Volume 27, Number 2 · February 21, 1980
Ghost Story
By John Richardson
The Windsor Story
by J. Bryan III, by Charles J.V. Murphy
Morrow, 639 pp., $17.50
Prince Charles
by Anthony Holden
Atheneum, 368 pp., $15.00
According to his principal adviser, Walter Monckton, the decision to renounce the throne brought Edward VIII to 'the brink of disintegration,' so much so that, three days before the Abdication, Monckton feared the desperate monarch was going to kill himself. Another Mayerling affair? Monckton and the royal valet, Crisp, searched the bedroom at Fort Belvedere. No gun was found. Given the king's childishly stubborn nature, this was not surprising. Had he ever developed the least inkling of posterity, had he tried to see his dilemma as involving dishonor rather than the reverse, he might have chosen the traditional way out—a bottle of brandy and a revolver—and would have gone down in history as tragic rather than paltry. By living out the full span of their lives, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor are now written about as sacred monsters on the café society circuit rather than 'the greatest news story since the Resurrection' (H.L. Mencken).
Review, 4275 words
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