Abdication Crisis of Edward VIII

Like King Henry VIII of England, whose wish to marry Anne Boleyn in the 1530s rocked his kingdom, King Edward VIII created a crisis for the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth in the 1930s when he wished to marry Wallis Simpson: many have argued that the problem for Edward was that as king he was also Supreme Governor of the Church of England, which did not allow divorced persons to remarry in church while a former spouse was still living, and Mrs. Simpson's first two husbands were still alive. (One of the great ironies of the situation is that Henry VIII separated English Catholicism from Roman control, thus creating the Church of England, so he could divorce {{fn|1}} Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn while Catherine was still alive.) However, others point out that it was more of a problem with the Commonwealth governments being unwilling to accept the king's choice of consort.

Reference

• Coverage of the Monckton Papers, released by the Bodleian Library on January 29, 2003 taken from the Daily Mail, January 30, 2003 and from the BBCi website