LONDON — King Edward VIII hoped to tell Britons of his love for American divorcee Wallis Simpson and persuade them he should marry her and still keep his throne, records unsealed Thursday showed.
The text of a radio address the government refused to let Edward make more than 65 years ago became public as part of the most comprehensive release of papers on the king's 1936 abdication.
Then-Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin stopped Edward from speaking, according to the documents, and the king didn't publicly discuss the relationship that ended his short reign until giving a farewell address as he stepped down on Dec. 11, 1936.
"I could not go on bearing the heavy burdens that constantly rest on me as king unless I could be strengthened in the task by a happy married life," reads the text that Edward never delivered. "And so I am firmly resolved to marry the woman I love."
"Neither Mrs. Simpson nor I have ever sought to insist that she should be queen," the script continued. "All we desired was that our married happiness should carry with it a proper title and dignity for her, befitting my wife."
Edward's text said he would take time away to give Britons a chance to reflect on his request, adding "nothing is nearer to my heart than that I should return."
A letter from Baldwin — who firmly opposed letting Edward marry Simpson and remain king — said government ministers would have to approve such a speech, something he refused to do.
Susan Williams, the Public Records Office's historical adviser, said minutes of Cabinet meetings showed ministers feared Winston Churchill — then at odds with the Conservative Party he later led — would exploit Edward's popularity to form a new party and challenge the government.
The abdication created an international sensation and a constitutional crisis for Britain, because Edward's plans to wed were thought to conflict with the monarch's position as head of the Church of England, which forbade divorce.
Edward's younger brother succeeded as King George VI, and the disgraced former king and his new wife became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, living mainly in France.
The papers also include police reports alleging that Simpson, while involved with Edward and still married to her second husband, had a relationship with a married car salesman.
Documents relating to the royal family once remained routinely sealed for 100 years, but officials agreed in the 1990s that they should be made public after 30 years unless there was good reason to keep them confidential for longer.
The Public Records Office agreed to gather and then release all remaining government papers on the abdication, more than 100 files.
"Hopefully this is the complete, entire collection on the subject," said Stephen Twigge of the Public Records Office.
The documents gave little support to long-standing rumors that the duke and duchess sympathized with Nazism, but a telegram from Britain's ambassador to France quoted Simpson as boasting before the couple's infamous 1937 visit to Germany that she expected to meet Adolf Hitler.
A note from Horace Wilson, the government's chief industrial adviser, to then-Treasury chief Neville Chamberlain in 1936 also claimed "she has been in touch with the Nazis," but gave no details.
Unsealed police records showed that officers assigned to watch Simpson during her relationship with Edward believed she was romantically involved with Guy Trundle, a married auto engineer and salesman from northern England.
"Trundle is described as a very charming adventurer, very good looking, well bred and an excellent dancer. He meets Mrs. Simpson quite openly at informal social gatherings as a personal friend, but secret meetings are made by appointment when intimate relations take place," said a 1935 police report.