The Managing Editor Regrets...

Dear House of Windsor,

The Managing Editor of Patum Peperium regrets to inform you that she refuses to buy your story that Edward VIII abdicated the throne of England for charms of his true love, the thrice-married, mutton dressed as lamb Wallis Simpson. It is true that love stories are always popular with the under 7's as well as Harvard graduates but Patum Peperium enjoys a mature audience. A mature audience that can handle the truth, particularly the Truth contained in the Eucharist. We understand that simple Truth has eluded you for the last 450 years, so naturally you would be a bit off when it comes to matters of the heart and by extension love stories. Normally we do not have time to provide helpful criticism on the hundreds of stories that pass across our desks, but since you still enjoy an important social position in England the next time you decide to submit a love story about one of your woolly-headed heirs to the throne for our consideration, do try to make sure that it is a believable love story. Not a half-baked tissue of whoppers designed to hide from the world that a man who couldn't tell the difference between a Willy and a Range Rover almost ascended the throne of England.

You are probably very curious as to how Patum Peperium figured out the pathetic truth of Edward's VIII abdication. Patum Peperium would like to be able to say it was your fellow countrymen who showed us the light, but, alas, it wasn't : They were Englishmen who performed this most noble deed.

In July of 1930 about 4 months before meeting Mrs. Simpson and six years prior to Edward VIII's eventual abdication, the Englishman Beatrice Webb, the wife the well-known agnostic, Lord Passfield, whose own religious feelings caused her to believe most fervently that Lenin and George Bernard Shaw were gods, recorded her impressions of the man who would never be King, Edward VII:

"What do you really believe, Mrs. Webb? he asked in an agitated tone. (I was there as Lady Passfield.) He is a neurotic and takes too much alcohol for health of body and mind. If I were his mother or grandmother I should be very nervous about his future. He clearly dislikes having to go to the Anglican Church, but whether he has leanings to Catholicism or is becoming an unbeliever there was not time to explore...I felt sorry for the man; his expression was unhappy - there was a horrid dissipated look as if he had no settled home for either his intellect or his emotions...

He must be a problem to the conventional courtiers who surround him! Will he stay put in his present role of the most popular heir-apparent in British history?...

Now, while Beatrice was busy sucking at the trough known as Lord Passfield's wallet and busying herself by establishing the London School of Doo Doo Economics and the Free Love Society called the Fabians, a very nice and totally hip Englishman whose mother had been killed by a runaway cow, H.H. Munro, (Saki), wrote of a conversation between Reginald and the Duchess at the theater in which he describes the intellectual fashion of the day for 1904 :

Of course," she resumed combatively, "It's the prevailing fashion to believe in perpetual change and mutability, and all that sort of thing, and to say we are all merely an improved form of primeval ape - - of course you subscribe to that doctrine?"

"I think it decidedly premature; in most people the process is far from complete."

"And quite equally of course you are quite irreligious?"

"Oh, by no means. The fashion just now is a Roman Catholic frame of mind with an Agnostic conscience : you get the mediaeval picturesqueness of the one with modern conviences of the other."

Edward VIII, always the fashion slave, was too thick as a brick to be a slave to the intellectually fashionable. The save-the-monarchy position that you, the House of Windsor allowed him to assume for history was to be Mrs. Simpson's slave.

Edward was a dunderhead. No wonder Mrs. Simpson never forgave Queen Mary...

Mrs. P

Comments

[MCNS]

Of Father Odo and 17 carnations: a fascinating read:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4451107,00.html

[Mrs. Peperium]

Elky, I like the cut of your jib. There is much to discuss here but I am off bowling... Yes, bowling. Don't ask...

When I return, I will be in serious need of a whiskey and soda bracer. The Card's wife is in serious need of cheering up so until 3:30...

[Card's wife]

Elky, we love it when you take Basil out to the woodshed. BTW, was that groundhog art you put up the other day?

[Old Dominion Tory]

I doubt that, if pressed, the House of Windsor would find much good to say about Edward VIII, perhaps except that he had the good sense to abdicate rather than put the Empire through a trial of adjusting to Mrs. Simpson. They apparently are willing to tolerate the perpetuation of the mythology of "The Woman I Love" just as they grimly hung on during the collective mawkishness associated with the death of Diana. All for the good of "The Firm," you see.
Happily for the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, and the Empire, George VI married well, possessed a strong sense of duty and fair play, and enjoyed family life.
As much as I respect the British Crown--truly, if the monarchy did not exist, it would have to be invented--episodes in its history such as Edward VIII's shambolic romantic and political life and the nigh farcical events related to the death and funeral of Diana make me happy that the United States is "the Great Republic."

