HC Deb 05 June 1972 vol 838 cc37-49
The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath)

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to move a manuscript Motion, a copy of which has been made available to you and copies of which are also now in the Vote Office. The terms of the Motion are as follows: That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty on the death of His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor, expressing the deep sympathy which this House extends to Her Majesty and to all members of his family on their grievous loss, and recording grateful remembrance of his devoted service to his country and to the British Empire.

Mr. Speaker

The House will be aware that the Motion which the Prime Minister asks leave to move is a substantive one which, according to the rules of the House, should have been placed on the Order Paper today to enable it to be moved tomorrow. Nevertheless, I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members would not wish to proceed with other business before passing at the earliest possible moment a Motion expressing our sympathy with Her Majesty on the sad loss which she and other members of the Royal Family have sustained. I assure the House that there are precedents for this course of action.

Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, West)

May I have clarification, Mr. Speaker? Do I understand that the Motion will be on the Order Paper tomorrow and will be debatable at 3.30 p.m.?

Mr. Speaker

No. The suggestion is that the Motion should be moved today.

Mr. William Hamilton

In that case, is it debatable now?

Mr. Speaker

It will be debatable. I intervened in the Prime Minister's moving of the Motion. I take it that the Prime Minister has the agreement of the House to proceed.

Hon. Members

Hear, hear.

The Prime Minister

Events conspired to make His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor a historical figure long before his death in Paris last week. For 35 years he had lived outside this country. and for more than 25 years he had taken no active part in public affairs, but his passing re-awakened many memories for those of us old enough to recall him first as Prince of Wales and then as King.

The Duke of Windsor was one of the few remaining members of the Royal Family who knew and remembered Queen Victoria. He was born in 1894, amidst what my predecessor Sir Winston Churchill called the august, unchallenged and tranquil glories of the Victorian era". From the moment of his birth it was apparent that in the fullness of time he would succeed to Queen Victoria's Throne.

Prince Edward made his first important appearance on the public stage in 1911, first at his father's Coronation, and shortly after when he himself was invested Prince of Wales at Caernarvon Castle, in a ceremony which was revived nearly 60 years later for his great-nephew.

At the beginning of the 1914–18 War, the Prince joined the Army, and served for much of the war on the Western Front. Though his military duties were inevitably circumscribed by the Army's reluctance to expose the heir apparent to the risk of capture by the enemy, he came under fire, and acquitted himself honourably and bravely.

Even more important, perhaps, he underwent the experience of sharing the rigours and miseries of war with many of his future subjects. It may be that it was this experience which prompted his evident determination, after the war, to see and be seen for himself, to go out to meet men and women of all sorts and conditions, not just at home in Britain but in all parts of his father's Empire.

A Prince of Wales, less tied by official responsibilities than the Sovereign, is freer to move about and meet people. Mr. Lloyd George, anxious to consolidate the sense of imperial comradeship engendered in the war, conceived a design for a series of tours by the Prince of Wales to all parts of the British Empire. The Prince of Wales welcomed the plan, and King George V approved it. Between 1919 and 1925 the Prince undertook a succession of arduous visits which led him across all the Dominions and to most of the colonies of the British Empire.

At home, in the intervals between these tours, he began to take an increasing share of the duties of the Royal Family, particularly after his father's serious illness in 1928. In this country, as in the Dominions, he was not content to confine himself to the formal ceremonies of Royal occasions. As the depression deepened, he made it his business to visit the communities which were most affected. There he was able to meet for himself the men and women who were thrown out of employment, to understand at first hand the plight of their families, and to bring them, if not hope, at least a message of sympathy, and with it the reassurance that they were not forgotten.

There must be many men and women on Tyneside, in Liverpool, in South Wales, who are remembering today the slight, rather shy figure who came briefly into their lives, and sometimes into their homes, during those grim years. Nor was his concern merely that of a passing visitor. In particular, his conscience and compassion were roused by the appalling housing conditions in the slums which he visited, and he lent his support to a variety of projects in the field of social service.

