Foreign News: Cinderella

Royal favors accorded to the King’s Mrs. Simpson became last week increasingly varied. A quantity of royal pots & pans, some from Buckingham Palace and others from His Majesty’s suburban snuggery Fort Belvedere, were turned over to her, together with a royal housekeeper named Mrs. Mason. Also transferred to the King’s favorite were the King’s crack chauffeur, George Ladbrooke, complete with a discreet black Canadian Buick sedan and the King’s personal bodyguard of many years, 200 lb. Chief Inspector David Storier of Scotland Yard.

Thus, although Mrs. Simpson could not be with the King as much as usual because she was in course of divorcing Mr. Simpson last week, she was every moment under the eyes of the King’s men & women. Visibly unhappy, Edward VIII decided to give a stag houseparty at Sandringham, the house in which King George died. Guests included His Majesty’s brother-in-law the Earl of Harewood and First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Samuel Hoare for whom the King since his accession has shown much liking.

Shortly after dawn, and before the stag guests were ready to go hunting, the King shot away from Sandringham in his car, leaving word that the party was to go on in his absence. Even officials charged with responsibility for the safety of His Majesty did not know where he had gone, but they felt better after putting through a telephone call to a small rambling bungalow in the village of Rushmere. There Mrs. Simpson was in residence with her royal retainers, conveniently adjacent to Ipswich, the town in which the suit was filed as “Wd Simpson v. Simpson”-the “Wd” indicating that the petitioner is the wife.

In advance of opening of the case, Mr. Simpson was rumored to have committed the technical adultery required for divorce in England with a young woman nicknamed “Buttercup” at the fashionable resort of Maidenhead. A London florist revealed that the King sends Mrs. Simpson £5 ($25) worth of long-stemmed red roses per day, or about 15 dozen in summer when they are cheap and five dozen daily in midwinter when they are dear.

Jewish real estate speculators who bought up all nearby leases the moment they heard Mrs. Simpson had taken the house at No. 16 Cumberland Terrace for the winter (TIME, Sept. 14) had already begun to clean up. They were charging and getting nearly twice the rent previously paid for nearby houses as London swanksters last week tried to establish themselves as near as possible to the favorite. Her house happens to be on Crown property, although Mrs. Simpson’s sublease is twice removed from King Edward, and this fact last week gave London Bobbies an excuse for telling citizens of London to move on.

“Ordinary garden people don’t live here, y’know,” declared a policeman indicating No. 16. “This is Crown property, this is! Move along there, move along.”

Mrs. Simpson on short dashes in London last week visited her hairdresser

Antoine de Paris, popped into Lloyds Bank for money and on visiting her new house to inspect the decoration, indulged in some hocus-pocus with the hall lights, said to have been devised by Bodyguardsman David Storier. When the hall light gave two short winks and one long, that meant that Chauffeur Ladbrooke was to start up the royal Buick and with engine buzzing open the door for Mrs. Simpson to dash from house to car.

The Ipswich police were even more in a dither. They gave away the secret of how Mrs. Simpson was to arrive by practicing elaborately in front of Ipswich Courthouse. Inside last week, plagued with a bad cough and a runny nose, was Mr. Justice Hawke before whom Mrs. Simpson was to accuse Mr. Simpson of carrying on with “Buttercup.” It was considered a good sign for Mrs. Simpson when Mr. Justice Hawke, after emitting a loud sneeze, snapped at a lawyer who was pleading another case: “Don’t talk so much! I have already made up my mind.” Sporting Mrs. Simpson asked no alimony when she divorced her U. S. husband some years ago and was expected to ask none in divorcing her British husband.

Meanwhile U. S. correspondents arriving in Ipswich were fascinated alike by the innocence of the local citizenry and the naughty talk of lawyers down from London. The latter’s conversations were flavored with much the tone of a poem some of them read with gusto to one another from the current London New Statesman and Nation. Excerpts:

“Lord Barrenstock and Epicene, “What’s it to me that you have been “In your pursuit of interdicted joys “Seducer of a hundred little boys . . . ? “Tis not for these unsocial acts, not these “I wet my pen! . . . “But oh! your tie is crooked and I see “Too plain you had an eclair for your tea. . . .”

This circulated freely through the mails and was sold on every newsstand in the United Kingdom, but elaborate press secrecy and squeamishness continued to be maintained about the King and Mrs. Simpson. No British newspaper had yet dared mention facts set forth in copies of Liberty which were confiscated when they reached England last week. For no clear reason this suppression did not operate against U. S. newspapers which arrived screaming the same facts under banner headlines and were sold last week on the bookstalls of famed W. H. Smith & Sons. Apt was a Chicago Tribune front page cartoon by John Tinney McCutcheon showing Edward VIII as Prince Charming kneeling to Mrs. Simpson as Cinderella and finding that her foot fits his jeweled slipper. In the background John Bull shushes a man representing British Journalism who tears his hair and cries: “Ye gods! The biggest news story in the world-and I’ve got to sh-h-h.”

