Chapter 16, Downing Street, 20 April 1936
“Remind me, again, my darling, why we’re
not going to Fort Belvedere?” Lucy Baldwin, in smart, but not modern clothes, asked the question pointedly as she corrected the flower display in the small Downing Street flat. She had not agonised, in the way that many men and women do, over her evening attire. She was a woman in her late sixties, and an Upper Class, Victorian lady;
that was how she dressed. Her air of indifference was clearly an assumed one, and she turned from the flower arrangement to stare pointedly at her husband.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Baldwin replied, not fully invested into this conversation. “I would have thought that Belvedere would have suited him more…”
“…you mean,” his wife corrected him, “
her more.”
“Her more,” Baldwin allowed. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Lucy Baldwin offered her husband the knowing look that every mother, wife, or daughter has offered a male dear to her who just doesn’t understand. “So, my dear, that your attendance at the King’s pleasure is a matter of the state.” She had a truly Queen Maryish haughtiness as she said this.
“The Court Circular?”
“Dinners at the Palace, and, more appropriately, the attendees, are put in, are they not?”
Baldwin looked flabbergasted. “This entire evening to get it on record that I had dinner with him, and her?”
“That would be my calculation,” she said, the knowing look triumphant.
“He has,” Baldwin agreed. “He has switched to the Palace so that the entire world knows that I have sat down with that woman.” He looked pale, in shock.
“One presumes,” his wife said grandly, “that postponement is out of the question?”
“It would signal a breach, certainly without a sudden emergency,” he said gruffly.
“Then it would appear that I shall the pleasure of meeting Mrs Wallis Simpson of,” she looked at her husband with a raised eyebrow. “Where was it?”
“Baltimore, Maryland.”
“Maryland?” Lucy Baldwin couldn’t resist an imperious smile. “A delicious irony, wouldn’t you agree? Her poor Majesty…”
“…is best not thought of this evening,” Baldwin said, asserting himself.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The car took them to Buckingham Palace quickly enough, sweeping through the gates and into the quadrangle with the ease that comes from being the Head of Government. Baldwin recognised Captain Godfrey-Fausset of the Royal Navy who offered a perfect Naval salute to the Baldwins, and then escorted them in. Baldwin was suddenly aware of the twitch below his left eye returning, and felt a tightness in his chest. His symptoms must have been more obvious than he thought, as Lucy placed a reassuring hand on his.
“Do you require water?”
“No, we’ll be sat down all night anyway,” he said with irritation. They were close, in the way that only a lifetime together could make two people close, but she could be overbearing and it occasionally became too much to tolerate.
The Captain smiled. “Ah, Mrs Baldwin, would you be so good as to join Mrs Wigram in the anteroom? Thank you, Ma’am. Prime Minister, His Majesty wondered if you had ten minutes for a private discussion?”
“An excellent idea,” Baldwin said bluntly.
Godfrey-Fausset looked strained, Baldwin could see that as the Naval Officer led him to a small study (Lucy had been taken by a Palace official to the reception room) near to the library (Baldwin had no idea in which room they would be dining). The King was there, fussing with his tie.
“Ah, Baldwin,” the King said, in the same way a student greets a long-dreaded examination. “Please, sit,” he waved awkwardly to a row of three chairs; Baldwin hesitated and then, ever eager to keep to a steady middle ground, opted for the centre one. “It is swell, very good, in fact, of you to agree to join our little party.”
Baldwin had cards to play, but, like the King, his hand was not as strong as others would immediately imagine. He sat quietly as the King, taking the lack of response as some form of implied agreement, continued.
“I wanted to thank you for your report on this Germany nonsense,” the King said, all serious and business-like focus. He looked around the desk, and then seemed to remember something. “Of course, it’s at Belvedere. Not to worry, I can remember enough of it, I think. Well anyway, you and Anthony did very well. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Sir, it has been,” Baldwin said, showing something of his inner turmoil, “a difficult time.”
