Edward VIII

Pencil Portrait by Antonio Bosano.

Edward VIII Pencil Portrait
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The quality of the prints are at a much higher level compared to the image shown on the left.

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A3 Pencil Print-Price £45.00-Purchase

A4 Pencil Print-Price £30.00-Purchase

*Limited edition run of 250 prints only*

All Pencil Prints are printed on the finest Bockingford Somerset Velvet 255 gsm paper.

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Philip Zeigler wrote in his biography of King Edward VIII, that the six months between his departure from Britain and his marriage to Mrs Simpson were the unhappiest of his life. In chapter 19 entitled ‘Exile’. he seeks to understand the newly abdicated King\‘s state of mind;

‘To abandon totally what one has for forty years been taught to believe is sacred and immutable must be for anyone, a traumatic experience. For the Duke (of Windsor), it was made doubly destructive by the fact that he was bored and lonely, those two corrosive elements that can destroy happiness as surely as any tragic accident’.

For myself, abdication in favour of marriage to a commoner was an indupitably romantic act, yet one with lasting implications. In forsaking his country, royal obligations and inherent training, in order to pursue that transient sensation called happiness, he would cede the Royal baton to a brother ill equipped to handle the enormous burden of life as a ruling monarch. Consigned to a life befitting the idle rich, the Duke would never admit that his life with Wallis was less than perfect. But then again, how on earth could he? As Winston Churchill so succinctly put it, whilst drawing parallels between this most infamous of marriages and his daughter’s reluctant union with a comedian;

‘Like the ill starred Duke of Windsor, she has done what she liked and now she has to like what she has done’.

Recommended reading

King Edward VIII - The Official Biography (Philip Zeigler)

Zigler had previously cast his biographical eye upon Earl Mountbatten, and continues his royal theme here, recounting the tale of the man who gave it all up for love. Along the way, he illuminates the contrast between the absurdly inflated expectations of parents, courtiers and subjects, and the qualities of the golden-haired youth upon whom their hopes were centered.

By the time, he might have deservedly sought the support of his courtiers over the vexed question of marriage to Wallis Simpson, he had all but exhausted their patience, goodwill and unswerving support, in an unceasing cocktail of capriciousness, frivolity, drinking and womanizing. Perennially worried about the possibility of a public scandal attaching to his private behaviour, the arrival of Mrs Simpson merely rubber stamped a degree of alienation from which there would be no return. Ziegler balances the historical books by showing what a spiteful, narrow minded and unnecessarily vindictive group they were.

Blessed with a natural charisma that endeared him to the masses, and in particular the working class factions in Britain, he devoted considerable time in the preparation of his public speeches, winning admirers wherever he travelled. Never the most robust of men, these successful tours through Britain and the British Empire in the 1920’s, would leave him physically exhausted and emotionally drained.