King Edward VIII Papers Made Public
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: King Edward VIII's abdication stunned Britain and the world back in 1936. On Wednesday, 10 boxes of papers from the king's lawyer were made public, many dating from that tumultuous time. CNN's Margaret Lowrie reports from London.</s>MARGARET LOWRIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The only British Monarch to abdicate, Edward VIII, gave up his throne for the woman he loved, Wallis Warfield Simpson. Now, papers made public by Oxford University for the first time flesh out a tale, long shrouded in mystery, intrigue and romance.</s>PROF. VERNON BOGNADONOR, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: They show what a tragic and predetermined problem it was.</s>LOWRIE: The papers include documents from the private archive of Edward VIII's lawyer and confidante, Walter Monckton, who died in 1965. Known as the Duke of Windsor, after his exile, Edward was widely rumored to be a Nazi sympathizer.</s>BOGNADONOR: There's no evidence here at all that the Duke of Windsor had any treasonable feelings towards his country. He was sympathetic to the policy of appeasement, which was the government's policy in the late 1930s.</s>LOWRIE: Oxford has held back some records believed to include letters from the Queen Mother, then wife of George VI, because she is still alive. She reportedly resented her brother-in-law, because her desperately shy husband was forced to become king. In turn, the Duke of Windsor reportedly felt ill-treated by his brother.</s>BOGNADONOR: The later papers show that the story of the feud between George VI and Duke of Windsor should be modified a bit, because a lot of things the Duke of Windsor objected to about George VI were really decisions taken by the government of the day.</s>LOWRIE: And that, historians say, highlights the problem of having two sovereigns, one actual and one ex, at the same time. The archives released, not only shed light on a family tragedy, but show there is no place for abdication in the British monarchy. Margaret Lowrie, CNN, London.