A Royal Prerogative - A UK AAR

[BigBadBob]

He returns! Praise be!

Very happy to hear things are looking up after your bout with Late Unpleasantness.

On the update itself, I'll say that I was first worried. The left gathering as the nation is in turmoil? What fiendish Bolshevik plot is about to be hatched?

Didn't take long for them to remind me why it's not quite the threat one might think. The right falls apart for a while before returning to the default unity, while the left puts itself together for a while before returning to the default squabbling.

I agree on The Crown's portrayal of Attlee. It seems like they saw a picture, heard that he wasn't a big personality like Churchill, and immediately assumed that must mean he was a nebbish loser on a personal level. Ugh. In general, the political stuff is so surface level that it arguably does more damage with its portrayal of post-war politics than it helps by introducing people to post-war politics.

 

[Le Jones]

Chapter 49, The Treasury, 11 September 1936

Neville Chamberlain was clearly ‘on edge’. He was pacing his office, clicking his fingers and fidgeting.

“So much still to do,” he said to no one in particular. “When is the Cabinet meeting?”

“Next week, as well you know, Neville.” That was Halifax, who clearly resented the peremptory summons to Chamberlain’s lair. He gazed past Chamberlain, whose expression was taut, strained. The Chancellor had his ‘cornered rat’ expression, when his mouth seemed tightly drawn exposing, in a grimace, his teeth below the inert grey moustache. He resumed his pacing. He was dressed quite extraordinarily, not in his customary ‘undertaker suit’ but instead in a very rural tweed. Halifax wondered if, it being a Friday, he was about to take a weekend away from London.

And then the awfulness of it all struck home with Chamberlain. He looked around the office, his office, feeling, properly, the sense of impending loss. Whether it was adrenalin or some other physiological change, he suddenly found his focus. He sat down, wincing at the stiffness in his leg, and opened a notebook.

“We will need to prioritise,” he said sharply, quite curtly. “When he leaves,” ‘he’ evidently meaning the Prime Minister, “it will be rather dramatic. Unpredictable,” he said in a lecturing tone, “for a while, a little while.” Somewhere nearby a wireless was loudly playing music. The most junior of the assembled left, wordlessly, commanded by Chamberlain’s frown to silence it. Pausing for a second to enjoy the newly restored quiet, Chamberlain began again. The rhythm of his speech was sporadic, erratic. He was clearly not at his best. “But the one thing, Gentlemen, of which we can be certain is that there will be a vote of no confidence in whomever forms the new Government and that the National Government will return in some guise, certainly one still dominated by the Conservative Party.” He turned to the assembled. “What does that mean? For the Exchequer?”

Sir Warren Fisher rolled his eyes and languidly swatted away a non-existent fly. “Reassurance to France and the Americans that our recent activities will continue,” he said in reference to the currency negotiations, “we will need to reassure businesses,” he added, “and consider some additional controls. You did ask, my dear Chancellor, for the approach of the Exchequer to consider this a temporary setback.”

“And HM?” Chamberlain’s nerves were displayed again, as he was jumping from party to ministerial to constitutional business.

“Well,” Joseph Ball began, his voice, as ever, conspiratorial; “ee’s pining for ‘er,” he said with a cheeky undertone. “Our tapping efforts reveal that much. Lots about sneaking her back home for sweet dozies with him.” There was a pause as Halifax, who couldn’t bear this, let out a pained groan.

Fisher was amused at Halifax’s discomfort. “Dozies? Goodness, how bourgeois, how modest!” He giggled theatrically.

"I think he might try and smuggle her back to England." Ball winked to Sir Horace Wilson, who had been monitoring the Simpson divorce proceedings, as he said this.

“When are you meeting with the Duke?” Chamberlain barked the question to Halifax not unlike a military figure ‘grilling’ a subordinate. He was standing again.

Halifax frowned, annoyed. “Lunch today, and then a longer meeting before Cabinet,” he said curtly.

Chamberlain sensed the other man’s anger. “You must tell him,” he said, tempering his tone if not his words, “that we will soon have need of him. “I will be the one,” he said grandly, straightening himself to stand tall, “to lead the Government that sees him crowned.”

Sir Horace Wilson, perhaps trying to ‘out ham’ Fisher, was at the back, his head in his hands. “I remain unconvinced that it will come to that,” he said, simply but with authority. “And a captive King Edward could be more useful to us than a powerful King…” he stopped as he realised he didn’t know the regal name that the Duke of York might select.

“I suspect that it will be George,” Halifax said with aristocratic authority, “but I will bwoach it with him when the time comes.” Taking that as a cue, Halifax picked himself up and silently strode from the meeting. Fisher whistled a few bars of ‘loudly let the trumpets bay’ from Iolanthe. Wilson rolled his eyes at the display.

Such was Chamberlain’s discomforted state that he had not heard the exchange, or even noticed Halifax’s departure. He turned to Fisher, who was expecting a rebuke on the mocking of Halifax. “Where are we?”

“I beg your pardon, Chancellor?” Fisher said this much like an innocent child would.

“The negotiations, of course,” Chamberlain was impatient.

Fisher corrected his posture to look alert, poised. “Well,” he began loudly, grandly, before (physically and vocally) slouching to something more conversational. “It has rather become a mess I’m afraid. Phillips and I discussed it this morning and while the sterling to franc and dollar ratios would suit us very well…”

Chamberlain had resumed his place at his desk, ever the dutiful finance minister. “What were the ratios?”

“Auriol wants one pound to equate to one hundred francs.”

“Dollars?”

“Four dollars seventy five cents,” Fisher said in instant recall and without notes, “up to four dollars ninety seven. The problem, Chancellor,” he was all seriousness now, the senior civil servant in command of his brief, “is that if France and the United States suddenly restricted credit, sterling would plunge, we’d lose gold, and we’d have to realign our entire monetary policy.”

“What if they eased credit?” That was Wilson, making an unwelcome interjection that earned him reproving looks from both Chamberlain and Fisher.

“We might need to loosen control somewhat,” Chamberlain said. “So, I advise Baldwin that credit collaboration is some way off.”

“Yes, I think so,” Fisher said easily. “We also need to play our card carefully. If we rebuff the French too robustly they will abandon stabilisation in favour of exchange controls.”

“Oh lorks,” Chamberlain said

Fisher frowned at Chamberlain’s unimaginative vocabulary but didn’t comment on it. “Phillips and I think it unlikely that they’ll go for that. We suspect that Paris will try and try and control the exchange value of the franc based on its interaction with gold, sterling and dollars. But mainly sterling.”

Chamberlain frowned. “That would not be entirely in our interests,” he said this with all the emotion of a man ordering lamb instead of pork for lunch.

“No,” Fisher said with a nod, before realising that he and Chamberlain were ignoring the others, “it would not. The practical control of our exchange with Paris will have passed from our hands to the French, and we would struggle to retaliate in any manner that is effective should they allow the franc to fall in relation to sterling. It would also be hard for us to control the value of sterling in terms of gold if we cannot purchase francs in Paris knowing that we could convert them as we please into bullion. Our efforts, therefore, to control the external value of sterling would largely be limited to operations on the London gold market.”

“It’s hardly perfect for the French,” Chamberlain said as he finished scribbling. “They would find it troublesome to handle large amounts of sterling with no idea as to its gold value.”

Fisher nodded. “Which is why my people need a brief.”

Chamberlain shook his head. “No Parliament can bind its successors. Anything that I write now can be overtaken, overwhelmed, I say, by whomever takes over this role.”

Fisher wasn’t going to back down. “In that case I shall prepare a comprehensive brief for your successor. The negotiations are at a delicate stage and the next Chancellor of the Exchequer will be asked to approve our next approach to Auriol and Morgenthau as one of his first acts.”

Chamberlain neither moved or spoke, so Fisher took silence as acquiescence. His successor, Fisher had said, and the words stung. For an instant, a fleeting moment, Chamberlain contemplated a clandestine meeting with Churchill or Duff Cooper or Hoare, who were thought to be preparing for revolt or were at least close to those who were, demanding that he be allowed to stay on as Chancellor as price of the dozens of MPs that he knew he could command. But Chamberlain’s loathing of Lloyd George was too great, his distaste for the King and his antics too ingrained, for the thought to be anything other than transitory.

He looked past Fisher to Ball. “How am I doing?”