“I am glad that we agree on the Germany matter,” the King said, slightly insensitive to the older man’s evident weariness.
Baldwin now had to play one of his cards. “Sir, you have the right, whether it is a privilege or a duty, to use your prerogative and warn, counsel, guide and advise
your Government. You have the right to consult and to be consulted. What you cannot do, what you must not be seen to be doing, is
ordering your Government to pursue a certain course. Your direction to me and the Cabinet, if it leaked, would cause grave disquiet in the nation at large.”
The King stared at his Prime Minister. “I would, after your little homily, argue that I was ‘warning’ you, Mr Baldwin.”
“Just so, Sir, but it read awfully like you were
commanding us,” Baldwin said gently.
“I see,” the King said, looking hurt. “Perhaps if you called upon me more, then I would feel that I have been consulted,” he said in a very wounded tone.
Baldwin bit back a retort that His bloody Majesty had cancelled more audiences in three months than his father had in nearly three decades of service. “I will ensure that the Downing Street staff work more closely with the Palace people,” he said smoothly, shifting the blame on to the Palace assistants (who were, in Baldwin’s view, probably innocent on all charges – it was
her, or perhaps
him).
The King sighed, “shall we join the others? Unless there was anything else for me.”
Baldwin loaded another round in his constitutional cannon, but one that he had been told that he must fire, “Your Majesty should know that we may, for as brief a period as possible,” Baldwin said in careful mitigation, “have to offer
shelter to the Ethiopian Emperor.”
The King rolled his eyes. “Here?”
“Goodness no, Sir,” Baldwin, now sounding like a hotel concierge, said sycophantically. “The Empire, initially. And if he does come here? Somewhere out of town, perhaps Exeter, or Chester. Some delightful old English city.”
The King nodded; he didn’t really care. “Will I be expected to officially do anything?”
“Certainly not,” Baldwin said immediately, and perhaps too emphatically. “I have ordered that
if he visits England, he will have no official status.”
That mollified the King. “Oh well done,” he said with obvious relief. “I cannot imagine Wallis liking him!”
Baldwin again bit back a retort, this one that Wallis had ‘liked ‘a far greater number of men than the King could ever imagine, but instead inclined his head in thanks for the compliment.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The guest list, of course, was like one of those dammed American films that his youngest son, Arthur, so enjoyed; Baldwin couldn’t quite remember the precise term, but they were all obsessed with dark creatures and murderous intent (he vaguely remembered one about a werewolf, of all things, on the loose in London!). As he was announced, and entered with the King (quite the honour, Baldwin allowed), he looked, with horror, at his dining companions. He felt a moment of pure sympathy as he saw Lucy being led around the room by Wallis Simpson, playing, so obviously, the role of hostess. With a chill, he saw her spin on her heels and advance, with a steely determination, towards them
“Prime Minister,” she said, in a truly muddled accent. There were layers, Baldwin realised, to this complicated woman. “It
so good to
finally meet you,” she sort-of drawled.
“
Mrs Simpson,” Baldwin replied, earning an amused, if reproachful look from his wife at the unintended emphasis. “Ah, and
Mr Simpson,” Baldwin added at a figure lurking close behind the two women.
“Do you like the music?” The question, which would seem an innocuous enough prelude to small talk, was delivered aggressively (no, that was wrong, assertively was a better description) and with a hunted look in her eye. Baldwin, despite himself, felt sympathy for this woman. She was desperate for his endorsement, to complete this occasion without opprobrium.
Baldwin feigned interest by overexaggerating the gesture of listening to the music. With a sinking heart he realised that it was something modern, with a bumpy rhythm, beat kept by claves and what he thought was a saxophone. All eyes fell upon the British Prime Minister as he was asked to perform a solemn duty and pass a verdict on the musical choices of the King’s mistress.