In all that he did during these years, it was the Prince of Wales's constant purpose to make the monarchy less remote, less formal, more accessible, more closely enmeshed in the social fabric of the country. To some at the time he may have seemed to be going too far and too fast; but for many of my own generation, growing up in the 1930s, his approach evoked a strong popular response. We felt that he was pointing the way to a type of monarchy which could meet the needs of our time.

Thus, when the Prince of Wales succeeded to the throne as King Edward VIII at the beginning of 1936, hopes were set high for his reign. Our sadness, when it came to an end so soon, was correspondingly deep and heartfelt.

Of the events that led to King Edward's abdication the House will not expect me to speak on this occasion. Deep feelings were aroused at the time, and their echoes have not yet entirely died away. The events have been described in various accounts by many of the principal people intimately concerned. What emerges from all these accounts is the dignity with which the King comported himself, and the strength of his determination to avoid, so far as circumstances allowed, damage to the institution of monarchy.

Both qualities were displayed in the broadcast to the nation after he had ceased to be King—straightforward, moving in its very simplicity, and enlivened with the occasional flash of Churchillian colour.

In that broadcast the Duke of Windsor pledged himself to serve his country in his new station, if called upon to do so. That call came, within a few years; and once again, with an over-riding sense of duty, he answered it. From 1941 to 1945 he served as Governor of the Bahamas. But that was to be the last of his public duties, and from then on he and the Duchess of Windsor have lived an entirely private life in America or in France.

But he never ceased to take the same active, intelligent and well-informed interest in the affairs of his country that he had taken ever since he came to manhood. That I myself found on the one occasion on which I had the opportunity to meet him.

Looking back on his life, there is much for which his country has reason to remember him with pride and gratitude. The British constitutional system and social structure have the ability and the flexibility to absorb and adapt themselves to great changes. It was this that made it possible for the institution of monarchy in this country to survive the shock of King Edward's abdication. But we owe that flexibility to the wisdom of those who, over the generations, have recognised the need for change which respects, but is not fettered by, tradition.

King Edward was such a man. He was brought up in the constitutional traditions of his country, and he inherited from his father a strong sense of duty to his people. But he saw how the monarchy must adapt itself if it was to respond to the needs and problems of his own generation, and he led his own public life in accordance with that vision.

I do not doubt that by his conduct as Prince of Wales and as King he pointed the way to a form of monarchy which today is more in tune with the times than would have been thought possible 50 years ago when he embarked upon his public life. Thus he helped to lay the foundations for the strength of the monarchy today, and for the respect and affection in which the institution and the person of the Sovereign are held.

Today, then, we send a message with our humble duty to the Queen, which expresses at once our sadness in her bereavement and our gratitude for the debt the nation owes him.

But the other thought in the minds of so many in this House today will be of the wife for whose love King Edward was content to give up his patrimony and who has repaid his devotion with an equal loyalty, companionship, and love. His death is, above all, her loss, and to her the House will wish to extend its profound sympathy.

Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Surely, today, when this matter is brought before the House, specific mention should have been made in the Motion of the person who will miss the Duke most.

Mr. Speaker

That is not a matter of order for the Chair.

Mr. Harold Wilson (Huyton)

On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I should like to join the Prime Minister in the tribute which he has paid to the Duke of Windsor, King Edward the VIII. While it is true that so much contemporary comment, and part of his place in history and in legend, will surround the events of December, 1936, the right hon. Gentleman was right to draw attention to His Royal Highness's sterling service to his nation, his people and the Commonwealth.

In a very real sense, he bridged the generations from the Victorian age into which he was born to the hard-hit, apparently cynical, bewildered post-war world. In so doing, he created a royal legend. If informality was his style, service was his inspiration. Unlike his royal grandfather, who had been Prince of Wales for a very long time, he saw his princely youth and pleasure cut short by war. In that war, unlike any of his recent predecessors he met and served on intimate terms with his own people.

The links then forged were never broken. A new relationship between throne and people had been created—a relationship which was sensed by those he met on his tours of the distressed areas, sensed above all by this Welsh wartime comrades in the dole queues, if not by the insensitive establishment of those years, when, out of the depths of his heart and compassion, he said, as though it were a royal command," Something will be done."

