IT WASN'T ALBERTA

Letter by future King Edward VIII insults 'pip squeak province' during 1919 visit to Canada

In soon to be auctioned letter, the future Edward VIII, who would eventually abdicate, complains of 'official wonk and these cornie pompous stunts' on the tour

Author of the article:
The Telegraph
Hannah Furness
Publishing date:Oct 08, 2021 • 

The Duke of Windsor, then Edward, Prince of Wales, smiles while performing his official duties in Halifax during his 1919 royal tour. A letter up for auction reveals he was less happy with the tour than he appeared. 

PHOTO BY ERNEST BROOKS/CENTRAL PRESS/GETTY IMAGES

A letter written during a tour of Canada in which Edward VIII reveals his disenchantment with life in the Royal Family — from meeting “deadly dull” heads of state to “cornie pompous stunts” — is to be sold at auction.

The 1919 letter, written by the then Prince of Wales to his mistress, insults the “pip squeak province” which hosted him on a royal tour to Canada, and the “official wonk” of his speeches.

Written when he was 25, it spells out his distaste for royal life more than a decade before he met American divorcee Wallis Simpson, whom he would eventually abdicate for.

Addressed to his lover, Freda Dudley Ward, who was at the time married to Liberal MP William Dudley Ward, the four-page letter was written aboard HMS Renown as it took him on a tour of Canada.

Their affair continued until 1934, ending when Edward became involved with Simpson.

While it’s not clear which province he referred to as a “pip squeak,” his tour of the country lasted two months and was meant to thank Canadians for their contribution to the Allied victory in the First World War.

The description to his lover was the opposite of what he told his mother, Queen Mary.

“We belong to Canada and the other Dominions just as much as we do the UK,” he wrote in a letter home, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.

Indeed, Edward was the first Royal to describe himself as a Canadian on an official tour, the Canadian Encyclopedia said. In speech delivered in Calgary on the 1919 tour, he said, “I came to Canada as a Canadian in mind and spirit, I am now rapidly becoming a Westerner.”

During that same trip he bought a 41-acre ranch near Pekisko Creek in rural Alberta and returned to the ranch several times. He didn’t sell the property until 1962.

Charles Ashton, a director at auctioneers Cheffins, said the letter to Mrs. Dudley Ward gives a window into his “disenchantment with his life as a royal.”

In the letter, the future king referred to speeches he had made, writing: “What I think of all this official wonk and these cornie pompous stunts; I’ve made no less than 7 speeches today.”

He described Robert Borden, the Canadian prime minister, whom he had dined with, as “such a stick & deadly dull except re politics & I can’t tackle him on that subject.”

Expressing how much he misses her, he added: “I do love you, love you, my very own blessed little Fredie darling & I find life very hard & dour without you……it’s hell when we are parted sweetheart & when I can’t hear you say all your divine things which is what keeps me alive.”

The letter, accompanied by the original envelope bearing a black wax seal, is part of the Cheffins Library Sale auction in Cambridge on Oct. 21, with a pre-sale estimate of pounds 400 to pounds 600.

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