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Review
The Crown in Crisis by Alexander Larman, review: is this history – or a Mills and Boon novel?
In a crowded field, Alexander Larman's book on the Abdication offers no fresh discoveries of note
One wonders why a writer of the intelligence of Alexander Larman has written a book on the Abdication. We really didn’t need another one. Authors should not be damned by the hyperbole their publishers spout about them, but to describe The Crown in Crisis as “the definitive book about the events of 1936” is palpable nonsense.
For a start, insofar as such a book is possible, it may already have been written. Susan Williams, who acted as historical adviser to what was then called the Public Record Office when the papers it held on the Abdication were released in 2003, made a pretty heroic attempt to present a definitive account that same year in The People’s King: strongly recommended.
And even that was not definitive. There may be relevant documents in the Royal Archives at Windsor yet to be released; and the papers of those who knew the former King and his inamorata have by no means all surfaced. When the complete Chips Channon diaries appear soon, those interested in this well-worn subject will find revelations about the King and Mrs Simpson (this is not conjecture: I have edited them). And there is more to come. Only when the literary estates of even the most minor players have given up their secrets can the definitive book on the Abdication be written.
Larman does give an interesting account, in a level of detail unseen elsewhere, about George McMahon, a borderline lunatic who planned to shoot the King while he rode in a procession in the summer of 1936. McMahon is, correctly, a footnote in history; he didn’t shoot, but threw his gun under the King’s horse; the King kept going and policemen seized McMahon.
Had he assassinated the King the incident would have been of huge import: but he didn’t, so it isn’t: and it had no bearing on the King’s affair with Mrs Simpson, or therefore on the Abdication. The rest of his book is tediously familiar to anyone who knows the story, posing the question, once more, why write it?
Dr Williams’s research for her 2003 book was far more extensive and what she wrote was far fresher, and the range of her bibliography more impressive. Larman’s select bibliography is somewhat too select for a book that relies quite heavily on published sources – including Dr Williams’s, but also Philip Ziegler’s monumental official biography, King Edward VIII (1990).
Of course, there are always people coming to the subject for the first time, and for them this might be an entertaining read. However, Larman writes in an irritatingly tabloid fashion that will rapidly cheese off some readers, and which perhaps unfairly consigns into the lightweight class a book into which some effort has clearly been put. He affects a familiarity with the main players, calling them by their Christian names – “Edward”, “Wallis”, “Bertie” and so on – which gives a mildly Mills and Boon touch. But then when one chooses – for whatever reason – to write about this largely exhausted topic, one has to decide whether one is writing history or true romance: this book veers towards the latter.
Sometimes the prose resembles a screenplay. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, as Carlyle’s The French Revolution, one of the most remarkable works of history ever written, did too – long before moving pictures were invented. These days, however, it is a tone that serves history less well. Larman tries the odd light touch of the belle-lettriste, quoting Evelyn Waugh’s “up to a point, Lord Copper”, then ruins the effect with a footnoted explanation (which he gets wrong).
The quality of a book with no fresh discoveries of note must depend on its insights. Sadly, Larman gets the wrong end of various sticks. He writes that his book “depicts a time in British history when conventional ideas of regal behaviour and duty were cast aside, and where the resulting moral and social vacuum could have led to disaster”. In fact, the only person to cast aside conventional ideas was the King, and because (as his prime minister indicated to him) the public overwhelmingly sided with convention, he remained alone.
Later, Larman accuses the King’s private secretary, Alec Hardinge, of “plotting” against him, and of “flagrant disloyalty”. Such accusations are naive and show a misunderstanding of the constitution. Hardinge served the King, but he also served the Crown, the institution the King represented; and when the two diverged, Hardinge’s first loyalty was to the institution. By talking to Baldwin, the prime minister, about the mounting crisis in the autumn of 1936, Hardinge was simply doing his job. Larman seems not to realise the toll the events took on Hardinge: his three-month leave of absence after the Abdication was because he was in a state of nervous collapse, not an extended holiday to reward him for ridding Britain of a useless King.
This is not the author’s only misunderstanding of the constitution. He talks of the King “ruling”, which no monarch had really done since Queen Anne: constitutional monarchs reign and their governments rule. He also remarks that the King was disingenuous in saying, in his Abdication broadcast, that “there has never been any constitutional difference between me and them [his ministers] and me and parliament”. In fact, the King was telling the truth. He recognised early on that parliament and his ministers, reflecting public opinion, would never countenance his marrying a twice-divorced woman; and his only hope was their agreeing to a morganatic marriage, something then unknown to our constitution. Having accepted that they would not, the only question was managing his exit.
There is also a sloppiness with facts that suggests an amateurishness in this line of study. It is not a good sign when one has only reached page 11 before reading of a mythical being called “Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lancashire”. The author says with breathless confidence that “abdicate” was a word “that had never been used by an English King before”; but in George III’s papers at Windsor is the draft letter of his own abdication, never sent, but written in a moment of despair in 1782 (before the King’s insanity) at the loss of the American colonies. Mrs Belloc Lowndes was named Marie, not Maria. A High Court Judge is His Lordship, not His Honour. George V’s Jubilee celebrations were held in early May 1935, not in June. And George V’s serious illness was eight years before the Abdication, not four.
Larman refers to the television soap-opera The Crown, and clearly the hope is that its viewers will want to read his book. Perhaps so, but they should not imagine they have left behind the world of romance entirely in favour of that of hard facts.
To order a copy for £16.99, call 0844 871 1514 or see Telegraph Books