“The Chief Whip assures me that you’re the favoured successor to Baldwin. Hailsham, Zetland and Dunglass have openly said it should be you. It doesn’t hurt that Baldwin has all but said that.”

“Any threats?” Fisher squirmed as Chamberlain asked this, uncomfortable with this unprofessional mixing of party and ministerial business. He got up to leave but was waved down to his seat by Chamberlain.

“You have to look within the party,” he saw Chamberlain frown and explained. “National Labour is powerless and the Liberals are wooing the National Liberals to join the rebellion.”

“Who?” The was an impatient emphasis in that single word.

“Eden, or if he’s too young…”

“…or he defects,” that was Wilson, wanting to be included.

“Unlikely,” Ball snapped, “if he’s too young for the Party, an elder statesman.”

"Halifax?” That was Wilson, again.

“Not from the Lords,” Chamberlain said with brutal disdain, “and he doesn’t seek it. Only a fool would ever imagine a contrivance in which Edward emerges as Prime Minister.”

“You’re right, Neville,” Ball said.

“So, who, if not Anthony.”

Ball smiled, Wilson frowned as he struggled to think of a name. “Kingsley Wood?”

Chamberlain smiled a patronising smirk. “Howard is with me. In fact I am considering him as my nominee for Chancellor.”

“He’d also,” Ball explained, “divide Neville’s wing of the Party. He is useful, though.”

“Yes,” Chamberlain confirmed, “we get him appointed as caretaker leader while we organise my leadership.”

Wilson was confused. “So we need one of the young bloods to split Eden’s tribe?” Chamberlain nodded conspiratorially.

“So who?”

“It’s all in play,” Ball said, and mouthed, to Chamberlain, one word. Chamberlain thought for a moment, and then nodded.

====
​

GAME NOTES

The implosion of the Government ratchets up a notch as Treasury business continues around Chamberlain’s plotting to succeed Baldwin as Conservative leader (but not, yet, Prime Minister, although he seems destined to lead the largest party in the Commons, the selection of the Prime Minister is a prerogative power retained by the Monarch).

This is a Chamberlain out of sorts; to be candid while I always want to offer balance, regular readers will know that I struggle to convey Chamberlain objectively. Here, I hope that amidst the frenetic plotting and mental lurching from one issue to another, we see a Chamberlain at once unbalanced but yet still capable of grappling with the complex economic matters of his department. Those matters are contingency planning for the political turbulence a’comin and the protracted negotiations that led, in our real 1936, to the Tripartite Agreement between Britain, France and the US. That agreement was an international monetary deal, essentially, concluded in September 1936 by those countries to stabilise their currencies both domestically and on the stock exchange. After the suspension of the gold standard by the British in the early 30s, followed fairly swiftly by the US in 1933, a serious imbalance developed between their currencies and those of the gold bloc countries, especially France (I think that @El Pip has covered this at length in his masterpiece). At the same time, both in London and Washington, the debate intensified between the proponents of gold and those favouring a complete renunciation of gold for of a liberated or even administered currency. The UK and US also came under pressure to stabilise their currencies; fluctuations were having a detrimental effect upon the market value of the gold bloc currencies. As devaluation pushed up import prices and lowered export prices in Britain and America, the gold backed economies would eventually have to devalue if the major monetary powers failed to reach an agreement on international stabilisation. In short, you have tons of choices, none of them easy; the discussion between Fisher and Chamberlain is taken directly from Treasury reporting from September 1936.

If Fisher is whimsical but competent, and Halifax haughty but ultimately dutiful (for all that he has been labelled as Chamberlain’s loyal deputy, they were not, personally, at all close), Joseph Ball, the unelected ‘fixer’ for the Conservatives, plies his trade. We’ve seen him a couple of time, and while in Chamberlain’s real rise to the premiership he was inactive, he would later be a bully and a torment for anti-appeasement MPs. Given his rather nasty nature, and the fact that Chamberlain has a fight on his hands, it seems plausible that he would work with the (ultra-Chamberlainite) Tory Whips to ensure that Chamberlain gets in.

You’ll see me speculating, over the next few updates, on how the MPs and peers split into the varying factions. That Zetland, Hailsham and Dunglass (later known as the PM Sir Alex Douglas Home) fall into line will not be a surprise, as, neither, will Kingsley Wood. A big beast, if a mildly ridiculous figure, he was close (a relative concept when talking of Chamberlain) to the Chancellor and would never think to stand in his way; he is therefore (coupled with his rather poor debating ability) the perfect interim leader for whatever comes next.

One more update, then the fall...

How depressingly realistic. A spectacular and increasingly public Royal crisis that puts the establishment to the wall and gives it a damn good thrashing, and the left are still bitching amongst themselves over ideology.

I suppose for the good of the realm's stability overall, this is a good thing. An organised leftist response to the crisis might make such a mess the Royal Prerogative backs down even further or even stops existing. At the very least, a clever Labour leader could obliterate the Tories on the issue and have them spend the next few decades recovering from this.

This the challenge for the left - how to exploit obvious Tory difficulties despite their own infighting and lack of unity.

Congratulations on being able to move to the countryside. It sounds pleasant. Hopefully it's the kind of thing you like.

Thanks! We're nervous, but hopeful that it can / will go well. Certainly the school that we've picked for the children is idyllic.

Great to have you back and it seems successfully running the viral gauntlet. And then doing a ‘tree change’ of career and home!

The story very much has the feel to me of being in the “it’s going to get worse before it gets better” phase. Methinks the words ‘United’ and ‘left’ are mutually exclusive, but I suppose that’s all to come.

Interested to see what the Lords Appellant of the Establishment have in store for the King. I wonder if it will end up as bad as it did for Richard II. Is there a Bolingbroke waiting in the wings? A Harry Hotspur? I wonder who will end up getting their head shoved on a pike or nailed up on Traitors’ Gate, or whatever the modern equivalent would be? This kind of situation is hardly new in English history, after all ...

You're right - we're in for some turbulent updates. I'm still playing with how bad this will get.

I've never quite liked Cripps...

Nor me - I struggle to convey his character in a vaguely neutral manner.

Welcome back! Great to hear your circumstances are much improved.

Thank you, mon brave. Hope you are well...

Welcome back, @Le Jones! I could hardly have asked for a better update to greet your return. Wonderful stuff. Your Maxton portrayal is delightful, and I'm rather enjoying seeing him throw his weight around a bit. One just hopes he remains canny enough to realise the scale of the opportunity at hand – and, more importantly, to get it across to the others. Granted, I'm not exactly one to favour party action over what Ellen calls 'other activities', but surely there won't be a better chance to do some proper damage to the Conservative political establishment.


And this is well before we get onto the fact that, strictly speaking, a United Front and a Popular Front are two wholly different things! Cripps, famously, leans one way rather than the other – and I suspect this may well prove the sticking point going forward.

So this comment (and the one after, he's a grumpy old so and so) were the ones that I was dreading given your expertise on the subject. Thank you, DB for your kind words. He certainly is an odd character, and I really wrestled with the update to 'get into his head'. Initially just about Maxton, widening the update to include more big beasts of the left seems to have worked. Giving him Cripps, Wilkinson, Greenwood and Attlee certainly helped!

You have returned! Welcome back and congratulations on your life news, it all sounds positive and wonderful.

But now onto less joyous things, starting with a meeting where Attlee is the most pleasant and reasonable one at the table, which is a damning indictment on the rest of them. Naive is certainly a good word to describe most of them, though not the tragic figure of Maxton (as in it was a tragedy he was born, then a tragedy he died too young to see the catastrophic damage he had inflicted on a community he claimed to support). The crimes of Cripps are too numerous to list of course, but probably his treason stands out as the most baffling. You would have thought actively wanting Germany to win the war would see him locked up or at least kicked out of parliament, but strangely he got away with it. If nothing else it was a warning of his later treason when dealing with the Soviets.


Of all the little (and large) details that gave that update it's verisimilitude, this one stood out. It is absolutely the sort of thing a group of hard left factions who hate each other more than the opposition would do, the laser like focus on irrelevant organisational detail while paying bugger all attention to the bigger issues is very much their trademark.


My impression is that Cripps enthusiastically followed the line from Moscow without question at all times, even when he was in government. So if Stalin changes his mind doubtless Cripps will instantly change his mind too, though quite what Moscow thinks about all this is another question entirely.

