The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Monday 30 August 2004

The Duke of Windsor - Byron's Romantic Hero

Part 1 of 2

On May 28, 1972, a kindly looking old gentleman whose favorite occupation was to spend time in his garden, died in his bed. But the peace and quiet surrounding his death belied the turmoil and controversy that encompassed his life. The man who loved to garden had once reigned over the great British Empire. Deeply attached to his native land, he died in exile in France. And, of course, by his side was the woman who history tells us was the cause of all his troubles. 

You would have a difficult time convincing me that any other royal prince in British history can conjure up the same complex range of emotions and sentiment as the Duke of Windsor.  Most of his life, he was simultaneously loved and reviled. Some say he was one of Britain’s most popular Princes of Wales, while others contest that he was a Nazi sympathizer who would have single-handedly brought Britain to ruin. His desire to modernize the monarchy was seen both as forward thinking and dangerous. By choosing love over duty, he has inspired both admiration and disdain.  

As with most situations in history that inspire such strongly conflicting responses, the reality of who the Duke of Windsor “really” was and what his intentions and reasons were are probably somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. But if we look at the Duke of Windsor with an eye toward the “ideals” of mankind as created by literature, it is perhaps possible to analyze his personality, actions and life from a slightly more objective point of view.  

The great literary minds of near and distant history have created a plethora of such ideals, giving us a great many models to choose from in this instance. Initially, it might be natural to place the Duke of Windsor in the role of a Tragic Hero – a concept created in ancient Greek tragedies and memorably perpetuated by Shakespeare. This is an especially good model for those who believe that the Duke of Windsor is a tragic figure in history because he was – in the words of Lorenz Hart – “bewitched, bothered and bewildered” by the ever-vilified Wallis Simpson. Personally, I don’t believe that the situation was that simple, but even if it was, the Duke of Windsor does not fit the bill of the Tragic Hero, who is generally described as “perfect except for a tragic flaw.” Such a person is truly only found in books and, therefore, could not be responsibly compared to any human. 

What we need is a literary model based on man himself and all his intricate personality characteristics, mental complexities and inner struggles. Fortunately, there is such a model, and it took a movement as forward thinking as Romanticism and a man as tumultuous as Lord Byron to create an ideal worthy of comparison to the Duke of Windsor – the Byronic Hero. Through his poetry, Lord Byron helped create the idea of a literary protagonist – modeled after himself, some say – who, while idealized, was far from being perfect and possessed a number of distinct characteristics that, although they were not all negative, were ultimately self-destructive.  

The essential characteristics of a Byronic Hero are:

• Possesses great talent
• Is rebellious
• Lacks respect for rank and privilege
• Dislikes society and social institutions
• Is hiding something from the past
• Is an exile
• Is highly passionate
• Is ultimately self-destructive 

In this two-part column, we’ll explore each of those characteristics and see how the Duke of Windsor measures up, both to the individual characteristics and to the complete ideal. This week, we’ll cover the first four characteristics, finishing off with the remainder next week.  

Possesses great talent, but is also rebellious 

While the Duke of Windsor may not have inherited his mother’s stoicism, dignity, sense of duty or proverbial “stiff upper lip,” but he did inherit her passion for information. Like Queen Mary, David (as he was known to his family), was always interested in learning or trying something new. Although never a stellar student, he possessed great talent in the areas of his choice – particularly active and dangerous pursuits like flying and riding, although his more restrained talents included gardening. During his time at university, he eschewed French for the more difficult, but personally preferable, German.   

If anything, his pursuits – and related talents – usually strayed from what he perceived to be the norm or what was expected of him. By today’s standards, it seems almost laughable to suggest that the Duke of Windsor was rebellious, but if we look at him from the perspective of his own age and immediate surround, it’s much easier to see him as such.  

In his early years, and, in particular, as Prince of Wales, the Duke of Windsor was popular around the world for – above all things – his outgoing, nonchalant, smiling and breezy manner. While the country admired and respected the stable and stoic King George V and Queen Mary, David was the side of the royal family that the country liked to see after the devastation and depression of the First World War. In contradiction to the traditional concepts of the royal family, his tastes were unpretentious and fairly basic – he liked simple, low-fat foods, enjoyed shopping for himself, and loved American jazz. His evenings out generally consisted of cocktails at York House (his London home), followed by dinner and maybe a show in the West End, then dancing all night. At his country home, Fort Belvedere, David and his guests would play cards after dinner, dance, and maybe watch a film.  

He liked using the phrases, “Okey-dokey,” “making whoopee,” and “hot-diggety-dog.” Instead of the Daimler traditionally used by the members of the royal family, he had an American station wagon and a Buick. He infuriated his father when he wore a gray top hat to Ascot instead of a traditional black silk hat, unconsciously starting a new trend. He disliked following the expectation that he should stay out of politics and not comment on political topics and issues.  

And, forebodingly, he referred to Windsor Castle as “prison.” 

Lacks respect for rank and privilege and dislikes social institutions 

Sir Frederick Ponsonby once cautioned David, as Prince of Wales, against making himself too accessible to the people.  Royalty, he said, should retain an element of mystery. David did not agree. For one thing, he liked associating with “the people” – they were much more interesting and he tended to prefer their company to most of the aristocracy and royalty. In fact, as we’ve seen, he did his best to be as much like them as possible, especially if they were American.  

A natural extension of his desire to be accepted by and a part of the lives of the people was that, from his early days, he did his best to hide his royal status and avoid the special treatment that was always being pushed on him (except perhaps when it came to getting good seats to the latest show). There’s a wonderful anecdote of how, when serving in World War I, it was discovered that the Prince had not been given a bed. As his superiors scurried to give up their own beds for David, he downright refused, saying that he had adjusted just fine to sleeping on the floor and would continue to do so. 

Hand in hand with this lack of pretension was a deep hatred of the royal life he was bound to. In a letter to his then mistress, Freda Dudley Ward, around 1918, David talks woefully of palace and court life, saying that he was never meant for it and he only thought of it as “a huge joke and artificial camouflage.” He felt that the times were changing, but the monarchy was not.  He resented “the relentless formality” of the royal family – and considered it a hindrance to what he believed they could achieve in the world. Early in his reign, he seemed to be making attempts at making changes to the monarchy, but, of course, by then the majority of his attention was focused on “other” matters. 

Perhaps more telling of his personality than anything, at the time of his ascension to the throne, the Duke of Windsor was the most photographed person in British history, but he always had a camera with him and was himself taking photos whenever possible. It seems to me he was more interested in seeing the experience than being the experience. It’s no wonder that his reign signalled a new informality to the monarchy – something, it seems, that everyone liked in theory, but no one was really ready for.  

Check in next week when we consider the final characteristics of the Byronic Hero and how they may have contributed to the Duke of Windsor’s ultimate self-destruction.

Until then, 

- Tori Van Orden Mart�nez 

Click here for part 2