Those of us who witnessed the lying-in-state last week were perhaps impressed most by the floral tributes of the humblest of his admirers, expressing simple loyalty and affection. Among them was the tribute from the North-East, roses with a card reading: Washington County Durham. We lined the route for the Prince of Wales touring the distressed areas. As he bridged the generations, as he sought to bridge the gulf between the seeming complacency of the capital and the forgotten men of the dole queues, so, as Prince of Wales, he dedicated himself to strengthening the links of Empire and Commonwealth.

As heir to the throne, he envisaged the crown he was to inherit not as that of England or the United Kingdom but of a far-flung community of peoples, each of whom he came to know as his own people. He was a young man when the enactment of the Statute of Westminster threw its light on the Commonwealth that was to be, and when he died last week we mourned the last surviving King-Emperor. History, wiser and more percipient than his contemporaries, will record how much the Commonwealth we know today owes to his dedication and devotion in that last age of Empire.

Very few hon. Members in the House today could have known him personally as Prince of Wales or as King, and not many more of us had the opportunity of meeting with him in his years abroad. The Prime Minister referred to his experience. I had the privilege nearly 20 years ago in New York—I wish to place this on record—of meeting him and his gracious lady, the Duchess of Windsor, and realising how deeply concerned he was to extract from any of his fellow countrymen the last morsel of information about conditions in Britain and the conditions of all whom to the end he regarded as his people.

Of the tragic, moving and poignant events of December, 1936, much has been spoken and still more written in the past few days. Let us not add to them nor diminish them. Royally he chose, and in his choice he rejected any easy way out that there might have been for him. His decision was absolute and irrevocable, and the disclosures of the past few days have demonstrated the rôle of Church and State, and not least the rôle of the Fourth Estate.

History, even more than those who today mourn his death, will pass the final judgment on them, but it will equally record the spontaneous tributes to his memory, and above all to his dedication, from all the estates of the realm, including this House, and, above all, from the people he served. Perhaps it will record the personal tragedy; that it was only when he had passed from us that these tributes could be paid, and that he could never know the respect and affection in which he was so widely held by his people.

On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends I endorse the expressions of sympathy which have been made to the Duchess of Windsor. We all welcome the fact that she has felt able to be in Britain to hear and sense the feelings of our people, and we are all appreciative of the dignity she has shown, not only in these tragic days but over all the years. We hope that she will feel free at any time to come among and freely communicate with the people whom her husband, Prince of Wales, King, and Duke, lived to serve.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)

This afternoon at least the controversy of the years gives way to the sadness of the moment and we salute a man who, as Prince of Wales, and King Edward VIII, gave dedicated service to this country.

Whether in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, Africa, South America or throughout the United Kingdom, he was a remarkable Royal ambassador who, by his warmth and simplicity of approach, ensured that he would be vividly remembered in many parts of the world.

For me it was a moving experience the day after he died to go into the great auditorium of Capetown University and see dominating the hall a portrait of the Prince of Wales, as he was, when Chan- cellor of that University; and it was a sign of the very close links which he forged over all those years that its Vice-Chancellor was at his funeral service this morning.

It is useless to pretend that his life was not shot through with sadness. However, there were two other qualities which one could discern when one met him, as I did on the one occasion when I had the privilege to meet him. The first was his deep and abiding love for his country; indeed, a country which had once been his to rule. Linked with that was his continuing concern for the good of his people which, in the 'thirties, was expressed by the compassion he showed for those of his subjects who were unemployed, and which alas caused him to run foul of the political establishment of the day. There are many who feel that those qualities might have been put to greater service following his abdication.

The whole course of his career, of course, turned on the love which he deeply felt for the lady whom he wished to marry. The second quality, therefore, which was clear was that that was no transitory love. Nor was it misplaced, for it was returned in full measure during the sublimely happy marriage which they enjoyed for the 35 years they shared their lives.