I couldn't resist the "four meetings about a meeting" jibe. My only foray into student politics ended in a whimper when I had a giggling fit. The cause? Forty minutes on electing a new minute taker. That's power, right there.

He returns! Praise be!

Very happy to hear things are looking up after your bout with Late Unpleasantness.

On the update itself, I'll say that I was first worried. The left gathering as the nation is in turmoil? What fiendish Bolshevik plot is about to be hatched?

Didn't take long for them to remind me why it's not quite the threat one might think. The right falls apart for a while before returning to the default unity, while the left puts itself together for a while before returning to the default squabbling.

I agree on The Crown's portrayal of Attlee. It seems like they saw a picture, heard that he wasn't a big personality like Churchill, and immediately assumed that must mean he was a nebbish loser on a personal level. Ugh. In general, the political stuff is so surface level that it arguably does more damage with its portrayal of post-war politics than it helps by introducing people to post-war politics.

Thank you @BigBadBob and congratulations on your recent award successes! I'm glad I'm not the only one who is irritated by the errors in the Netflix flagship; just wait 'till we get to Eden.

 

[DensleyBlair]

Much of the currency discussion continues to elude me, but between the combined efforts of AARland I think I’ll get there one day. Nevertheless, another excellent ‘meeting’ update; the actors in the drama all have their own manners and foibles, all ridiculous in their various ways. How are they going to fall out on the other side?

“I will be the one,” he said grandly, straightening himself to stand tall, “to lead the Government that sees him crowned.”

Dear lord, Nev…

Sir Horace Wilson, perhaps trying to ‘out ham’ Fisher, was at the back, his head in his hands.

What is the collective noun for Tory backroom plotters? A charcuterie?

Fisher frowned at Chamberlain’s unimaginative vocabulary but didn’t comment on it.

Fisher continues to be maddeningly acidic – yet he does also seem to be one of the competent ones. No doubt the lamentable result of some stunted public-school upbringing…

“That would not be entirely in our interests,” he said this with all the emotion of a man ordering lamb instead of pork for lunch.

Chamberlain giving a firm no to the old ham, in other words.

“…or he defects,” that was Wilson, wanting to be included.

I’m reminded of Joyce’s great turn of phrase, describing one of the characters in Ivy Day in the Committee Room as wanting “to enter the conversation by any door”.

One more update, then the fall...

Dun dun duhhhhh!

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

“You must tell him,” he said, tempering his tone if not his words, “that we will soon have need of him. “I will be the one,” he said grandly, straightening himself to stand tall, “to lead the Government that sees him crowned.”

Wanker.

Fisher frowned at Chamberlain’s unimaginative vocabulary but didn’t comment on it. “Phillips and I think it unlikely that they’ll go for that. We suspect that Paris will try and try and control the exchange value of the franc based on its interaction with gold, sterling and dollars. But mainly sterling.

I was recently thinking about this for research on gold standard and monetary policy in the first half of the 20th century. Its one of the first big global systems, and by that period, everyone not only knew that but was freaking out over not having control of either it, or their own currency, because of it.

 

[El Pip]

The world continues to turn even as everyone in Britain obsesses about the King, but unlike Spain people are going to have to pay attention to this one. That said the political input is going to be minimal, it boils down to "Do you want to help France and are you prepared to spend British reserves to support the Franc?" Once those questions are answers the rest is technical detail, along with the hope that the combined US and UK guarantee is sufficient to make sure no-one tests it. The actual best option of "Stuff it, let the French sink" has been dismissed too easily I fear, it's not like helping France has ever been worth the effort before, why would it be this time?

On the political intrigue side if this all works out as he intends Nev is going to be unbearably smug, and he was hardly blessed with humility to start with. Fortunately I think he is being a bit too blase about how things will work out. I say fortunately, I fear that the price of upsetting Nev will also be upsetting everyone else as well.

 

[Bullfilter]

“We also need to play our card carefully. If we rebuff the French too robustly they will abandon stabilisation in favour of exchange controls.”

And here, my eyes began to glaze, even though all the words made sense individually, when grouped together ... alas. My fault, not yours of course.

One more update, then the fall...

Not a good time to be prone to vertigo - just as one foot is already over the edge of the precipice and you make the mistake of looking down. Gravity is about to exert its inevitable influence, but for a moment you are not yet falling. Gravity + momentum + impact = an ugly strawberry jam someone is going to have to clean up.

Much of the currency discussion continues to elude me

Same.

 

[roverS3]

Great to see you back, fresh of your victory in the 2020 AARland year end awards. Congrats on the successful job-change and move.

A unified leftist block spanning from Communists to social democrats and everything in between is a scary thing. It also reminds me of the 'Front Populaire' in France. Loving the care you put into each of the characters. Didn't Attlee end up being rather anti-communist later in his career? I guess these kinds of personal ideals will, of course, never stand in the way of political expediency.

 

[DensleyBlair]

Didn't Attlee end up being rather anti-communist later in his career? I guess these kinds of personal ideals will, of course, never stand in the way of political expediency.

Attlee was indeed a firm anti-communist, although this was not unusual. The Labour Party has always been a complicated, confusing and deeply frustrating beast, and the 1930s were no exception. While the leadership happily continued to describe themselves as socialist until the 1980s, after the Russian Revolution communism obviously became a much dirtier word. Although there were communist MPs within the Labour ranks until about 1947, the central leadership was vigorously opposed from very early on.

Much of this is to do with the class character of the party, which had an astonishingly large working-class base at its peak, but whose leadership was always held by bourgeois reformists of various shades. This was sort of tolerated for the first few decades because the party was less of a party as we'd recognise today and more of a confederation of autonomous interests. This meant that, while the class composition of the various leaderships was unflaggingly bourgeois, there were various tendencies represented within the party – ranging from establishment Fabian reformism to what might be called revolutionary syndicalism. In this update, this state of affairs is shown by Maxton and Brockway, who form the leadership of the confusingly-named Independent Labour Party – truly independent from the Labour Party between 1931–47, but otherwise an affiliated group that was actually about a decade older than the more 'establishment' LP. The ILP was a home to communists of various stripes well into the 1930s, although by that point most who weren't Trotskyites had left to join the CPGB.

The problem is that even the ILP had a bourgeois leadership, and for all of their ideological disagreements Attlee, Maxton and Brockway are all social peers. Brockway is probably the closest of the three to being anything like a 'class traitor', although in later life (he lived to be about 100) he became a lord. Maxton never stopped believing in the revolution (or at least speaking about it), but this led him into an uneasy relationship with Oswald Mosley, whom he visited in prison during the war.

The controversial Cripps, meanwhile, was the only real proponent of the Popular Front doctrine that came out of the Comintern after 1934. The sticking point in forming one came chiefly from the Labour leadership, which was angry at Communist Party efforts to take over union leaderships – Labour being the traditional party of the union leaderships, if not necessarily the memberships – and also became the Liberals wanted nothing to do with socialism. Cripps was undeterred and continued to advocate for a Popular Front until 1939, when he was expelled from the Labour Party for doing so.

How this will all work itself out here is anyone's guess, but I am curious to see how @Le Jones weaves all the threads together. (Or whether he does at all. He may well want to take the sensible option and wash his hands of the whole mess.)

 

[El Pip]

who form the leadership of the confusingly-named Independent Labour Party – truly independent from the Labour Party between 1931–47, but otherwise an affiliated group

The Independent Labour Party should, of course, not be confused with the candidates who stood as "Independent Labour", nor with the heretical splitters who broke away from the ILP to form the "Independent Socialist Party". That group were obviously not connected to either the Socialist Party or the completely different Socialist Labour Party.

Basically you can arrange the words "Independent" "Labour" and "Socialist" in any order you like, stick the word party on the end, and you will probably find it is the name of a real British far left political group.

 

[Le Jones]

I have to confess that this was running through the mind when I typed that update...

 

[Bullfilter]

I have to confess that this was running through the mind when I typed that update...View attachment 691557

Splitter!

