December 11 - Abdication of Edward VIII

On December 11, 1936 , the British King Edward VIII, abdicated after a reign of less than a year, thereby causing the greatest constitutional crisis in modern British history.

Edward VIII had succeeded his father George V on January 20, 1936 to the British throne. As the Prince of Wales, Edward had enjoyed enormous popularity with the British people, who had come to like the easy-going, hard working Royal, who had also briefly served at the front during WW1.
His various love affairs as a Prince had been a constant source of gossip and amusement and weren�t taken all that serious, until he began in 1931 to date an American woman, Wallis Simpson, who was still married at the time and once divorced already. The fact that his family regarded Wallis Simpson as a persona-non-grata at the Royal court might have strengthened the relationship however, and he ascended to the throne, the worst nightmare of the British establishment came true. Edward declared that he intended to marry Wallis Simpson, her divorce was rushed through the courts, and to demonstrate the seriousness of his intentions, and she accompanied the King at his coronation.
As King, Edward had also become the nominal head of the Anglican Church, and the notion that the �Defender of the Faith�, that forbid re-marriage, might engage in marriage with a divorcee, was a complete anathema for the Church hierarchy. The political leadership of the country rallied behind the Church, and in November 1936 the then Prime-Minister Stanley Baldwin presented an ultimatum to the King, either to drop Wallis Simpson or to abdicate.
Edward stuck to his fianc�e and chose the latter option. On December 10, 1936 he signed the abdication document that came to effect the next day, on December 11. The same day, Edward announced his step on public broadcast. He is the only British monarch in history that entirely voluntarily resigned from the throne.
He was succeeded by his younger brother, the Duke of York, who took the name of George VI as reigning monarch.



The Duke of Windsor, Wallis Simpson and Adolf Hitler "The beginning of a beautiful friendship ?"
Edward was given the title, Duke of Windsor, and under this name he occupied the gossip columns around the globe until his death in 1972. He spent most of his time abroad, mainly in France and on the Bahamas, but in 1937, the couple enjoyed the hospitality of none other than the dictator of Nazi-Germany Adolf Hitler, an occasion that apparently was cherished by both parties. This event and a number of other contacts with high-ranking German officials before and during the war, gave rise to speculations that Edward had some sympathies with Nazi-Germany, substantiated by the finding of some documents that indicated that the Nazis might have planned to re-install the Duke of Windsor as the head of a puppet state in Britain, after a successful German invasion.



What else happened on this day?

A day for British monarchs to step down. On December 11, 1688 James II abdicated the English throne, somewhat less voluntarily however. The Catholic King was driven away by his Protestant subjects, who had called his son-in-law William of Orange to rescue them from the attempts of a Catholic restoration.


Complete list of events:

Wikipedia

Edited by Komnenos

Charles just married a divorcee, and there was no real reason why he shouldn't either, unless she's a nazi, a spy and shagging the german foreign minister.