Transgressions, Installment LXXV

December 1, 1936, Tuesday

Jack says that the King is with Mrs. Simpson, who is ill, at Fort Belvedere, and won’t see anyone. The last person to see the King was Ivor Romilly, who advised him to delay the marriage for a year and then it would be alright. The King was pleased, but said that he could not delay. He said he had suggested a morganatic marriage, but Baldwin had told him that the Cabinet would not stand for it. Nonetheless, he and Churchill are working on a speech in which the King would make known that he wished to marry Mrs. Simpson, but that it would not be necessary for her to be Queen.

?

December 2, 1936, Wednesday

The Bishop of Bradford (Dr. Blunt—is he related to Haxton’s friend?) has issued a rather cryptic statement about the King and censorship.

Cambridge is frozen solid.

?

December 3, 1936, Thursday

The papers here are now free to refer to the King’s liaison with Mrs. Simpson and so contain little else. Jack tells me that she has secretly gone to France and that Churchill is advising the King to broadcast to the nation, over the heads of the Government.

?

December 4, 1936, Friday

Jack says that Baldwin has declared that a morganatic marriage is out of the question, that the Dominions would not agree, he would not introduce legislation to effect it, and that he will not allow the King to broadcast to the nation.

?

Cecil is trying to convince the Labour Party to support rearmament:? “I can well imagine some circles of smart society, some groups of wealthy financiers, and um, ah, the elements, the elements in this country which are attracted by the idea of a Government strong enough to keep the working classes in order; people who hate democracy and freedom, um, ah, I can, I can well imagine such people accommodating themselves fairly easily to Nazi domination.”

?

The Insurgents are besieging the University City outside Madrid.

?

Stafford Cripps says that is would not be at all a bad thing for the English working class if Germany should defeat Britain in a capitalist war. Livia says Hull feels the same way, from the point of view of the non-working-class.

?

I saw Green Pastures at the New Gallery. Curious.

?

Two new poetry books:? Auden’s new collection, Look, Stranger, and the Oxford Book of Modern Verse edited by Yeats. The reviewers like the first, but not the second.

?

Livia this afternoon.

?

December 5, 1936, Saturday

Pro-King demonstrations all night outside Buckingham Palace, the Blackshirts marching in Whitehall, carrying pictures of the King, and yelling out:? “One, two, three, four, five/We want Baldwin dead or alive.”? I don’t suppose Mosley will be joining the Cabinet.

?

December 6, 1936, Sunday

Jack says that Churchill was with the King at Fort Belvedere last night. They are trying to find a way for the King to have more time before making an irrevocable decision. There is an article by Churchill in the Press this morning, arguing for more time and blaming Baldwin for the crisis.

?

Jack says that Mrs. Simpson is willing to tell the King that she will not marry him, at least for a year. During that time he will have the over-whelming support of the country and his popularity would be so great he could become Dictator of the country.

?

Dinner, chez Jack and Livia, this evening was a “Cavalier” group, as he puts it:? Esmond Harmsworth, Harrison Fonseca-Miller, David Maresson and others. The cabinet members talked for a couple of hours by themselves while everyone else played bridge or talked in smaller groups. There are alternate rumors of an Abdication and a kind of coup, with the King as dictator and Churchill as Prime Minister.

?

I played bridge at Livia’s table for awhile, but I’m not very good at it. Eventually Livia said that she didn’t like taking candy from children and sent me away.

?

Watt the other day asked me about Jack. “Married, isn’t he?” “Very,” I said, “with a child.”? He said that was odd, as he was sure he had seen him the other night “in a place where there weren’t many other married men.”? I didn’t comment.

?

December 8, 1936, Tuesday

Churchill attempted to speak on behalf of the King last night in the House and was shouted down. Jack says Churchill thinks his political career is finished. Mrs. Simpson’s Great Renunciation is in the papers.

?

This evening I went to a grand dinner with Jack and Livia at Lady Cunard’s in Grosvenor Square. The room was full of ancien regime aristocrats like the Londonderrys and Marlboroughs, as well as assorted politicians and ambassadors—Ribbentrop—all gossiping about the King’s problems. I took Livia a drink and we had a drawing room comedy conversation about the news of the day, Livia glancing about with her calm gaze and then intoning “Love, love, conquers all.”? At which point Jack came to take her away, as he was on the verge of one of his asthma attacks. Jack thinks that the Abdication will be announced on the 10th; until then the country is paralyzed.