 

[Le Jones]

Chapter 50, The Old Palace, Canterbury, 18 September 1936

The location for this meeting had been an ordeal for two staffs in the organising (discreetly), one Government, one Royal. The Duke’s residence in Piccadilly was under constant observation by the newspapermen, and Halifax’s activities on behalf of the Government were similarly widely reported. And so, a third staff, an ecclesiastical one, had ridden to the rescue (although not entirely nobly: their master wanted a ringside seat on events so thought that he may as well host the blessed thing) suggesting that as the peripatetic Halifax was due a visit to His Grace, with ‘a bit of elbow grease and sharp pencil work’ it could be scheduled to coincide with a visit by His Royal Highness the Duke of York to discuss some charitable events that he and the Archbishop were involved in. The ruse had seemingly worked.

Both men looked awful, a pair of cadaverous wraiths barely filling their suits. Bertie, Halifax thought sadly, had aged over the long summer of watching and waiting for a decision on the year’s long trail of scorn and torment. They had only just met, and agreed to talk during a walk in the garden, but the Prince had already irritably fumbled his way through three cigarettes. Halifax, nowhere near the image of aristocratic mien and phlegm often portrayed, had collapsed with migraines and stomach aches twice over the last week. And if it was like this for the principals, Halifax mused, Lord alone knows how the families are coping.

“You’re quiet, Edward,” Bertie said sadly. “I believe the phrase is ‘penny for them’.”

Halifax grimaced at such a homely, rather working class phrase. “I was merely musing on the impact of this upon the families."

“Is Lady Dorothy alright?” Bertie looked worried.

“She suffers,” Halifax began, “as much as the west of us. And Her Woyal Highness?”

“Elizabeth doesn’t want to be Queen,” Bertie said directly, astonishing Halifax. “Or, more likely, she doesn’t want me to become K-King.” The stammer had flickered briefly, but Bertie, despite his exhaustion, was at ease with the patrician Halifax. “D’you know, she looks at Lilibet in a strange way, a new way. I caught her doing it this morning.”

“Princess Elizabeth could become first in line,” Halifax said gently. Although he thanked his God daily for the privilege of his highborn birth, he was ever grateful that it wasn’t too highborn.

“And none of us, none of us, expected or w-wanted this!”

Halifax offered a kindly smile. “That isn’t entirely accurate, Sir.”

Bertie smiled back. “Well yes, mama has been aligned with Baldwin and Hankey for months now,” he said bitterly, “so, what do I do?”

The change of tone and subject took Halifax by surprise. “Wait, Sir. The Cabinet (as ever said ‘Cabinnette’ by Halifax) will wesign, your brother,” he saw the flash of regal disapproval, “His Majesty must take his chance, and then…”

“…chaos,” Bertie said heavily.

“Perhaps not, Sir. If, as we believe likely, a makeshift administration is established, it will necessarily be a minowity administwation. That will collapse as soon as it is challenged.”

They paused, as the Duke stopped to look at a flower. “It’s like a giant bluebell.” It took Halifax a moment or two to realise that the Duke wasn't talking about Parliament.

“Delphinium,” Halifax said quietly. “From the family Wanunculaceae.”

“I never had you down as a gardener.”

“I’m not, I normally only notice them when I wide over them, but Dowothy insists I take an interest at Gawwoby,” that was Garrowby, his primary residence in Yorkshire.

“You were saying, Edward, about the collapse.”

“Ah, yes. If the Government support in the Commons collapses, we’ll be faced with a wesignation to your Bwother, and by the conventions, really, an election. Before that, of course, the Conservatives will need a new leader.”

“Who are the favourites?”

“Neville has absolute pwimacy here, he is everyone’s favoured candidate. There is a gwowing debate about Eden’s candidature, and there are alarming wumours about a third or even fourth nomination.”

“Does it matter? If Neville’s going to win?”

“It matters, Sir, if Neville or Anthony’s vote is split with a candidate shawing their view.”

“And if Neville wins?”

“Then he will make demands upon your,” forgetting, he rushed to correct, “er, His Majesty, that I doubt could ever be accepted. Your Bwother could continue to wesist, by ignowing Neville and asking another, a supporter, to try and form an administration. But that would be the greatest wrenching of the constitution for three hundwed years.”

“And,” Bertie said as he grappled with the conventions, “if his supporters have been voted out of their seats…”

“…then he will eventually be forced to meet with Neville,” Halifax confirmed. “And Neville’s demands will grow more biting, more unweasonable, with evewy manoeuvre by His Majesty.”

“And if David doesn’t accept Chamberlain’s demands?”

Halifax blanched. “Unpwecedented in modern times. Perhaps a bill in the Commons to declare His Majesty unfit to wule, perhaps a second election if the King can find another supporter.” He thought, quietly. “Wegardless of the Parliamentawy pwogress, of this, I stwongly fear that he will end up, after a tawdwy mess, abdicating and handing Your Woyal Highness the thwone.”

There, it had finally been said. The ‘thing’, the threat, the unspoken possibility that everyone was thinking about. The effect upon Bertie was predictable and immediate, his head flopped down, and he immediately started fumbling for a cigarette. “How will this happen?”

“The conventions are actually rather unusual. He would renounce the throne for him, and his descendants…”

“…Parliament?”

“Almost certainly a debate in both houses. Some form of legislation.”

“Glamis, Cawdor, King thereafter,” Bertie muttered bitterly. “And none of it sought. The p-press?”

“Split evenly, Sir. Beaverbwook and his cwowd continue to support His Majesty. Geoffwey and The Times are leading the charge for us.”

“Can I assist,” Bertie stared intently at his friend.

Halifax shook his head sadly. “No no, goodness no. It will only give the Beaverbwook pwess carte blanche to turn their editowials towards you.”

“Well,” Bertie said, feeling rebuffed, “what about helping Neville?”

“We’ll see, Sir, we’ll see. Neville would like to make a call on you before he resigns as Chancellor. Just, if I may, be careful awound him. He will use you, perhaps wiskily, if it advances his cause.”

The two men were ambling slowly back towards the Archbishop’s residence, were a no doubt dour tea service was being prepared for them. Bertie looked shrewdly at his friend. “You’re, not g-going to stick around, are you?”

“As ever His Woyal Highness knows me too well. No, Sir, I will support you and your family thwough this ghastly ordeal and then I will wetire to my estates. I shall wide to hounds, enjoy some peace with Dowothy, and watch with sadness as Bwitain slowly wecedes.”

Bertie nodded with sadness at the first element, but the lament to Britain’s decline rather angered him. “We’re not bloody dead yet,” he said with gritted teeth.

====​

GAME NOTES

So that’s it. The final scene setter before the fall (described by @Bullfilter as the “getting worse before it gets better territory”) is complete.

I wanted a gentle update because the next few are going to be mad, it’s like a rollercoaster that’s just about to plummet. We’re having a serene moment waiting for the plunge.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's residence and gardens are largely as (barely) portrayed, a neutral, irrelevant setting for what’s coming up. They're also rather nice. I wasn't in the mood for the canting, dour Lang so focussed upon the meeting of the two friends.

I’m aware that Halifax has played a much greater role in this crisis as he did OTL, where he mainly supported Bertie, occasionally spoke up in Cabinet, and that was largely it (certainly he wasn’t flitting around the Tory grandees as he is here). I think that Baldwin and Chamberlain would use him more widely in our TL, he is not a contender for the Premiership but is useful in dealing with the potentially soon to be activated heir as well as the grumpy bas***d that is the Archbishop of Canterbury. Put bluntly, there’s more for him to do in this TL. I do think that he would be utterly wearied by the crisis, he probably resents doing the running for people (Bertie aside) he thinks beneath him, and I can see him declaring an intention to step from Cabinet politics as soon as the crisis is over, which for him (and increasingly the soon-to-depart, soon-to-be-back Government) is really, by this stage, an abdication / removal from the throne and Bertie taking over.

'Lilibet' is of course, Princess Elizabeth, now QEII. In writing this, and in reading other AARs, I am struck by how hard it is (short of Communist revolution) to butterfly her reign away. Even in 1936, the money is on her becoming Queen at some point, regardless of what David does (it was widely acknowledged that he was unlikely to father children in 1936). And yet everyone acted as if it was a huge surprise that she might need to start swotting up just in case. I find this a huge failure of the Royal household (unless King Edward or her parents actively stopped it, which I suppose is possible).

