Love in a cold climate: letters, public opinion and monarchy in the 1936 abdication crisis

To what extent did the abdication of Edward VIII represent a significant turning point both in the history of constitutional monarchy and in the relationship between public and private morality in inter-war Britain? Letters written to the King and to other key players in the affair provide evidence of the disputed nature of media-influenced public opinion during the 1930s. But it is also argued that this correspondence points to the psychologically expansive and emotionally expressive nature of contemporary opinion formation, as it was experienced in the context of a major crisis of national self-confidence that centred on the behaviour of the sovereign. The letters reveal how the abdication became a catalyst for the expression of heavily gendered anxieties about the connection between private life and political responsibility and about the claims of personal relationships on domestic and imperial affairs. Despite the immediate closure to events provided by the King's departure, it is emphasized that these remained unresolved tensions, which were part of a wider cultural conflict between contemporary values and an established ethical code that governed the monarchy and high politics.