Recently I asked my instagram followers to send in their questions for Jane Marguerite Tippett, author of “Once A King: The Lost Memoire of King Edward VIII”. After a few weeks of preparation, I am excited to finally be able to share her answers!
1. What got you interested in history and the royals?
I grew up in a family where history was always a big part of family life – and my parents were really responsible for fostering in me a curiosity for the past. Travel played a huge part in our lives, both in the United States but also in Europe – and because my parents loved history – those trips were always geared towards visiting historic homes, monuments, battlefields and museums. I really learned to love history and feel a connection to it from these first-hand experiences. My interest in royalty actually began with the Romanovs – and my reading, when I was probably only about 12 – Robert Massie’s biography Nicholas & Alexandra. That eventually led me to Queen Victoria – and her many and varied descendants. Gradually a biographical interest transformed into an academic field of study as I began to be interested in the ways in which monarchy functions as a part of national identity. I was particularly interested in the way the British monarchy managed to shape national identity and at the same time survive the great upheavals of the First World War. Edward, early on in this interest, emerged as a significant but underrated figure in that process – and I gradually realized that it was his story / his history that I wanted to tell. I felt, and still feel, his importance has been overlooked in the history of 20th century monarchy and in the way in which the British monarchy has evolved and transformed itself into a very modern institution.
2. What brought in the idea to write a book about King Edward VIII?
I was drawn to Edward VIII primarily because I viewed him as a figure that was rife for rediscovery – or at least reinterpretation. The historiographic trends and the stereotypes which dominate our understanding of who he was and his impact on history are, in my opinion, vastly skewed and dominated by a simplification of the facts that have led him to be dismissed as a figure of real importance in the history of 20th century British monarchy.. I had no idea, when I began, that Once A King was the book / would eventually write. In the summer of 2022 I was three years into researching what was to be an in-depth examination of the twelve crucial months that followed Edward’s abdication on 11 December 1936 and culminated in his disastrous fourteen-day trip to Germany in October 1937. I believed that by tackling this defining chapter in his controversial history – providing much needed albeit missing historical context to his actions – I would set in motion a longer-term project to reevaluate his life.
3. What archive or letters did you find/ use for your research?
I believe that one of the strengths of ONCE A KING: THE LOST MEMOIR OF EDWARD VIII is that it is entirely based on primary material – the vast majority of which has never been published. As part of my work, I stumbled across the archive of Charles J.V. Murphy – a journalist for Time Inc who had helped prepare both the Duke’s and the Duchess’s autobgioprahy – housed at Boston University. An untapped resource since their acquisition in the mid 1990s, the archive contained the first unedited drafts of the Duke’s memoir, along with correspondence, diaries and transcripts of interviews Murphy had conducted with the Windsors between 1947 and 1955 as part of his work. This archive awakened me to the story not only of the writing of Edward’s memoir but obviously to the material that had been edited out of the published editions. The discovery changed the course of my work – and ultimately the subject of the book. Once alerted to the full extent of Murphy’s collaboration with Edward, I quickly found, in otherwise well-mined archives, material that had also been ignored such as Max Beaverbrook’s papers at the Parliamentary Archives and Daniel Longwell (Chairman of LIFE magazine) at Columbia University. Most importantly – buried within a box of uncatalogued papers in the Royal Archives were hundreds of pages of Edward’s own handwritten first drafts, written in pencil on his yellow legal paper -still tied together with his signature ‘India string’. This discovery became the second ‘Eureka’ moment of the project. Not only did these drafts include further and more intimate recollections not included in Murphy’s archive – but they confirmed that it was Edward and not Murphy who had been the sole author of these early and unpublished chapters I had previously located.
4. What was the most shocking thing you discovered during your research?
I think the most fascinating discovery was that Edward himself was actually a WRITER – and someone who could put down his thoughts, reflections effectively on paper. I think this is rather shocking. When we think of him it is usually as a wastrel, playboy prince who never took his royal duties seriously. What we find in this material is a man who was extremely reflective about his career as a British royal – who had very clear ideas about what monarchy in a modern context should be and who crafted his career according to those views. Edward was very careful that his writing be respectful to his family. He did not view his memoir as a score-settling endeavor or to reveal private/familial information – rather it was to be a record of his royal life – and so one has to view it in this context. He was not interested in shocking his reader but in setting out his life and his perspective for posterity.
5. Do you think Edward made the right decision in abdicating and did he ever apologise to any members of his family?
Edward wrote his account of the abdication between April 1949 and August 1949 – and these drafts form the core of ONCE A KING. They are Edward’s frank if not always factually full-proof record of the final months of his reign and gives us a new awareness of the struggle he endured in coming to his decision. From the outset he refused to compromise to the commitment he felt he had made to Wallis – but struggled to find a solution that might secure his marriage and keep his throne. Abdication became the only possible decision he felt he could make as a truly constitutional monarch. To have acted against the advice of the Prime Minister would have plunged the country into chaos as the King and government clashed openly.
I think one of surprising takeaways from this material is one registers how proud Edward was of the fact that he had made what he considered to be an honorable decision – abdication. We also realize that Edward, despite the abdication remained very proud of his royal career – both his time as Prince of Wales and as King.
6. If you could give Edward VIII any advice, what would it be and why?
I think it is very difficult to suggest any advice for Edward – he found himself in a unique situation (the abdication crisis) – which he struggled to resolve to the best of his abilities, and he very much did struggle to come up with a solution – the idea that he gave up his throne lightly is I think completely inaccurate yet a popular misconception about him. Edward was the first British royal to publicly the make the case for a right to have a private life along his own inclinations – which meant marrying the woman of his choice. He paved the way for a modern understanding of what royal marriages are – and of course paved the way for the current king to marry a divorced woman and retain his throne.
7. What is your honest opinion of Wallis Simpson?
One of the many surprising elements of the book is the way Wallis emerges as a woman in her own right. Obviously she is a supporting player in the story – both the abdication but also the writing of the memoir – yet her personality jumps out in her conversations with Murphy and in her very forthright and direct responses to the quite probing questions he asks. We sense her vulnerability to a situation that she was not in control of in 1936 – and her resoluteness in making a success of what she was forced to accept – which was marriage to Edward.
8. Have you written any other books?
I have recently published a book: MONSIEUR: THE LOST PHOTOGRAPHS OF PATRICK O’HIGGINS – a retrospective of the work of a forgotten portrait photographer – who was in Europe in the late 1940s capturing people like Jean Cocteau, Somerset Maugham, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Elsa Schiaparelli and others. The Windsors sadly are not part of this story – but Patrick did know them and socialized with them in New York where he later lived.
9. What would you say is the best thing about publishing a book?
By far and away the best thing is the experience of talking about the book and of meeting people who have engaged with me on the subject matter. I think most authors love discussing their work and sharing the story. So much of the writing process is solitary that the ‘publication’ process really becomes something special.
10. What advice would you give to an aspiring author?
Perseverance. There are so many setbacks along the way that you really have to have a level of endurance and strength – also because it is at times a very slow process where it feels that little progress is actually being made. It is about keeping your focus and your belief that you have something important to say.
I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has read today’s Q&A and of course, a huge thank you to Jane her wonderful answers.
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