And then we have Bertie, where it is very, very difficult to avoid falling into carefully lain traps in writing about him. The portrayals of Bertie (every UK TV drama in which he features, and then features like Darkest Hour, The King's Speech, The Crown etc) tend to focus upon a noble, stammering family man who has an explosive temper and a solid, unspectacular, rather Hanoverian brain. This from what I can determine, is probably fair enough, but he wasn’t above lowering himself to politicking (the evidence for this is his inviting Chamberlain to the Buckingham Palace balcony after Munich, prima facie a breach of regal impartiality in political matters) and could be monumentally unpleasant when he wanted to be. He was also a man of his times, with the prejudices and frailties expected of that. If the real 1936 was bad (and it was, he and his brother had several breakdowns or emotional collapses) then this one is utter purgatory. We’re nowhere near, despite Tory confidence, a clear route to the King (politely) sodding off and his house-trained brother riding to the rescue. For that to happen we need Baldwin and his Government to take a stand, to call the King’s bluff. And that is where we’re headed next.

Fisher continues to be maddeningly acidic – yet he does also seem to be one of the competent ones. No doubt the lamentable result of some stunted public-school upbringing…

Fisher indeed went to Winchester before Oxford. Some of the antipathy between he and Wilson probably comes from their different social beginnings.

I was recently thinking about this for research on gold standard and monetary policy in the first half of the 20th century. Its one of the first big global systems, and by that period, everyone not only knew that but was freaking out over not having control of either it, or their own currency, because of it.

I think you're right, and the incoming minority government's response to this and other 'live' issues (Spanish non-intervention, India, rearmament, hell the whole approach to European affairs) could produce many, many butterflies.

The world continues to turn even as everyone in Britain obsesses about the King, but unlike Spain people are going to have to pay attention to this one. That said the political input is going to be minimal, it boils down to "Do you want to help France and are you prepared to spend British reserves to support the Franc?" Once those questions are answers the rest is technical detail, along with the hope that the combined US and UK guarantee is sufficient to make sure no-one tests it. The actual best option of "Stuff it, let the French sink" has been dismissed too easily I fear, it's not like helping France has ever been worth the effort before, why would it be this time?

Yes, and you may get your wish - the minority government is unlikely to want to prioritise this...

Not a good time to be prone to vertigo - just as one foot is already over the edge of the precipice and you make the mistake of looking down. Gravity is about to exert its inevitable influence, but for a moment you are not yet falling. Gravity + momentum + impact = an ugly strawberry jam someone is going to have to clean up.

The fall will be deep...

A unified leftist block spanning from Communists to social democrats and everything in between is a scary thing. It also reminds me of the 'Front Populaire' in France. Loving the care you put into each of the characters. Didn't Attlee end up being rather anti-communist later in his career? I guess these kinds of personal ideals will, of course, never stand in the way of political expediency.

Attlee was indeed a firm anti-communist, although this was not unusual. The Labour Party has always been a complicated, confusing and deeply frustrating beast, and the 1930s were no exception. While the leadership happily continued to describe themselves as socialist until the 1980s, after the Russian Revolution communism obviously became a much dirtier word. Although there were communist MPs within the Labour ranks until about 1947, the central leadership was vigorously opposed from very early on.

Much of this is to do with the class character of the party, which had an astonishingly large working-class base at its peak, but whose leadership was always held by bourgeois reformists of various shades. This was sort of tolerated for the first few decades because the party was less of a party as we'd recognise today and more of a confederation of autonomous interests. This meant that, while the class composition of the various leaderships was unflaggingly bourgeois, there were various tendencies represented within the party – ranging from establishment Fabian reformism to what might be called revolutionary syndicalism. In this update, this state of affairs is shown by Maxton and Brockway, who form the leadership of the confusingly-named Independent Labour Party – truly independent from the Labour Party between 1931–47, but otherwise an affiliated group that was actually about a decade older than the more 'establishment' LP. The ILP was a home to communists of various stripes well into the 1930s, although by that point most who weren't Trotskyites had left to join the CPGB.

The problem is that even the ILP had a bourgeois leadership, and for all of their ideological disagreements Attlee, Maxton and Brockway are all social peers. Brockway is probably the closest of the three to being anything like a 'class traitor', although in later life (he lived to be about 100) he became a lord. Maxton never stopped believing in the revolution (or at least speaking about it), but this led him into an uneasy relationship with Oswald Mosley, whom he visited in prison during the war.

The controversial Cripps, meanwhile, was the only real proponent of the Popular Front doctrine that came out of the Comintern after 1934. The sticking point in forming one came chiefly from the Labour leadership, which was angry at Communist Party efforts to take over union leaderships – Labour being the traditional party of the union leaderships, if not necessarily the memberships – and also became the Liberals wanted nothing to do with socialism. Cripps was undeterred and continued to advocate for a Popular Front until 1939, when he was expelled from the Labour Party for doing so.

The left, if it but knows it, has a real chance to 'shake the tree'. TBH all they need to do is not fight for a brief stint, but I worry that even this is not possible. Attlee's grip on the claim to leadership of that combined / not-fighting-among-themselves left is far from certain, and they disagree on a swathe of issues.

Basically you can arrange the words "Independent" "Labour" and "Socialist" in any order you like, stick the word party on the end, and you will probably find it is the name of a real British far left political group.

Splitter!

I fear my next AAR may have to be Monty Python's take on the Second World War. Thankfully it will probably never happen.

 

[El Pip]

“As ever His Woyal Highness knows me too well. No, Sir, I will support you and your family thwough this ghastly ordeal and then I will wetire to my estates. I shall wide to hounds, enjoy some peace with Dowothy, and watch with sadness as Bwitain slowly wecedes.”

Bertie nodded with sadness at the first element, but the lament to Britain’s decline rather angered him. “We’re not bloody dead yet,” he said with gritted teeth.

What an exceptionally concise way to express all I dislike about Halifax and much of what there is to like about Bertie/KGVI. The miserable pessimistic declinism of Halifax, his inability to do a job properly (Bertie is not just going to need support during the 'ghastly ordeal', he would doubtless appreciate it when actually on the throne and trying to rebuild) and the vague sense he always give off that he doesn't actually like Britain. Compared to that Bertie is always going to look good and that flash of determination and gritted teeth will serve him well given what is to come.

That said not without his failings, not least a tendency to stick his head in the sand about issues he doesn't like the look of. Perhaps a misguided belief that if you didn't prepare and plan for something it would be less likely to happen?

 

[DensleyBlair]

Very eagerly awaiting 'the fall', @Le Jones. You are tantalising us with it being so close!

Halifax grimaced at such a homely, rather working class phrase.

Snobbish arsehole.

Bertie nodded with sadness at the first element, but the lament to Britain’s decline rather angered him. “We’re not bloody dead yet,” he said with gritted teeth.

Quite right to. Far be it from my comfort zone to start going on about national fortitude, or even to refer to a country as 'we', but Halifax's doom mongering is really rather oppressive, isn't it?

'Lilibet' is of course, Princess Elizabeth, now QEII. In writing this, and in reading other AARs, I am struck by how hard it is (short of Communist revolution) to butterfly her reign away.

And even then (revolution), it is no given thing. Take it from one who will presently be writing a piece about the darling new Queen of Canada!

Fisher indeed went to Winchester before Oxford. Some of the antipathy between he and Wilson probably comes from their different social beginnings.

The left, if it but knows it, has a real chance to 'shake the tree'. TBH all they need to do is not fight for a brief stint, but I worry that even this is not possible. Attlee's grip on the claim to leadership of that combined / not-fighting-among-themselves left is far from certain, and they disagree on a swathe of issues.

It is worth remembering as well that the the two situations are not unconnected. Winchester—>Oxford—>Public service could supply socialists (albeit of a certain variety) just as well as it could supply civil servants. Most of Gaitskell's coterie in particular were old friends of his from Winchester and Oxford – Dick Crossman and Douglas Jay being the main ones – and Cripps, who brought most of the Gaitskellites into the inner circle, was a Wykehamist who went to UCL. (Attlee was an Oxonian who had been through a more 'minor' public school.) In both camps, as much as there is an argument over how to 'get the fruit', there is a concerted effort to make sure the tree does not get shaken at all.

 

[Bullfilter]

And so gravity is about to exert its inevitable effect. The fall, as is said, won’t kill them: it is the rapid stop at the end.