[Fr. M]

Mrs. P.,
Huzzah! I don't know what brought this on, all of a sudden, but I am glad you wrote it. In his shallow demeanor and utter lack of any sense of duty 'the Edward formerly known as Prince' became the unofficial patron saint of the 1960's in that, 'what feels good,' becomes more important than responsibility and the only true religion for Wallis and Edward was the cult of self. I am grateful that they did not reproduce-- God's little way of cleaning up the gene pool...

[MCNS]

No groundhogs here, but pugs:
http://pro.corbis.com/images/CN000014611.jpg?size=67&uid={899e7226-b7a2-46ea-a5c7-1dab7f1e7a4c}

And a Bahamian valet:
http://pro.corbis.com/popup/Enlargement.aspx?mediauids={eea4d18c-d5f9-4c64-b484-7806e6fb7852}|{ffffffff-ffff-ffff-ffff-ffffffffffff}&qsPageNo=1&fdid=&Area=Search&TotalCount=5&CurrentPos=4&WinID={eea4d18c-d5f9-4c64-b484-7806e6fb7852}

[Mrs. Peperium]

Card's wife, I have returned. But I am going out again. It was awful and the implications of what transpired at the alley are too enormous to contemplate on a single whiskey and soda. I will require a double. What are the proportions?

Bowling pins are much larger in the Midwest. They are, to not put a fine point on it, positively giagantic. Plus, the bowling balls are huge. You could kill someone with one of them. And with 3 holes in them?

[Card's wife]

What was your score?

[Mrs. Peperium]

Card's wife, I have returned. As Count Dracula was fond of saying, "I am in for the evening, my dear. So let us break out the bubbly."

Father M., regarding:

"Huzzah! I don't know what brought this on, all of a sudden"

I am polishing up my cocktail and table banter for the New York Sons of the Revolution ball. I will be using that gene pool comment if you don't mind...Thanks!

Old Dominion, I'll be borrowing much of yours as well. Thanks! You fellas will have me sounding so witty....

Elky, all those pugs are boys. Should we read between the parts?

Card's wife, as to my score...this is the dreadful part. Really dreadful. I haven't bowled since high school. I told the gathered mothers this and they said they go bowling all the time with their kids. We had one lane for the boys and one for the moms. On my first toss, I got a gutter ball but then an 8. Second toss a gutter ball and then a 3. Third toss...a strike. Fourth toss...a spare. Fifth toss...another spare...Sixth toss..another strike...Then, the mothers collectively decided they no longer wanted to bowl but I could continue playing alone if I wanted to...girls never change do they?

Anyway, I think this success --though success knee-capped by my fellow players-- somehow officially makes me a Midwesterner... Maybe I should try playing pool.

[Card's wife]

I hope you used that new bowling ball carrier on wheels that Mr. P got you for Christmas.

[Mrs. Peperium]

For what?

[Card's wife]

Bar cart?

[Card's wife]

Fiendish, are you there?

[Mrs. Peperium]

I could use a bar cart right now. It's not proper to drink without your husband at home.

[Card's wife]

Since when?

[Mrs. Peperium]

Since I became Catholic.

[Fr. M.]

Mrs. P.,
I can't think of anyone who is more equipped for cocktail and table banter than the P.'s and C.'s. Words from the rest of us are simply coals to Newcastle...

[MCNS]

Mrs P, is that you in this ad for Pabst Blue Ribbon?

http://www.happydeathinc.com/bowling/Pages/pabst1944.htm

It's all that practice with candlepins, you see. Afterward, how can you ever miss at Big Ball bowling?

I am sure Connie Schwoegler welcomes you as an official Midwesterner.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c364/featherebay/sub6/connieschwoegler.jpg

Here's to mellow moments -- smooth and mellow.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Oh, I see. Big ball bowling is the same idea as those Big Bertha golf clubs that are all the rage among the cheaters on the golf courses.

Thank you Father M.

[Card]

Mrs P, I think that was Douglas MacArthur who said "I will return," and subsequently, "I have returned." Though, perhaps, he had Count Dracula with him.

[Jacobite]

"..the next time you decide to submit a love story about one of your woolly-headed heirs to the throne for our consideration, do try to make sure that it is a believable love story."

LOL, Mrs. P, that's very true! Have you seen the stories of the "3-decades-long faithful romance" they've been putting out? As if Charles had no other mistresses before AND during his marriage!

[Old Dominion Tory]

To further sharpen your wits regarding the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, er, um, Windsor, please give "The Madness of King George" a viewing.