“I like it,” he said lightly, “what do we do next? Smoke opium?” There was a roar of laughter from the political guests, Alfred Duff-Cooper and Sir Samuel Hoare and their poisonous wives. In crisp Naval uniform another figure, Commander the Lord Louis Mountbatten, next to his own bonkers wife, offered what Monsell at the Admiralty would, no doubt, describe as a ‘career laugh’, an over the top gesture to make his appreciation of the joke obvious. Baldwin sighed heavily. The only guests not roaring with laughter were Godfrey-Fausset, escorting, to Baldwin’s dismay, Lady Maud ‘Emerald’ Cunard, and the Wigrams. The King and the Sovereign’s Private Secretary exchanged knowing glances with Clive and Nora Wigram; like Lucy (and no doubt Baldwin himself) they looked out of place with their Edwardian (or Victorian in Lucy’s case) clothes and silently, mournfully, sipped on their cocktails (Baldwin had expected champagne or wine).
The King was also silent for a couple of seconds, wondering, no doubt, if Baldwin’s jibe about opium was a pointed reference to Mrs Simpson’s supposed past (it was, Baldwin couldn’t help himself). Seeing the rest of the gathering laughing heartily, the King’s scowl suddenly switched, he also roared with laughter and patted his Prime Minister on the back with a very matey, hearty slap.
Thus patted, the Prime Minister and his Sovereign went to dinner.
Lucy’s facial expression at the table settings was magnificently Victorian, her disdain at Wallis Simpson and Emerald Cunard being sat, like prized family members, at the ends of the table very obvious. Baldwin found himself enduring the King and Edwina Mountbatten; thankfully the latter was too busy flirting with Alfred Duff-Cooper to be interested in the Prime Minister.
“Sir Samuel,” the King half-shouted to Hoare, “will we be seeing you back in Cabinet soon”?
All eyes looked quickly to Baldwin, who steeled himself for whatever torment or nonsense was intended.
“Well, Your Majesty is too kind to ask,” Hoare said smoothly, and Baldwin immediately saw through the flattery to the falseness underneath; if you knew Sam Hoare more than superficially it always came out. “I would like to serve, if the right opportunities arose.”
“Well Baldwin, when are you going to give Sam his due,” the King asked expectantly.
Baldwin was saved from making a response as Duff-Cooper, who had no love for Hoare, shook his head slightly. He had had too much to drink and was losing his self-control. “Slippery Sam strikes again,” he said in a boorish mumble, sending Edwina Mountbatten into fits of giggles.
Her husband was trying, and failing, to impress Lucy Baldwin. “You know,” he said, addressing her in the same tone that one might a Labrador, “I am astonished that you have not been asked to be the Lady Sponsor for one of our ships.”
Wallis Simpson, who had been bored by Godfrey-Fausset, now saw a way to tease both he and Mountbatten. “A Lady what?”
“Lady sponsor, Ma’am,” Mountbatten said, cutting in before Godfrey-Fausset, “the Lady who commissions a warship. Usually someone of quality, of status.”
Wallis Simpson turned immediately to the King. “David? Could
we do that?” She was direct, interrogating.
“Well I guess that we
could, Wallis dear, but…” The ‘Wallis dear’ was as close to a public admission of the adultery that Baldwin had heard in the Palace.
“It would need Admiralty assent,” Godfrey-Fausset said, in challenge. He couldn’t help himself.
“Not necessarily,” Mountbatten, smoothly, replied, before a dismissive “Sir. His Majesty approves the names and commissioning of warships does he not?”
“Yes,” Wigram said testily. “It is a prerogative power, the Crown on the advice of the Prime Minister.”
“So, why not select the sponsor? For you, my dear, nothing short of a battleship would suffice!”
“Yes, er, Wallis,” the King, trying to retain some propriety, struggled to say.
Wallis wasn’t finished. Avoiding the disapproving gaze of Lucy Baldwin, she glared at the King. “It’s what we talking about. If I
have to make a public appearance…”
“I’m sorry?” Wigram was alarmed.