The left, if it but knows it, has a real chance to 'shake the tree'. TBH all they need to do is not fight for a brief stint

Ahem. They will either fight amongst themselves beforehand, thus preventing victory, or (miraculously) seem to achieve it ... then fight over the spoils, turning it into defeat anyway.

I fear my next AAR may have to be Monty Python's take on the Second World War.

I fear too unpleasant a subject for much more than a “we were HERE, and the enemy were THERE“ sketch.

 

[Le Jones]

Chapter 51, Savoy Hotel, 22 September 1936

The telephone rang. He sat there, in silent, contemplative calm. “Well?”

“It’s Winston,” the other man, Beaverbrook, began, “they’re meeting now”.

“What about our friends from the other lot?”

“They’re also gathering before the Commons sits.”

“And our boys?”

There was a subtle nod. “They’re still with us”.

“Right, let’s get ready. I’ve got to go to the House, make sure that he knows he can get us there Max.”

At that, David Lloyd George put on his best coat and went to the taxi that Beaverbrook had prepared, parked at the small loading bay reserved for food deliveries. Both men, a Canadian and a Welshman, outsiders who had been absorbed (or had crowbarred their way) into the political class, were giddily revelling in the ‘cloak and dagger’ nature of the day.

====
​

Not far away, separated by two groups of protesters and a thin line of policemen, Stanley Baldwin clasped his hands before him and gently tapped them on the desk of the Cabinet room table. “Well, that’s it then.” He had just finished a brief precis of his terrible final conversation with the Palace. “Are we, all, agreed?”

The ‘all’ was slightly disingenuous as two of their number had resigned this morning. No one said anything, either in support or in resistance. The noise of the crowds outside was incredible, their voices seemed to be just outside even though the police line formed a barrier at the end of Downing Street. The Cabinet Secretary, the only one in the room who was more or less guaranteed Government employment for the foreseeable future, coughed politely. “Prime Minister, you have a few minutes before you must go the House.”

“Is the Palace call arranged?”

Hankey nodded.

“When?”

Hankey pulled out a simple, yet elegant pocket watch. “About an hour and a half. I am told it will be brief,” he said wryly, “there’ll be a car ready.”

“No, no,” Baldwin said, “I’ll walk. Gentlemen, I’ll see you over there. Thank you for your service, Gentlemen, to your King,” he managed to say this without any under or overemphasis, “I would like particularly, to thank you, Edward,” he inclined his head at Halifax, “and you, Ramsay, for your kindness to me and your steadfast support. I regret, as this Government is folding, that we weren’t good enough,” he said simply. After the months of strain, he seemed to be unfazed by the ignominious end of his political career in the midst of a constitutional crisis.

With the Cabinet tight-lipped as they preceded him to Parliament, he walked modestly enough through the lines of Downing Street staff, shaking the odd hand and exchanging passive pleasantries. “Where is Lucy?”

Hankey offered a reassuring smile. “Chequers. We will gather everything there.”

“Right,” Baldwin said sadly, simply. He shook Hankey’s hand. “Good luck,” he said heavily, his last words in Downing Street.

A sergeant of the Metropolitan Police entered the lobby and quietly whispered his update to Hankey. “The siege,” he said with false drama, “is over. The weather is turning so the crowds have dispersed.”

There was indeed a light rain, the first of the autumn, and Baldwin smiled sadly at the last police salute that he would ever receive. He entered Parliament with a grimace, handed his coat to his Parliamentary Private Secretary.

“Well?”

“It’s a full house, Prime Minister,” the ‘PPS’, a junior Conservative MP, Thomas Dugdale, said. Together they walked through the battered old Victorian doors and toward the Government benches. The first thing that hit him was the heat, a combustible wave of stuffy air from six hundred men packed into a chamber barely able to hold half that number. The second, as ever, was the noise, the waves of what seemed, constantly, to be a ‘yaaaaaaaaay’ noise bouncing across the divide and bouncing off the wood panelled walls. He took a deep breath and, as the noise turned to cheers, he ambled over the splayed legs of the National Government’s front bench. The Commons was truly packed, members piled in on the gangways and crammed into the benches as Baldwin waited for the Speaker to call him. This was an emergency session; Parliament had been recalled specifically for this statement, brought back early from its summer recess.

“Statement by the Prime Minister.” There weren’t cheers, not any more, from the Government benches, but a sound not unlike a tide sucking out the water from a beach as hundreds of MPs, packed like sardines into every spare seat (or spare bit of stair or pannelling) took a breath before the Prime Minister’s statement.

Baldwin stood up. He began to hear rain on the lead tiles above, the sudden rattle of a shower. He had felt very, very tired, knew that he was bloated and haggard, but the realisation that the length of his Government could be measured in minutes seemed to offer renewed vigour. He paused, allowing himself a final selfish moment of holding this house in his hands. He could almost feel power flowing away, as if it was sand seeping through his fingers.

“Thank you, Mr Speaker,” he began, the House sensing and matching his sombre mood. The moment caught him and he paused. He had wondered how to begin, but, as his power ebbed away, there was nothing for it but the simple facts. “No more grave message has ever been received by Parliament and no more difficult, I may almost say repugnant, task has ever been imposed upon a Prime Minister than that upon which I brief you all, today. I would ask the House, which I know will not be without sympathy for me in my position today, to remember that in this last week I have had but little time in which to compose a speech for delivery today, so I must tell what I have to tell truthfully, sincerely and plainly, with no attempt to dress up or to adorn. I shall have little or nothing to say in the way of comment or criticism, or of praise or of blame. I think my best course today, and the one that the House would desire, is to tell them, so far as I can, what has passed between His Majesty and myself and what led up to the present situation.”

Well, he had their attention. Attlee, birdlike, stared impassively at him. But Baldwin saw a slight, tight, wry smile of, well, if not admiration, perhaps empathy. Baldwin cleared his throat. “I should like to say at the start that His Majesty as Prince of Wales has honoured me for many years with a friendship which I value, and I know that he would agree with me in saying to you that it was not only a friendship, but, between man and man, a friendship of affection. I would like to tell the House that when we parted ways we both knew and felt has now, sadly, been irrevocably impaired by the discussions of this last week, the end of a bond that will stay, at least for me, for life. There will be one more meeting between us, a brief one,” he said with a sad smile, “that will be the final meeting.”

“Now, Sir, to the beginning of this crisis. And yes,” he said in response to mutterings at the word, “it is now a moment of profound crisis. The House will want to know how it was that I had my first interview with His Majesty. As the House is aware, I had been repeatedly been ordered, by my doctors, in the Spring, a complete rest which, owing to the kindness of my staff and the consideration of all my colleagues, I thought that I would be able to enjoy to the full. Unfortunately as the Easter break approached, although I had been ordered to take a rest in that month, I felt that I could not in fairness to my work take that holiday until pressing matters were resolved. There were two things that disquieted me at that moment. There was coming to my office a vast volume of correspondence, mainly at that time from British subjects and American citizens of British origin in the United States of America, from some of the Dominions and from this country, all expressing perturbation and uneasiness at what was then appearing in the American and foreign Press. I was aware also that there was in the near future a divorce case coming on, as a result of which, I realised that possibly a difficult situation might arise later, and I felt that it was essential that someone should see His Majesty and warn him of the difficult situation that might arise later if occasion was given for a continuation of this kind of gossip and of criticism, and the danger that might come if that gossip and that criticism spread from the other side of the Atlantic to this country. I felt that in the circumstances there was only one man who could speak to him and talk the matter over with him, and that man was the Prime Minister. I felt doubly bound to do it by my duty, as I conceived it, to the country and my duty to him not only as a counsellor, but as a friend. I consulted, I am ashamed to say, and they have forgiven me, none of my colleagues.”

Eden and Duff-Cooper were amazed at Baldwin’s self-sacrifice. Chamberlain, now the likely successor as Conservative leader, stared, ashen, stiff, unflinching, almost frozen. In the galleries above, Halifax, Hailsham, Zetland and the other leading members of the House of Lords stared down with evident distress. “Aside from our routine audiences, I endeavoured, in as discreet a manner as I could to meet with him. I therefore requested a meeting at Fort Belvedere at the beginning of May. This was the first occasion on which I was the one who asked for an interview.”

