#That gets a sanitising for public consumption lmao

[obaewankenope]

Yesterday, my mother and I were discussing Liz IIs death, who'd take the throne, and blah blah about it all (including me informing her that the 3mil funeral cost is because of Victoria's redesign of state funerals blah blah) and she asked me:

Okay, hotshot (I shit you not, she used that word), if you know so much about all this (waving her hand and indicating... Idk... Monarchy shit I guess??) stuff then why did Edward (VIII) have to abdicate the thrown to marry a divorcee if they're letting Charles be King now with her (meaning Camilla)?

And like, I had to stop a minute and think about this all because wow, memory and Monarchy ugh. So! Buckle in y'all its gonna be a great ride!

In 1936, the King of England (and the Commonwealth) was Edward VIII. He caused something called the "Abdication Crisis" because he wanted to marry a divorcee Wallis Simpson but this was a Big No No for a Royal to do.

Now, the thing is, this is what is generally Known about it all. But what my mother (and probably a lot of other people) didn't know is that Eddie 8:

was a Nazi sympathiser

met Hitler in 1937

got pictured performing the Nazi salute

gave German intelligence info on France's military set up that was used to invade France in 1940

and then ended in Portugal after he fled France being invaded where he and his wife rubbed shoulders with German agents and Nazi sympathisers etc etc.

See, the thing is, the Abdication Crisis was what was Publicly Known at the time and made a great Public Excuse for Eddie 8 to leave the throne to his younger brother Albert (George VI) who wasn't a fan of Hitler, the Nazi's or any of that shit.

There's actually a documentary about this darker history of Eddie 8 aired by Channel 4 (Edward VIII: Britain's Traitor King) and I'd recommend giving it a watch because the evidence used by the historian Andrew Lownie is literally decades old. Its from the Royal Archives!

Winston Churchill actually had Eddie 8 removed from Europe all together by making him the Governor of the Bahamas when he was in Portugal and, honestly, the fact that Eddie 8 was also given a Dukedom after adbicating is just Royal Bribery bs to keep him sweet because, afterall, he was a Royal so couldn't have it be known he was a Traitor To The British Empire And Its People blah blah.

The Abdication Crisis was literally a cover up to prevent the common folk from discovering that a King was a Nazi loving bastard and isn't that just a stark reminder of how revisionist history is.

I have known about this for years but for my mother it was a revelation. She had No Idea Eddie 8 had been a Nazi lover, or any of the rest. She, like most, assumed he had been kicked off the throne because he wanted to marry a divorcee but...

Like... That's literally never been an issue for the Royal fucking Family. Like, sure, it was only in 2002 that the Protestant Church of England allowed people to marry divorcees but literally Henry the Fucking Eighth had how many divorces etc etc? It wasn't an impossibility to happen in the first place. But it made a nice smokescreen to oust a King who favoured an enemy nation at a time of great upheaval.

Especially since, ya know, World War II was happening and all that. Yeah...

So yeah, there's some history on the bullshit British Royal Family and how the Public knowledge is carefully curated hogwash by PR managers and Buckingham Palace™ to protect the "image" of the Royal Family and whatever Ruling Monarch there is at the time.

Cool right?