“Sir,” Baldwin began, able to endure no more, “with whom were you talking?”
The King fussily waved away Baldwin’s objection. “I’m just,” he looked around, “taking soundings on how we establish the new reign.” Wigram, in a breath-taking display of disloyalty, clearly rolled his eyes.
“But it would be an occasion,” Lady Cunard, never one to let an argument ‘die down’, picked up the reins. “To launch a warship. We could all go.”
“What about Ark
Royal,” Duff-Cooper, now moved from ‘tired’ to ‘drunk’, offered. "The vessel that carries Royal hopes!" Hoare gasped, as did Edwina and Louis Mountbatten. Lucy Baldwin looked at the Simpsons, Duff-Coopers and Mountbattens as if they were all mad.
The King, who seemed, still, to be torn between disapproval and endorsement of the conversation, turned to Baldwin. “I did have a request, for you, on that one.”
“That what?” Baldwin was tired, his chest hurt and he wanted to rest.
“Can I approve the names of the new battleships? I have often thought that this is a power I would like to wield.”
“Er, yes, Sir,” Baldwin said carefully, “but the new designs are not even ordered yet. They’re designs on a table at the Admiralty. The Naval Estimates aren’t due until July.”
“I expect to be consulted,” the King said darkly. He brightened when he looked at Mountbatten, seemingly under Wallis’ spell. “Louis, you should stick around,” Baldwin frowned. ‘Stick around’ was neither English or regal, and he drawled it in an almost American way. “Care to be my ADC?”
Mountbatten offered a very formal nod, while Edwina Mountbatten ignored Duff-Cooper’s comment that it would offer even more beds for the Mountbattens to jump in and out of. Mountbatten suddenly remembered something that was vexing him. “Prime Minister,” he drawled, “has the Foreign Office decided, yet, if it will support us sending a ship to the Olympics?” Godfrey-Fausset coloured immediately, while Wigram’s eyes were immediately heavenward, as if praying for a deliverance that never quite seemed to materialise.
Sensing Lucy tensing at the younger man’s impropriety, Baldwin determined to be polite. “I believe that will agree to send a cruiser,” he said flatly, “although there are a couple of matters to er, iron out.”
The King, who was also heading towards being overcome by his intoxication (Baldwin sensed that he was nervous, or was it desperation?) also looked, goggle-eyed, at his Prime Minister. “Was this that note from Pipps?”
“Phipps,” Wigram snapped, unable to restrain himself, “Sir Eric Phipps. And perhaps we would best…”
“…something something,” the King began, brutally cutting off his Private Secretary (to the fury of Lucy Baldwin and the evident delight of Wallis Simpson), “oh yes, ‘the German Government attach enormous importance to the Olympic Games from the point of view of propaganda,’ that was it wasn’t it?”
“Yes Sir,” Baldwin said calmly, deciding that the moment to contain the King’s lapse in security had passed. “He also said, as Your Majesty will no doubt recall, that he anticipates that Germany will take the opportunity of impressing foreign countries with the capacity and solidity of the Nazi regime.”
“And the French still want to boycott?” That was Mountbatten again, enjoying the access to the Heads of Government and State.”
“Vansittart,” the King recalled the name and so said it slowly, “met with the French didn’t he?”
“He did, Sir,” Baldwin said nodding. “There will be no protest.”
“And,” the King said, full of earnest interest, “you’re worried, aren’t you? That a British cruiser parked off…”
“…Kiel,” Mountbatten immediately offered, beating Godfrey-Fausset and Wigram to it.
“Thank you, Dickie, Kiel then, would show somehow that we support the Nazis?”
Baldwin gave a shrug to suggest it wasn’t the maddest idea, while Duff-Cooper, feeling left out, chipped in with his own observation.
“Eden’s also worried that the Navy will want to participate in the sailing events.”
