Presumably Churchill would still run the show, but could Edward VIII and Wallis have played the valuable morale-builder role that George VI and Elizabeth played IRL?
Edward and Wallis, as Duke and Duchess of Windsor, never did have any children, and being on the throne would have made them no more fertile; so I suppose that, if the British nation and monarchy survived the war, Elizabeth would become Queen when her uncle died. (In our timeline, the Duke of Windsor died in 1972.)
At that time, being a Nazi sympathizer wasn’t all that big a deal, since it wasn’t yet apparent just how incredibly evil Hitler and his regime were. Yeah, he was trying for empire-building, but then, so has everyone else in European history. And if he didn’t like the Jews, well, most other folks at that time weren’t too fond of them, either. Presumably, once the full impact became known, Edward (like almost everyone else) came to renounce them.
Contrafactual history is obviously just speculation, and impossible falsify properly, I know, but would it be completely unthinkable that the British monarchy would not have survived a king as Nazi-sympathetic as the above post argues that he was?
The really important question is not whether it would have led to the abolition of the monarchy, but whether it would have led to the Allies losing WWII.
I think Edward would have eventually found the limitations of his power. If it had come to a direct confrontation, I think the majority of Britons would have chosen to follow Parliament over the Monarch.
I doubt it would have come to that point. Charles I was executed because he was regarded as a legitimate threat - there was a fear that people would follow him.
Edward could have just be ignored and treated as a harmless figurehead.
I tend to read things in the same way as Chronos. Disclaimer: I base much of my understanding of this on Churchill, probably the strongest Anti-Nazi of all the major 20th century figures and a personal friend of the Duke of Windsor. His view seems to have been that Windsor was much like Charles Lindbergh – loyal to his own nation, impressed by what the pre-war Nazis had done to turn Germany around, sufficiently statist not to be shocked by their anti-individualist attitudes… The Nazis early in the war were clutching at straws in seeking anyone who might possibly look with favor on them in nations generally united in staunch opposition to them, and they saw Windsor in that light. Giving him the Bahamas as a sinecure that kept him out of the public spotlight during the War was an intelligent precaution, not a definition of disloyalty – and as much putting him somewhere where the Nazis could not “play” him as a comment on his own loyalties.
If he had kept the throne…? Who lnows? Remember that at the time of Munich, Churchill and a few others were scattered voices crying in the wilderness, while the majority of Britain rejoiced that Chamberlain had brought them “peace in our time.” It was only in early 1939, when Hitler abrogated his treaties with the Czechs, that the sea change to steadfast anti-Nazism took hold in Britain, with America as a whole waking up to the danger shortly thereafter. I suspect that Windsor’s views would be much like those of Halifax and Chamberlain, holding out hope for a negotiated peace well past what we with perfect hindsight know was wrong, but then moving resolutely into anti-Nazi mode, renouncing his previous views as founded in naivete. I may be wrong in this, but it’s my assessment of his character based on the views of someone who did know him well.
That might have put quite a strain on the constitutional order, though, which in Britain depends on at least pretending that the Sovereign and the Crown are one, and the source of all legitimate authority in the state. And, every man and woman in the British Army and the RAF swears an oath of personal loyalty to the Sovereign. (I read once that Royal Navy personnel don’t, they swear to the Admiralty, don’t know why.) If they received one set of orders from the War Office and a contradictory set from the Palace, how would they know what to do?!
Hopefully TVTropes description of British political system has some foundation in reality, because that glib description of the causes and consequences of the 1975 Dismissal is purile.
Edward would have had to be a very different man for him to have remained on the throne. It’s not as if he was faced with an agonizing choice between his beloved crown and his beloved. He didn’t seem to want to be king in the first place, and the kerfuffle over his wife-to-be gave him an out. (Not that he didn’t truly love her, as it certainly seems that he did, but to be the sort of king who changes the course of his nation, he’d have to be the sort of king who thought that being king was more important.)
