It has sometimes been suggested that the Queen Mother would have preferred to have married her husband’s elder brother. The claim was repeated in a recent television programme. Most historians believe that there is absolutely no truth in it. Alistair Lexden is not so sure, as he explained in a letter published in The Daily Telegraph on January 11.
SIR--Michael Thornton (Features, January 7) dismisses the claim that the Queen Mother wanted to marry the future Edward VIII, saying that it “cannot possibly be correct”.
It is possible he is wrong. During the summer and autumn of 1922, she turned down her future husband’s repeated proposals, prompting speculation that she was after his elder brother. At a ball in October 1922 the two of them spent a great deal of time together “laughing their heads off, the picture of happiness”.
Edward’s failure to take matters further made it clear to her that she would not become his queen, but the rumours persisted. On 5 January 1923 it was widely reported in the press that they were to marry. “Too stupid and unfounded”, she wrote in her diary—words that hardly suggest that she was affronted. In a subsequent letter she would tell him that he was “delicious”.
Her affection for her brother-in-law, later the much derided Duke of Windsor, never disappeared. Her biographer, Hugo Vickers, has observed that “she retained a soft spot for the Duke (the man he used to be and might have become) deep in her heart”.
Lord Lexden
London SW1