“Well why not?” That was Ernest Simpson. Wallis shot him a vicious look, to the amusement of Mountbatten and Duff-Cooper.
“And so, we have a few protocol matters to dispense with,” Baldwin said smoothly, but feeling mildly displeased that by also ignoring Simpson’s point he was implicitly condoning him being cuckolded.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It was later, over coffee, when Baldwin, about to make his excuses, grab Lucy, and flee into the night, noticed the Wigrams unhappily approaching him. He saw Wigram had a dejected posture and tears in his eyes.
Baldwin, who had spent a lifetime reassuring wavering politicians and civic dignitaries, gently touched Clive Wigram’s shoulder. “Out with it,” he said commandingly.
“Where to begin,” Wigram said in an exhausted voice. Baldwin was immediately worried: the man seemed spent. Angry Wigram, hysterical Wigram, furious Wigram he could assist; he usually at least showed feeling, energy. Baldwin wondered if he was now hollowed out.
“Is it the Court Circular?” Baldwin hoped, as Lucy took Wigram’s wife to one side, that it was; he decided that he could accept that.
“I wondered how you would view that,” he said, again without emotion or energy, smiling a hollow smile. “All of this, so that her name could be listed alongside of the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for War. Mountbatten was an added touch, you know he can’t resist an opportunity to genuflect.”
Baldwin was now very concerned. Not with Mountbatten, who was as close to the Yorks as he was to the King, but with Wigram’s complete surrender. He no longer really cared, evidenced by the almost acceptable way of describing Mrs Simpson. It was no longer ‘the whore’s name’ or ‘the name of that mistress’, it was merely ‘her name’. “It was inevitable, Clive, and is there is precedent from his grandfather’s day.”
“His grandfather,” Wigram said with a tired smile, “did not contemplate marrying Keppel, or Churchill, or Langtry.”
Baldwin closed his eyes. “Is that his intent?”
Wigram nodded. “He is thinking about it, quite seriously, Prime Minister. Belvedere has become the HQ for this little operation. None of the old household staff are allowed over there, now. But I hear rumours.”
“Go on,” Baldwin said in a carefully neutral way.
“He corresponds with Winston, I’m not allowed to see what about, even Winston has too much sense to talk about it. I know that he is booking calls with people from across the Realm, but I am not in his confidence.”
As the ladies returned, Lucy with a magnificently pointed look that it was most-definitely-time-to-go, Baldwin again felt very, very, afraid. He was very aware of the tightness of his chest.
“I, I need to think about this,” Baldwin said, tiredly. “Are you alright, Clive?”
“I’ve not got long left,” Wigram said, completely at ease, “I’ll go, soon enough. And then others will have to guide him.”
Baldwin smiled sadly. “Is it always like this?”
Wigram didn’t really react, his eyes were lost, in reverie. He suddenly snapped into the ‘here and now’. “This was a good night, Prime Minister. She didn’t belittle him, publicly.” Next to him, his wife looked mournfully at her shoes.
“Clive,” Baldwin began, “I will need a list of the private callers to Belvedere. I’m hearing alarming rumours that he has taken the advice to find an avuncular, a mentor, slightly more to heart than we’d like.”
The little group was joined by Godfrey-Fausset, who red face and tense demeanour suggested fury. “I’m not cut out for this reign, I’m afraid I’m off,” he said to no one in particular.
Wigram, whose job it was to keep up morale in the Palace, nodded sadly. “Please, give it another fortnight. He’s getting easier.”
“Aye,” Godfrey-Fausset, though less drunk than most of the guests, was still intoxicated and it had given him ‘a touch of steel’. “Aye, or is it that he’s spending so much time away from his duties that we’re getting more time to recuperate?”
“Call on me,” Baldwin said, firmly. “Call on me at the Commons. Captain, I hate to add to your woes, could you arrange for my car to be readied?” Godfrey-Fausset immediately went to convey the instruction. Baldwin turned to the Wigrams. “Good luck, Clive. Nora, a pleasure, as always.”
