Volume 7, Number 3 · September 8, 1966
King for a Day
By Noel Annan
The Abdication of King Edward VIII
by Lord Beaverbrook, edited by A.J.P. Taylor
Atheneum, 122 pp., $4.50
Abdication
by Brian Inglis
Macmillan, 448 pp., $6.95
The abdication of Edward VIII was the most celebrated non-event of recent British history. It changed nothing. The political and social configurations in the country were unaltered; it had no effect upon the United Kingdom's relations with other members of the Commonwealth; British foreign policy was unaffected; and scarcely any difference in the delicate balance of power between the political personalities of the day could be perceived when it was over. It did not even shake the institution of monarchy. The constitutional position of the Crown remained almost exactly where it was before Edward came to the throne.
Review, 3103 words
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