?

December 9, 1936, Wednesday

Churchill’s morganatic marriage gambit having failed, the King has signed the instrument of abdication.

?

December 10, 1936, Thursday

At two in the afternoon I went to the House of Commons with Jack and Livia in their Rolls (how envious of that car Watt would be!). The room was full, as if for a first night at the theater, everyone excited in a subdued, English way (looking bored, that is), except Lady Astor, who was not at all subdued (but of course she is from Virginia). The curtain rose, the Prime Minister entered, sat on the front bench, then went to the bar, bowed twice and intoned “A message from the King,” handing a paper to the Speaker, who read the Abdication. Soon many, including the Speaker, were in tears, which was not English at all. And then it was over.

?

December 11, 1936, Friday

This evening we had The Broadcast. Reith himself intoning:? “Prince Edward speaking from Windsor Castle.”? The King is now called George VI.

?

Spain: 5,000 Germans have landed at Cadiz; the workers committees in Barcelona have taken control of the local factories.

?

I went with Haxton to see the early Bonnards at the Adams Gallery, the Fauves (Marie Laurencin) at Rosenberg’s and the Cubist, Leger, at the Mayor Gallery. Haxton likes the Gris best & predicts that he will eventually work his way back to realism.

?

The New Rambler has printed a hard-line Communist essay on “The Novel To-day” by Philip Henderson:? “The purpose of the novel is to change mankind.”? He attacks Forster for not wanting to do so. There is a new book of poetry by Dylan Thomas—Twenty-five Poems.

?

Advertisements for Jamaica: “For a short visit or a prolonged stay.”? I think I would like a prolonged stay, given the choice.

?

Livia this afternoon.

?

December 13, 1936, Sunday

Watt says that Nicolson had a fight with one of his boyfriends, who called him a “regicide” because of the House’s actions. Watt:? “Funny Tory buggers. Its all the fault of those phoneys, Baldwin and the Archbishop.”? Watt says he doesn’t see the point of it all. “I wouldn’t want to fuck her, but I certainly don’t mind if David Windsor likes that sort of thing. She is said to have certain unusual muscles or talents. On the other hand, if he were available . . .”? Laughter.

?

Watt much absorbed these days in his calculations, diagrams and such. He says he is building imaginary machines. He says he started doing them as a way of proving mathematical theorems and then realized that these thought experiments might actually be constructed. He is teaching himself how to use metal-machine tools and such to that end. “But don’t tell the Greeks!”

?

If he actually builds them they might get expensive, from the look of his drawings.

?

December 14, 1936, Monday

An article in The Daily Worker by Virginia Woolf:?? “Why Art To-Day Follows Politics,”? and one in the Left Review by Haxton:? “Rationalist & Anti-Rationalist Art of Superrealism and Dada.”? Haxton says that “art is primarily an activity for the conveying of ideas,” concluding that “It seems no longer possible to produce a bourgeois art that is both rational and alive, but a new art is beginning to arise, the product of the proletariat, which is again performing its true function, that of propaganda.”?? I suppose, if one takes “propaganda” to be the propagation of a certain point of view.

?

December 16, 1936, Wednesday

As arranged by Haxton, I went to the Warburg Institute to meet Fritz Saxl, the director, with whom I then lunched at a small Italian restaurant in Frith Street in Soho. Saxl believes that paintings and images are themselves historical documents, every bit as important as the written sources. He listened to my incoherent ideas about Giorgione, then agreed to let me have access to the photographic archive and the (extremely peculiar) library. The impression of being in the presence of a great man is heightened by the German accent. (Watt says that wisdom speaks with a German accent, but as madness does also, it is rather confusing.)

?

December 18, 1936, Friday

Politics:? Odd news from China. General Chiang Kai-shek has been kidnapped by the Young Marshal, Chang Hsueh-ling. Or maybe the reverse.

?

Mosley has announced he is going to run 100 candidates in the next election.

?

All morning at the Warburg, trying to understand the arrangement of materials. They seem to be laid out along the lines of Aby Warburg’s mind, which was brilliant, of course, but not straight-forward.

?

Livia this afternoon.

#historicalfiction #1930s #London