He passed his self-imposed exile without bitterness and with great dignity. That it was tragic cannot be denied, and much of it might have been avoided. But today we express our gratitude for the services he gave, and our sympathy is extended to his family. I would have hoped that it might have been possible to mention his widow by name in the Motion which we shall pass, for not only does our sympathy go out to his family but in particular it goes out to his widow whose sadness has been shared by many in this country and whose composure and dignity have won our deep respect.

Sir Robin Turton (Thirsk and Malton)

As one of the nine hon. Members who served in Parliament in the reign of King Edward VIII, I wish to add my tribute in support of the Motion.

I remember well that gloomy December day when Stanley Baldwin came to the House with a message from the King and how, as backbenchers, after weeks of rumour and gossip, we were stunned and shocked with disappointment. The feeling of most of the House in those days was best put, as was often the case at that time, by Winston Churchill who, speaking on that occasion, said: In this Prince there were discerned qualities of courage, of simplicity, of sympathy, and above all, of sincerity, qualities rare and precious, which might have made his reign glorious in the annals of this ancient monarchy. It is the acme of tragedy that these very virtues should in the private sphere have led only to this melancholy and bitter conclusion."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th December, 1936; Vol. 318, c. 2191.] My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition have spoken of his great promise when Prince of Wales. In this connection I will mention his courage in war and the care which he showed for ex-Servicemen after the war, along with his deep and intense sympathy with the human problems of mass unemployment.

I recall the success of his Empire tours. I remember going to South America 20 years after he had been there. People were still talking of the charm and friendship which had shone around him where-ever he went. Perhaps Winston Churchill left out one of the great qualities of his life, a quality which was mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition, I refer to the motto of the Prince of Wales, Ich Dien. This quality, of service to his country was the motivating purpose throughout his life, and I remember that when he made his speech on his accession he said: A king can perform no higher function than that of service. It is sad that perhaps the greatest service he gave was his quiet departure, leaving this country and the Throne to his brother, who, as he said in his abdication broadcast has the one matchless blessing enjoyed by so many of you and not bestowed on me—a happy home with his wife and children. Some hon. Members will recall the final passage in his message of abdication in which he said: I take my leave in the confident hope that the course which I have thought it right to follow is that which is best for the stability of the Throne and Empire, and the happiness of my people. Time has vindicated his hopes and his action, and today we send our respectful and humble sympathy to the woman, his widow, who stood by him throughout those years, and his niece, our beloved Queen. At long last, after his journeys abroad, he has come home to his country and people that throughout his life he served.

Mr. Edward Milne (Blyth)

I apologise for intervening on what is a formal occasion. I am certain that the Prime Minister will not misunderstand me when I say that we have listened to an address with a certain degree of hypocrisy attached to it. In the last analysis it was the House that sent the person whom we are mourning today into exile.

When we talk about bridging the gap between the Victorian era and the present day, we can only look back at the wasted opportunity that our predecessors were presented with in coming to the decision they did. There is no sense now in praising and paying tribute to a monarch that the House exiled when the consequences of that decision are being visited on our people.

The Prime Minister mentioned in his moving tribute, as I think most of us who lived throughout the era of the 'thirties realised last week, that the world had suddenly become a poorer place. What was witnessed in the House in the 1930s was a clash between the people of Britain and the Establishment that was supposed to represent them at that time.

The Prime Minister spoke about tributes from Tyneside, the distressed areas and the dispossessed people of Britain. History will record the fact that the greatest voice the dispossessed of Britain had in the 'thirties was stilled on the night when the person we are mourning made his departure speech. An opportunity for the advancement of this nation was lost, and the Prime Minister of the day, who in the previous year had misled the British people in a General Election, was again to mislead them the following year.

I add my tribute to the person we are mourning and the widow he leaves behind I add the sincere tribute of the Tyneside and Northumberland working class, who fully understood the qualities of the person that we are mourning and not the hypocrisy with which his death has been attended.

Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, West)

I hope that the House will not think it amiss if I say in a sentence or two what I think is in the minds of many people, politicians in all parties and in none, on this occasion.

