Crisis of the Crown: Love and the Collapse of the British Monarchy

On December 10, 1936, King Edward VIII signed a statement of abdication, and with one stroke of the pen, he put an end to his short reign. It lasted only ten months and ended in scandal and a grand international drama. In a speech to his subjects, Edward declared that he could not fulfill his duties as monarch without his beloved woman by his side – the infamous and twice-divorced Wallis Simpson. His actions outraged the British establishment and sparked numerous discussions at a time of ambiguity and complexity in politics, when the threat of Nazism and the impending war seemed almost inevitable.
Drawing on previously unpublished archival materials, historian and journalist Alexander Larman leads up to that fateful moment when the king turns on the microphone and addresses the British people. An assassination attempt on the king, Wallis Simpson's divorce proceedings, the scandalous affair with Ribbentrop, the confrontation with Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and the support of Winston Churchill – for the first time, the entire story of Edward VIII and his entourage is recreated in such detail, day by day.
“Before Edward VIII, the throne was occupied by a variety of monarchs: vile and heroic, ignorant, vain, and holy. But history had not yet known a king who renounced the crown for the sake of marriage” (Alexander Larman).