Needless to say I was delighted when I was asked to review Rebecca Dean's novel The Golden Prince available now.
This novel mixes both fact and fiction about Edward Vlll the blond blue-eyed playboy who was widely popular until his abdication to marry the ambitious (she wanted the crown) divorcee Mrs Wallis Simpson. It was put to the Commonwealth Countries as to whether he should marry Wallis, or not. History tells us that only Winston Churchill was in favour of the marriage.
Was Edward Vlll happy with Wallis or did the whole thing backfire on him? Had he really wanted to marry her at all? Had things gone too far for him to back out?
He led a fruitful life before Wallis came along. However, he only dated married women - the wives of his friends! Hmmm......
Introduction to The Golden Prince
Written in stone was the cardinal rule that royalty only married royalty,
and though Rosemary Leveson-Gower was aristocratic – her father was the
Duke of Sutherland – she was, in King George’s eyes, a commoner.
What he would have thought of his great-great-grandson marrying the beautiful
Kate, daughter of parents from a working-class background,
can only be guessed at.
It is written into the British constitution that a Prince of Wales must have
the monarch’s consent when he wishes to marry. As King George
adamantly refused to sanction Edward’s marriage to Rosemary, Edward
couldn’t marry her and two years later Rosemary married one of
Edward’s friends, Eric, Viscount Ednam.
The author, Rebecca Dean, believes that his father’s refusal to allow him to
marry the girl he loved had a traumatic effect on Edward whose name
was never again linked with that of an unmarried woman.
In her book The Golden Prince, published this month by HarperCollins, she melds
fact with fiction to explore the poignant situation of Prince Edward when,
as a very young man, he was denied personal happiness by not being
allowed to marry the commoner he loved.
And . . . what would King George V have thought about our now Prince of Wales having married two commoners?
Watch out for my review - but please remember that I need time to read it.
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