Current Exhibition & Auction

Auction 739 April.

Boston
Back to Sale

Lot 258

King Edward VIII

Opening: $200

Estimate: $600 - $800

Souvenir typescript of King Edward VIII's "Instrument of Abdication," signed "Edward, Duke of Windsor," one page, 7.25 x 10.25, in part: "I, Edward the Eighth…do hereby declare my irrevocable determination to renounce the Throne for Myself and for My descendants, and My desire that effect should be given to this Instrument of Abdication immediately. In token whereof I have hereunto set My hand this tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-six." In very fine condition. Edward's intention to marry the divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson caused a British constitutional crisis. Rather than give up his wife-to-be, he decided to abdicate. A historic piece from Edward VIII, who famously chose love over the British throne.