“Prime Minister,” the Wigrams said, in unison.
As Baldwin flopped into the car, he felt truly, desperately unwell, and sad.
Time, he thought sadly,
is running out. For both of us.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
GAME NOTES
The POD begins to reveal itself. A dinner party is held at Buckingham Palace revealing tensions within the Royal Household, as well as between the King and his Prime Minister. I have actually brought forward two dinner parties, one from May and one from later in the Summer, with a slightly truncated (and amended) guest list but sticking to those in politics and the Establishment that would be likely to feature. This is the POD’s course running on, showing an Edward acting much more speedily than he did in the real word, aided and abetted by some shadowy, half referenced contacts.
Did Baldwin ever sit down to dinner with Wallis? Yes he most certainly did, at the May function of the two that I have mentioned – and of course it featured, as Lucy Baldwin cannily realised, in the next day’s Court Circular. A fig leaf of propriety was maintained by the presence of the increasingly ridiculous Ernest Simpson (the warnings of the former Lord Mayor of London and others having been ignored) and by the presence of a smattering of other Cabinet members (Duff-Cooper and Hoare both attended dinners and both were leading pro-Edward figures), but it began the slow drumbeat toward a more public declaration that Wallis was non-negotiable for Edward. Be under no illusion, this is a significant move and elevates the Simpson situation into an issue that Baldwin should not ignore (it is debatable whether that point was not actually crossed months ago, perhaps before the death of KGV), but now that Baldwin is officially ‘introduced’ to Simpson (or vice versa – Debretts isn’t exactly forthcoming with PMs meeting mistresses) it is an issue for him to handle with the Cabinet and Royal Household.
That Royal staff is fraying spectacularly; both Wigram and Godfrey-Fausset featured at the May dinner and I remain convinced that, despite their by now obvious and focal enmity to Wallis, they would be dragooned into attending. It offers a further ‘official stamp’ upon the Simpsons as Establishment courtiers and ties the senior Palace staff in with the Cabinet and King. But this came at a price: Wigram (in May really, but here mid-April) really did seem to suffer some form of collapse, leading the splitting of the Palace staff into pro and anti-Simpson camps (the whole thing sounds truly awful); Godfrey-Fausset was an early casualty of this, as we shall see in a few updates.
I couldn’t resist, for some sadistic reason, teasing Godfrey-Fausset more than was probably required and using his beloved Royal Navy as the method. There are a few Royal Navy points here, specifically the naming of ships, their Lady Sponsor, and the request from the FO / Germans to send a ship to the sailing events of the Berlin Olympics (held at Kiel). All of these are real issues; there was a huuuuuuuge protracted argument about whether to send a ship to the Olympics, in the end one was found but not without a lot of argument at Cabinet level – Eden had to bully Monsell (and his replacement Sam Hoare, who does, as is hinted here, pine for a return to Cabinet) for a cruiser to go. The naming of warships is a prerogative power: that is, a power held by the Sovereign (or more properly held by the Sovereign but exercised by the Prime Minister – the point is that it doesn’t need to go before Parliament). The naming of warships is a peculiarly controversial little obsession and monarchs genuinely become exorcised by it. Churchill maintained a protracted battle with King George V over the naming of dreadnoughts proposing ‘HMS William Pitt,’ which was declined by the King on the basis that it was too easy to imagine a rhyming insult! Irritated by the rebuff, he then proposed ‘HMS Cromwell,’ which was less politely declined. Here, we’re really talking about the KGVs, which we have seen on the drawing boards but are as yet unbuilt or unnamed. There are all sorts of stories about the saga of the naming – almost as convoluted as the tangled tale of their design (and armament!). It was Bertie, when he became King George VI, who resolved the proposals (which included HMS King Edward VIII!) in favour of a tribute to his father. At this stage, there is no way that Edward is going to ‘sign off’ on KGV, so the impasse continues.