He paused to clear his throat. “Sir, I may say, before I proceed to the details of the conversation, that an adviser to the Crown can be of no possible service to his master unless he tells him at all times the truth as he sees it, whether that truth be welcome or not. And let me say here, as I may say several times before I finish, that during those talks, when I look back, there is nothing I have not told His Majesty of which I felt he ought to be aware.” Here Baldwin was defiant, almost passionate. “Nothing,” he almost snapped, his fist lightly puncing the despatch box. “I told His Majesty that I had two great anxieties: one, the effect of a continuance of the kind of criticism that at that time was proceeding in the American Press, the effect it would have in the Dominions and particularly in Canada, where it was widespread, the effect it would have in this country. That was the first anxiety. And then I reminded him of what I had often told him and his brothers in years past. The British Monarchy is a unique institution. The Crown in this country through the centuries has been deprived of many of its prerogatives, held by this House and the Cabinet, but today, while that is true, it stands for far more than it ever has done in its history. The importance of its integrity is, beyond all question, far greater than it has ever been, being as it is not only the last link of Empire that is left, but the guarantee in this country so long as it exists in that integrity, against many evils that have affected and afflicted other countries. There is no man in this country, to whatever party he may belong, who would not subscribe to that.” There was a muted braying in agreement; a lot divided them, but the vast majority were patriotic with the Monarchy at the heart of that patriotism. “But while this feeling largely depends on the respect that has grown up in the last three generations for the Monarchy, it might not take so long, in face of the kind of criticisms to which it was being exposed, to lose that power far more rapidly than it was built up, and once lost I doubt if anything could restore it.”

“Mr Speaker, that was as I left things in May. I parted by reminding His Majesty of our hopes for his future. I’m sure that the House would agree that he has so many of the qualities necessary,” they brayed again. “But, Mr Speaker, I then pointed out, in this meeting like so many others, the danger of the divorce proceedings, that if a verdict was given in that case that left the matter in suspense for some time, that period of suspense might be dangerous, because then everyone would be talking, and when once the Press began, as it must begin eventually in this country, a most difficult situation would arise for me, for him, and there might well be a danger which both he and I had seen all through this, that there might be sides taken and factions grow up in this country in a matter where no faction ought ever to exist.”

“Mr Speaker, so commenced a summer busy with diplomacy. The House will recall that my health finally collapsed in May and June; a proper restorative was not possible, so I sought some respite at Chequers before returning to full duties in July. The House will share, with me, our thanks for the careful stewardship offered to this nation by my Right Honourable Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and of course the Lord Privy Seal residing in that other place. In interviews,” he closed his eyes in painful recollection at the long summer of endless shuttling back and forth to Belvedere, “I begged His Majesty to consider all that I had said. I began by giving him my view of a possible marriage. I told him that I did not think that a particular marriage was one that would receive the approbation of the country. That marriage would have involved the lady becoming Queen. I did tell His Majesty once that I might be a remnant of the old Victorians, but that I was certain that that would be impracticable. I cannot go further into the details, but that was the substance. I pointed out to him that the position of the King's wife was different from the position of the wife of any other citizen in the country; it was part of the price which the King has to pay. His wife becomes Queen, the Queen becomes the Queen of the country; and, therefore, in the choice of a Queen the voice of the people must be heard. Then His Majesty said to me, ‘I am going to marry Mrs. Simpson, and I will not go’. I explained that the proposed compromise, that the King should marry, that Parliament should pass an Act enabling the lady to be the King's wife without the position of Queen, was not possible. The inquiries had gone far enough to show that neither in the Dominions nor here would there be any prospect of such legislation being accepted. His Majesty asked me if I could answer his question. I gave him the reply that I was afraid it was impracticable for those reasons.”

He sighed, briefly imagining a world in which he could talk of more mature discussions. Twenty eight years in Parliament comes to this, he thought, with a touch of petulance. “When we had finished that conversation, it was obvious out that the possible alternatives had been narrowed, and that if His Majesty persisted with his insistence, then he could not, would not, do so with me at his side. The House must remember, it is difficult to realise, that His Majesty is not a boy, although he looks so young. He knew his mind, and was firm in his conviction.”

He had reached the end, in so many ways. “But I am firm in mine. The notion of permitting the lady to be Queen of this country in all but name would imperil our constitution, our established church, and the precious bonds with our Dominions and Commonwealth. The King cannot speak for himself. The King has told us that he cannot carry, and does not see his way to carry, these almost intolerable burdens of Kingship without a woman at his side. This crisis, and I use the word, has arisen now rather than later from that very frankness of His Majesty's character which is one of his many attractions. The King has announced his decision. He has told us what he wants us to do, and I think we now do it, or stand aside.”

There was a final pause. “And I must stand aside. I cannot remain as Prime Minister; I will go, from this place, to Buckingham Palace where I will resign my office. This House today is a theatre which is being watched by the correspondents of the whole world. Let us conduct ourselves with that dignity which His Majesty is showing in this hour of his trial. It is impossible, unfortunately, to avoid talking to some extent today about one's self. These last days have been days of great strain, but it was a great comfort to me, and I hope it will be to the House, to note that the House appears united in its opposition to the marriage. We have, after all, as welcome the guardians of democracy in this little island to see that we do our work to maintain the integrity of that democracy and of the Monarchy, which, as I said earlier is now the sole link of our whole Empire and the guardian of our freedom. My last words on that subject are that I am convinced that where I have failed no one could have succeeded. His mind was made up, and those who know His Majesty best will know what that means.”

He felt his energies flag, so there was one, last, thing to say. “I will go, from here, back for one final audience with His Majesty. This audience, Mr Speaker, will necessarily be brief and will convey but one message, that I and my Cabinet can no longer serve His Majesty with Crown and Government in step with one another.”

He flopped, down, to a mix of muted cheers, stunned silence and muttered comments.

Attlee stood up. “Mr Speaker, although I had no advance notice of the precise text of the Prime Minister’s statement, I am grateful to him and the Cabinet Secretary for conveying its sentiment. I will be brief, Mr Speaker. What the Prime Minister, out of,” he shrugged, “modesty, deference, natural decency has omitted to mention is that at every stage of this tragic tale he sought to lead this House across all parties and factions with courtesy and a spirit that has risen to the constitutional seriousness of the occasion.” There were growls of approval, while Baldwin hung his head, unwilling to look up during these tributes. “All of us, in this House, Mr Speaker, now faces a challenge of his own conscience. What each one of us does at this hour will define his place in the history of this establishment. I and the Opposition offer the Prime Minister and his Cabinet its full support.”

There was a point to be made, of course, for battles now and looming in the near future. “We on this side desire to support the Prime Minister in order that this tragic affair can be closed with the least possible delay. But a new chapter is being opened, and I want to say a word or two as to why we support the Prime Minister’s actions. We are concerned with fundamental economic changes. We are not to be diverted into abstract discussions about monarchy and republicism. The one essential is that the will of the people should prevail in a democratic country. Further, we want the mind of the nation to return as soon as possible to the urgent problems of the conditions of the people, the state of the world and the great issue of peace.”

“I want to say one or two words on the lessons which, I think, we should draw for the future. It is not my intention for a moment to glance at the past. I believe that a great disservice has been done to constitutional monarchy by overemphasis and by vulgar adulation, particularly in the Press. The interests which stand for wealth and class privilege have done all they can to invest the monarchy with an unreal halo, and to create a false reverence for royalty, and this has tended to obscure the realities of the position. I think, too, the continuance of old-fashioned Court ceremonial, and the surrounding of the Monarch by persons drawn from a narrow and privileged class, have hampered him in his work, and have at times frustrated good intentions. I hope that this ends, now and we shall see a new start made. I believe this is necessary if constitutional monarchy is to survive in the present age. Some pomp arid ceremony may be useful on occasions, but we believe that the note of monarchy should be simplicity. We as a party stand for the disappearance of class barriers and a moving towards equality, and we believe that in the interests of the Throne, in the interests of the Commonwealth, and in the interests of this country, we should see the utmost simplicity in the monarchy, which will, I believe, bind together people and Monarch more closely than before.” He paused, as if to say something else, but it was Baldwin’s day, the point was made, and so he typically sat down without a fuss.

====
​

GAME NOTES

The Prime Minister resigns.

