10 December in Two Acts

Today is 10 December, the anniversary of the moment Britain discovered that its king rather fancied the perks of monarchy but had little appetite for the job itself. Edward VIII’s abdication is still sold as a tale of grand romance. In reality it was a workplace farce, the sort you get when an overpromoted manager arrives on day one, scans the rulebook, and decides the rules are for other people.

Edward had spent years drifting about as Prince of Wales, opening fetes, charming crowds and never once troubling the parts of the role that involve responsibility. He enjoyed the lifestyle. He enjoyed the applause. He was less taken with the tiresome business of actually doing the job. When 1936 placed the crown on his head, he looked as if someone had handed him a toolkit and asked him to assemble the flat pack he had been sitting on for years.

The Wallis Simpson saga exposed what had been obvious to anyone who had watched him for more than five minutes. Edward saw monarchy as a personal indulgence, not a constitutional office. He genuinely seemed to believe that the government, the Dominions and the Church would cave in because he was the King and therefore entitled to have whatever he wanted. It was the political sophistication of a school prefect demanding a skateboard park because he once won a popularity contest.

When Baldwin’s Cabinet finally said no, Edward encountered his first collision between duty and desire. His response was immediate and revealing. He chose desire. He remains our only monarch who resigned because the job interfered with his social life. And having walked away, he then spent years sulking from abroad that he had not been allowed to keep the full royal trappings, as if a redundancy package traditionally includes a throne, a palace and a constitutional role you have just declined to perform.

The monarchy, meanwhile, was saved by the brother who never wanted the job and understood its weight. George VI, with his stammer and his sense of duty, steadied the institution through war and austerity. While Edward flitted about the Riviera dabbling in the sort of politics that makes archivists wince, George quietly demonstrated that public service requires more than good tailoring.

So today, raise a glass to 10 December, the day Britain dodged a king who mistook inherited privilege for a personal lifestyle voucher. You can have the job or you can have the perks. Edward chose the perks. The rest of us have been enjoying the story ever since.

And because history enjoys symmetry, remember that 10 December is also the date on which Martin Luther, in 1520, burned the papal bull condemning him. Unlike Edward, Luther understood exactly what he was risking. Excommunication, danger, upheaval, all of it. He stood his ground because he believed the principle mattered more than the consequences.

Two men, same date, utterly different calibre. One fled responsibility the moment it proved inconvenient. The other lit the fuse on an entire religious and political revolution because he refused to abandon what he believed.

If nothing else, 10 December proves that history’s comic relief and its turning points often arrive together. The trick is knowing which is which.