General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Shocking letters hidden for 76 yrs reveals Edward VIII's Abdication was orchestrated by [View all]TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)He was entirely self-focused and an embarrassment with his open womanizing and playboy lifestyle. He was never interested in being King in the first place and wasn't shy about who knew it... he used to frequently joke with Princess Elizabeth calling her "Queen Elizabeth" as he had already long been considering abdication even before meeting Wallis. He just wasn't interested in the job and was continually at loggerheads with his ministers about everything that he wanted to do (even the good things like the government helping out the poor miners in Wales which horrified the "1%" government), though it was his Nazi sympathies that were likely the most upsetting thing about him to the government.
The law forbade his marriage to Wallis as both her previous husbands still lived. He even offered to cut any children by him and Wallis from the succession, but according to the law he couldn't unless he wanted to cause a constitutional crisis which he wasn't willing to go that far and do. His choices were either dump her or abdicate, so he chose abdication, which was not such a big deal to him since he didn't really want to be King anyway. And thank goodness he did because he would have been a horror as King especially considering the huge problem of Germany at that time.