The tradition of ‘lady sponsors' is another odd one. The sponsor of a Royal Navy warship up to the mid nineteenth century was usually a member of the Royal family or a senior military figure or official, but in the course of the 1800s it became increasingly common for the sponsor to be a woman, and lady sponsors were, by 1936 (and indeed, today) the rule rather than the exception. Female Royals, or the wife of leading military / political types, tend to be favoured.
The other, secondary characters, the Mountbattens and Lady Cunard, are, more than anything else, regular diners at the Palace who could be expected to ‘make up the numbers’ at short notice. I’m relaxed about Lady Cunard, she was useless but ambitious, but I am steelier in my dislike of the Mountbattens. Louis Mountbatten, to me, seems someone who’d be perfect in some figurehead role – the difficulty being that in the Royal Navy you have to work your way up (even with the frankly ludicrous ‘leg ups’ that he received) through some gritty command and staff positions; in both of these his record is, well, chequered. Lucy Baldwin was as Victorian and haughty as portrayed; what is also evident is that the Baldwin's marriage was a very happy one and that he truly relied upon her.
And now the ‘elephant in the room’, we finally meet Wallis. Looking back, I have probably, despite my efforts to be balanced, been slightly too sympathetic to the King. This update hopefully shows the darker side (balanced with a keen mind and desire to do some good), the neediness, the desire to meddle (or over-meddle) and of course the frankly odd relationship with Mrs Simpson. I strike, I hope, a balance here; she was coarse, and completely tone deaf to the Britain of 1936, but was that entirely her fault? With delicious irony I enjoyed making Baldwin the centre of this update and thus the one, on your behalf, to sense that her bravado may be a ‘front’ to hide her nerves. After all, despite her brazen nature, Baldwin, alone of all the participants, is the one that matters; however the King plays his hand, it will be Baldwin who responds. Such a meeting (and I have hinted at her influence over the drinks and jazz music) would have understandably been as much of a trial for her as it was for Baldwin. None of this reflects well upon the King – he really should, other than surrounding Wallis with sycophants and friendly faces, have done more to defuse the situation.
Back to the wider world, next…
@stnylan: I’m not sure, y’know. Egypt, I think was in such a unique position (particularly after the Italian adventures nearby) that a well-informed administration without German distractions and without a new and erratic monarch would have struggled.
@Captured Joe: Well, Egypt is one of two colonial mishandlings (the other is India) that makes my blood boil with HOI4. It is treated as colony in the same way as Jamaica or Cyprus yet had a nascent state with (admittedly extremely limited) autonomy. Yet Malaya, with a governor appointed by London, is a puppet. WT (actual) F?!
@TheButterflyComposer: You’re right about the focus tree, and without killing some anticipation I cannot tell you how and when I picked what I picked.
As to the longevity of politicians, you’re right, and there is a sense of the younger men itching to take over here, never mind in the mid 50s when Churchill eventually packs in.
@Specialist290: Happily, I can report that this was not a little Le Jones fabrication – Hailsham really did say that in Cabinet!
@DensleyBlair: So, to soak in the atmosphere,
The English Patient is of course on the list. I also enjoy
Brideshead Revisited,
The Remains of the Day (I thought of this last one a lot when writing
The King’s First Minister) and, for (middle class) English life, some of the ITV
Poirots. What all of these ignore, of course, is the biting poverty of industrial Britain.
@Bullfilter: If a normal member of the commentAARiat’s praise is kind, then praise comng from someone who has served as one of my characters has is truly special, so thank you. Belsay will pop up again, in a few update’s time.
@DensleyBlair: Or members of the judiciary.
@Specialist290: Fascinating, and the irony, given some of his ‘big ticket’ measures, is delicious.
@El Pip: I think, on balance, you’re right about the Cpl. I may use him again, as Belsay’s career develops further.
@TheButterflyComposer: True, true!
Not all of them, but many.