The House can learn nothing from anybody about how best to speak of the dead—only when they are dead, in all too many cases. My views on the monarchy as an institution are well known, and I need not go into them today. However, I was deeply touched by the television interview which the late Duke gave to Kenneth Harris in 1969 and which was repeated last week. During that interview the late Duke made it clear that after he had made his abdication irrevocable he still wanted to serve this country.

Of the events of 1936, I simply say that, although there are no Ministers or ex-Ministers alive who were responsible, either directly or indirectly, for the events of that time, there are those who are responsible, some of them still today, for events that took place in the subsequent 36 years up to 1972. Successive Governments since the end of the war had the opportunity to allow the Duke of Windsor to serve this country and to give of the talents to which the Prime Minister has rightly paid tribute. He was willing, but they refused.

There are many people who are sick and tired by the hypocrisy, humbug and cant in which we have engaged and which we have seen successive people in what we call the Establishment engage in during the last seven days. It is simply not good enough for us now to salve our consciences by paying these tributes after the man is dead.

Every speaker has paid tribute to the late Duke's widow. No woman could have behaved with more dignity and grace in face of the humiliations and indignities piled on her by the Government, the House and by our Governments over the last 36 years. We can sympathise today, but we should examine our consciences about the last 36 years.

Dame Irene Ward (Tynemouth)

I did not think of contributing to the debate and supporting my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. I hope that nobody will misunderstand me if I say that I happened at the time of the abdication to be the Member of Parliament for Wall send-on- Tyne, and I could not let someone who was not a Member of Parliament at that time and who comes from another part of the United Kingdom give expression to the sentiments that I know Tyneside and Durham would like to express on this occasion.

I met the Prince of Wales quite often in those days, and I remember well that when he came to Tyneside—the Tynesiders and those from Durham County are always tremendously loyal and appreciative of a sound, sympathetic, sensitive character—we all appreciated his charm and sensitivity.

I add one other thing to what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton). The Prince of Wales stood between two periods of our national life. He tried to serve the new period with the same distinction as many people in their own way had served the old period. I knew well some of his friends, and I remember being told at the time of the First World War how desperately the Prince of Wales felt when he went to France because, owing to his position, he had to have protection when so many of his friends had not and paid the price. That make a profound impression upon him which sustained him as well as engendering great sympathy in him throughout his career.

We all know how Tyneside felt at the time of the abdication. They are loyal people. I do not want to enter into any controversy but I felt that Tyneside might appreciate a speech from a Tynesider who was in the House of Commons, who knew the Prince when he visited Tyneside, and who liked and appreciated him. When one moves from one era to another, which in a way is unreal in national life, controversies will be aroused by a sympathetic, sensitive and devoted young man who wants to serve his country.

I can say no more than that. I felt that Tyneside would like a Tyneside voice of the time to express appreciation for his coming to Tyneside and for what he tried to do. We all feel desperately sorry that he was denied the opportunity to do what he wanted to do.

Mr. Dick Leonard (Romford)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You ruled that the point raised by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) was not a point of order. But would it be in order to move an Amendment including the name of the Duchess of Windsor before the reference to the Royal Family? If that is in order, I should like to move such an Amendment formally.

Mr. Speaker

I think that that is a matter for me to decide. I have already had notice of a manuscript Amendment from the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe), to insert in Motion, after the second reference to "Her Majesty", the words "to Her Grace the Duchess of Windsor". I think that it would be in accordance with the wishes of the House if I allowed that Amendment to be moved. Perhaps the hon. Member will move it formally.

Amendment made: s After the second reference to "Her Majesty", insert "to Her Grace the Duchess of Windsor".—[Mr. Pardoe.]

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Mr. Speaker

I declare the Motion carried nemine contradicente.

Resolved, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty on the death of His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor, expressing the deep sympathy which this House extends to Her Majesty, to Her Grace the Duchess of Windsor and to all members of his family on their grievous loss, and recording grateful remembrance of his devoted service to his country and to the British Empire.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's House hold.