Hearst & King. In Great Britain for the past month Publisher William Randolph Hearst, from his castle in Wales, has been quietly pursuing the theory that the one question of importance about King Edward today is whether or not he is resolved to marry Mrs. Simpson. It was apparent that Mr. Hearst, while personally investigating, ordered his newsorgans to play down as much as possible the Mrs. Simpson story, and in recent weeks Hearst editors have repeatedly blue-penciled or killed dispatches from London on this subject. Sir Godfrey Thomas, for 15 years Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales and now Assistant Private Secretary to King Edward, recently conferred at length with Mr. Hearst. This week Mr. Hearst’s U. S. executives believed that the King had personally authorized their Chief to break the news of Edward VIII’s intentions. From London by telephone suddenly came to Hearst editors, with authority to front-page it at once, a story to rank with some of the achievements of Mr. Hearst’s only real rival in U. S. publisher-reporting, Roy Wilson Howard. This dispatch, couched in a style almost unmistakably the “Chief’s” own, reported England’s biggest news since the death of George V as follows:

“Within a few days Mrs. Ernest Simpson, of Baltimore, Md., U. S. A., will obtain her divorce decree in England, and some eight months thereafter she will be married to Edward VIII, King of England.

“King Edward’s most intimate friends state with the utmost positiveness that he is very deeply and sincerely enamored of Mrs. Simpson, that his love is a righteous affection, and that almost immediately after the Coronation he will take her as his consort.

“It is stated definitely that King Edward is convinced that this is both the right thing to do and the wise thing to do.

“He believes that it would be an actual mistake for a King of England to marry into any of the royal houses of the Continent of Europe, and so involve himself and his empire in the complications and disasters of these royal houses.

“He believes further that in this day and generation it is absurd to try to maintain the tradition of royal intermarriages, with all the physical as well as political disabilities likely to result from that outgrown custom. “His brother, the Duke of York, has been extremely happy and fortunate in his marriage to a lady of the people, a commoner, socalled.

“King Edward believes that the marriage he contemplates would be equally happy, and that it would help him to do what he wants to do namely, reign in the interests of the people.

“Finally, he believes that the most im portant thing for the peace and welfare of the world is an intimate understanding and relationship between England and America, and that his marriage with this very gifted lady may help to bring about that beneficial co-operation between English-speaking nations.

“Primarily, however, the King’s transcendent reason for marrying Mrs. Simp son is that he ardently loves her, and does not see why a King should be denied the privilege of marrying the lady he loves.” Morgan & King. This by no means ended the struggle being waged to prevent the British public from becoming in formed. Reynolds Illustrated News of London meanwhile came out with a flat assertion that U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull will be asked to silence on the subject of Mrs. Simpson “a weekly periodical with a large and influential circulation.” Reynolds continued: “At the same time efforts will be made to have pressure brought on the editor of the American journal from another quarter. . . . [John Pierpont] Morgan’s close friends are the Duke and Duchess of York, who have several times been his guests. So Morgan will be asked to intervene.”

At latest reports neither Statesman Hull nor Banker Morgan had attempted to influence any U. S. weekly periodical on Mrs. Simpson, but Reynolds had accurately reported what was in the minds of British bigwigs determined to prevent a marriage of the King and Mrs. Simpson. In this category last week were understood to be the Prime Minister and Mrs. Stanley Baldwin, the Duke of Portland, the Marquess of Salisbury, the Marquess of Londonderry and the Earl of Derby.

Proctor 6 King-Divorce is granted in England only by a decree nisi or “unless.” This juridical joker means that a final decree will be issued in six months (or less at the discretion of the court) “unless” in the meanwhile evidence of a discrediting nature is discovered by the King’s Proctor, Sir Thomas Barnes. To this official, a personal appointee of the Sovereign, spiteful persons annually send thousands of anonymous letters. Some of these the King’s Proctor turns over to detectives. Some of their snooping turns up facts discreditable enough to impress the blase Proctor. When much impressed he drafts a report to the Attorney General and by a process often much like drawing a card at random from a pack, some of the King’s Proctor’s reports are acted on.

Thus Mrs. A., who has proved Mr. A. unfaithful and secured her decree nisi, may receive at any time within six months a fearsome summons accusing her of infidelity herself. Then, if she cannot disprove the evidence of the Crown, the judge cannot make her decree absolute and Mr. & Mrs. A. never thereafter can obtain a divorce in England.

This week Mr. Justice Hawke granted a decree nisi to Mrs. Simpson and she faced the usual trying interval.