Baldwin’s text is, largely, based upon his real Abdication speech, albeit with some pretty big adjustments for our period (as, incidentally, is Attlee’s). Baldwin was not a superb orator (although he was better then Chamberlain and Halifax, and possibly Eden) and this speech will, I suspect, be more remembered for the event it discusses rather than the words and style used. It may seem obvious, but Baldwin has, by resigning, both called the King’s bluff (in that the King is likely to act against a democratically elected administration) and thrown down the gauntlet, upping the stakes in a dramatic fashion. This is a huge crisis; the British system (I struggle to call it a constitution) relies on the ‘show’ of the Monarchy (wielding considerable powers of patronage and influence) sitting above, but weirdly in tandem with the elected Members of Parliament, the leaders of the largest grouping of whom get to form the Government (in the Monarch’s name). A ha. If the King were to back down and ask a senior figure from the National Government to come to form a Government there is a chance, a sliver of hope, that a deal could be struck. But the senior Tories loyal to Chamberlain won’t budge on the morganatic marriage point (and have probably hardened, as we saw in the last update, their view of other aspects of the King’s life – remember the point about weakening the King further) and so one side would have to publicly back down. The safe betting, based on hundreds of years of constitutional precedent is that the side to back down is so palpably going to be the King’s that to bet otherwise is madness; this is why, the norms suggest, any MP or peer joining him (thereby defying, unless you’re an Edward supporting Liberal, your party’s whip – whip here means the parties ‘official line’, enforced by the whips, MPs and peers acting as enforcers) is committing political suicide. But here’s the thing…

I believe that a small but determined band would have been seduced / mad enough to try. Most would have been ‘passed over’ old warriors itching for a shot at relevance again, (Churchill and DLG in a nutshell) but there are enough indications from the mass of published material that the King was getting nothing but ‘c’mon, let’s have a go’ signals from a small but significant band of Conservatives (mainly, although the Liberals and a small number from the left were probably persuadable) right up until the day of the abdication. The decision to abdicate was Edward’s, although the Cabinet didn’t argue too much, in the end, with that decision. But it is striking that after Baldwin, Chamberlain and Attlee came out against any kind of marriage to Mrs Simpson, some politicians were still urging the King to defy the Government and have a go anyway.

So what happens now? Well, the King clearly intends to let Lloyd George and a small, eclectic band of politicians assembled utterly randomly across parties try to form what would clearly be a minority Government; minority meaning that they are outnumbered in the Commons (and, FWIW, the Lords) and are therefore reliant upon the support of other parties (and both the Conservatives and Labour, of all colour, has adopted the policy of non-support) to pass any form of legislation. And this is the huge, obvious element of Parliamentary procedure hanging over the King’s supporters because, as soon as a vote in the Commons is called, those supporters are almost certainly going to lose (minority administrations can form temporary agreements with the other parties to get stuff done, but Chamberlain and Attlee have refused to do that). If a party loses a vote in the Commons it is not fatal (although if it is a ‘money bill’ it probably is), but can be followed by a ‘censure motion’ (a vote of no confidence) called by, well anyone, and by convention leading to General Election to return a party with (ideally) a majority to the Commons.

With the exception of a couple of bits of Parliamentary principle, and of course Erskine May’s 1844 treatise ‘Parliamentary Procedure’ (still used today), the problem is that a lot of this is convention, and offers lots of room for someone happy to rip up those conventions. And that, to an extent that we’ll see, gives the new Government some ‘wriggle room’ before the inevitable election.

This is, finally, one thing that I think HOI4 does reasonably well. You’ll see, from the screengrab above, that it saps the UK’s energies, particularly political power. This is, to me, sound; the Government (ministers and civil service) are hugely hamstrung in their ability to get anything done, and the game replicates this quite well (this is a nugget of gold in a field of mud, but never mind).

As for Baldwin, how will he be remembered? History hasn’t really been kind to him as it is, and his handling of the OTL abdication is often cited as one of his better moments. In our TL, he will, I suspect, be judged as the man who allowed the constitution to be stretched to breaking point, who failed to do what so many of his predecessors had done, namely manage a wayward young ruler. Depending upon how the international situation goes (one of the key charges against him in our TL was that he did nothing to stop Italy, Germany or Japan) he will either go down, I suspect, as a bad premier or an abysmal one. Does he deserve this opprobrium? On the international front yes, yes he does (although a Cabinet with Hoare, Simon and Halifax in it deserves a huge slice of responsibility), I just think that after the domestic woes of the 20s and early 30s (probably where he gets some credit) he was exhausted and not ready for a stormy 1936. In our TL he dragged out the crisis (as does HOI4, BTW) until it was beyond painful, allowing the King to gather what support he can and begin his own media campaign. He has presided over hubris and inaction, allowed a split in the newspapers, ignored (or at least kept at arm’s length) the Dominions, and stalled Parliamentary business. I end his premiership by not disliking him, despite his evident failures of leadership and policy. If that sounds like ‘dammed by faint praise’, then that is probably accurate. He leaves the premiership in the hands of a hastily assembled group of disparate figures and has all but guaranteed a tortuous autumn and winter.

What an exceptionally concise way to express all I dislike about Halifax and much of what there is to like about Bertie/KGVI. The miserable pessimistic declinism of Halifax, his inability to do a job properly (Bertie is not just going to need support during the 'ghastly ordeal', he would doubtless appreciate it when actually on the throne and trying to rebuild) and the vague sense he always give off that he doesn't actually like Britain. Compared to that Bertie is always going to look good and that flash of determination and gritted teeth will serve him well given what is to come.

That said not without his failings, not least a tendency to stick his head in the sand about issues he doesn't like the look of. Perhaps a misguided belief that if you didn't prepare and plan for something it would be less likely to happen?

I know what you mean about the dislike of Britain. In ARP and KFM he just feels so alien, more, even, than a character from 80 years ago should. He really was an odd character.

And even then (revolution), it is no given thing. Take it from one who will presently be writing a piece about the darling new Queen of Canada!

Looking forward to it - your masterpiece was at the forefront of my thoughts when I mulled on the staying power of QEII.

Ahem. They will either fight amongst themselves beforehand, thus preventing victory, or (miraculously) seem to achieve it ... then fight over the spoils, turning it into defeat anyway.

The left will take a back seat for a couple of updates while the new cabinet forms, but Attlee and co are in for an interesting ride...

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

There was a subtle nod. “They’re still with us”.

Oh fuck.

were giddily revelling in the ‘cloak and dagger’ nature of the day.

Somebody shoot them.

The Cabinet Secretary, the only one in the room who was more or less guaranteed Government employment for the foreseeable future, coughed politely.

Only more or less? What the hell is going going happen, communist revolution?

Eden and Duff-Cooper were amazed at Baldwin’s self-sacrifice.

He goes down with the grace of a Swan.

Chamberlain, now the likely successor as Conservative leader, stared, ashen, stiff, unflinching, almost frozen.

Miserable prick

the British system (I struggle to call it a constitution)

I deem it an agreement.

Most would have been ‘passed over’ old warriors itching for a shot at relevance again, (Churchill and DLG in a nutshell)

They won't be back then. No churchil coming in to save the day in ww2...

This is, finally, one thing that I think HOI4 does reasonably well. You’ll see, from the screengrab above, that it saps the UK’s energies, particularly political power. This is, to me, sound; the Government (ministers and civil service) are hugely hamstrung in their ability to get anything done, and the game replicates this quite well (this is a nugget of gold in a field of mud, but never mind).

You are impressively going down one of the strongest event chains for Britain, yet constantly hinting you're going to swerve at the last possible moment into the worst possible position they can be in (no stability, no pp, no dominions and pretty much no empire, and a year of wasted focus tree focuses).

Though I suppose it is still technically possible this is all a big build up to the King's Party and the empire being reformed under the iron grip of Churchill, LG and Edward. Basically the same end game as imperial federation, just with lots more blood...

 

[InvisibleBison]

Alea iacta est! Now, how will the King respond? And more importantly, how will he respond to the inevitable failure of his initial response?

 

[Idhrendur]

That really is quite the sapping of the government's ability to act. And your writing highlights what the whole Political Power item is supposed to represent at all, but that generally doesn't come across.

 

[DensleyBlair]

I found myself oddly gripped by Baldwin’s speech. The high drama of it all really came through (and I’m not exactly one for parliamentary drama, so bravo).

Now, what hell awaits us?