Most people have heard how Wallis Simpson was the Achilles heel of the king of England, the cause of Edward VIIIs renouncing the throne, causing the head of English royalty to be a queen ever since, and all because she was a divorcee from America.
The Rolls-Royce – chassis no. 1346 – was used by the royal family until 1940 and after its subsequent sale, the car and the shooting brake coachwork were subsequently separated. Another Silver Ghost – chassis no. 107EM – was then fitted with the discarded ex-Edward VIII Barker coachwork in the 1960s
http://thesteepletimes.com/opulence-splendour/a-royal-smuggler/
Hi Jesse,
ReplyDeleteCan I be a bit pedantic regarding your comments about Edward VIII & Wallis Simpson? There were certainly concerns and much moralistic huffing and puffing about the potential queen (she was, after all, a double divorcee and AMERICAN to boot). However, the real problem for those in power was that Edward was totally unsuited to the role (he had already blurted out state secrets to foreign emissaries and was a Nazi sympathiser) so Simpson was more of an excuse than a reason to lean on him to abdicate. There was no constitutional change. His brother became George VI and cemented the monarchy's popularity by his and his wife's conduct during the war (quote from Elizabeth, the current queen's mother after Buckingham Palace was bombed: "Thank God; I couldn't have faced the East End again if we'd been spared"). The current queen (who worked as a vehicle mechanic during the war and became the UK's longest serving monarch on Wednesday) inherited the title simply because George VI had 2 daughters, of which she was the oldest. The succession rules used to be biased heavily in favour of males but that has been changed this year to an equal footing (ever at the forefront of social change, the British establishment!). As a footnote, Edward and Wallis stayed together, though banished from the UK. When he died ln 1972 she withdrew from society and became a recluse until her death in 1986.
Absolutely, I relish the information from informed people. What I said wasn't the whole of the facts about the situation, but it was on point, and I'm only a car guy, not an expert on the royals. There are far more of them than car guys, so I do what I can to entertain those of us not infatuated with the heads that wear the crown. Why isn't the queen giving the throne to Charles? Or one of his kids? If she does, will that guy be a king? Why does the British empire have a queen anyway, it's a damn empire, (Austrailia, Canada, Falkland Islands, Bahamas, Wales, Ireland, etc etc etc) so why isn't the head honcho an Empress, or Emperor? Why does the parliament need to exist when they have a queen, or vice versa, why have a queen when the country is run by a prime minister and parliament? Why the waste of money on the royal family?
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