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Queen Patricia And The Abdication Crisis Of 1936

The Constitutional Crisis of 1936, when King Edward VIII abdicated to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, has been in discussion again. A revived play about it, called Crown Matrimonial, by Royce Ryton completes its first run this weekend.

Queen Mary, who was King Edward's bolt upright mother is played by Patricia Routledge and she magnetises us into her drawing room, where the family discuss and witness the inevitable end of one king's reign and the start of another, by the younger brother, called Bertie, who became King George VI. It is the story of a mother struggling to hold monarchy together in the face of a personal dilemma.

Read entire article at Sky News