Edward, the Uncrowned King

by John Waddington-Feather

The decade of the 1930s was a momentous one in European history, and especially in the history of Britain. Nazism had taken over Germany and Fascism Italy and Spain. The British variant of these evil creeds was Mosleyism, which had a strong following throughout Britain. America, too, had its adherents to Nazism and followers of Hitler, including Mrs Simpson, the Prince of Wales’ mistress who became his wife.Most serious of all in Britain was the Edward, the Prince of Wales, obsession with Nazism and adulation of Hitler. Edward had posed a real headache for the Royal Family throughout his life as a playboy prince running around with the fast set in London and picking up one mistress after another. His parents, King George V and Queen Mary, had been appalled at his behaviour and lack of responsibility for years; and as war clouds loomed nearer in the 1930s the Prime Ministers of the time were also very critical of Edward’s behaviour; especially his involvement with the Nazis and the German Ambassador in Britain, Von Ribbentrop.My play is an attempt to cover the events of this period and to show how Britain may have had a Nazi King on the throne married to a twice divorced Queen had Edward been crowned. It seems the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, saved the day and provided the means for Edward to abdicate and hand over the throne to his much more stable and responsible younger brother who became George VI, the wartime King.

101 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2013

About the author

John Waddington-Feather (1933-2017) was a popular British author who belonged to the West Yorkshire ‘school’ of writers. His children’s novel, Quill’s Adventures in Grozzieland, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal in 1989, and his widely produced verse-play, Garlic Lane, (now on Kindle) won the Burton Award in 1999 and was staged in London in 2011 at the Rosemary Branch Theatre, Islington. In 2002 he was awarded the American DeWitt Romig Prize for his poetry. He was the first chairman of the J.B.Priestley Society and then a vice-president. In 1985 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
A school-teacher all his life, he was also an Anglican non-stipendiary priest and was a volunteer chaplain in Shrewsbury Prison from 1969 to 2009, going into prison the odd night after school and helping in the chapel at weekends. From his forty years as prison chaplain he had much material to draw on for his Blake Hartley crime novels!
The Quill Hedgehog novels are a series of novels age-range from 10 to 100! The first, Quill’s Adventures in the Great Beyond, was written in the 1970s as a protest against the pollution and urbanisation of the countryside. The third Quill Hedgehog novel, Quill’s Adventures in Grozzieland, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal by the Library Association of Great Britain. The first three novels now on Kindle have gone into three editions. A worthwhile read for children and adults alike.
Since being placed on Kindle, his wide range of work has sprung to prominence and attracted a growing number of readers in many countries including the USA which he visited often; more recently in translation in mainland Europe where his short stories are used by the British Council in their BritLit educational scheme to promote contemporary British writing abroad.
His very popular Blake Hartley crime novels are now published by Kindle as e-books. Over 80,000 of his works including his romantic trilogy ‘Chance Child’, have already been sold on Kindle. Now published also as paperbacks by Amazon.
Amazon has constructed a website for his bio and work at Amazon.com.uk

Reviews

[Bronwyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of the former long edward V111, who became the duke of Windsor after his abdication to marry American Wallis Simpson and his life before and after the abdication till his death in 1972