Hollywood is in love with the British monarchy again. The King’s Speech is the surprise Oscar nominee that seems to be sweeping all before it with a heart-warming tale of a reluctant king over-coming his stammer to lead his country in defiance against one of the twentieth century’s worst monsters. There’s even a cameo for Britain’s Greatest Ever Prime Minister, as he offers sage advice to the introverted future monarch. Well, quite. Just as the film is beautifully made, wonderfully directed and sublimely acted, and rightly on course for its Oscars, it also manages to show just how much history is surrendered to art in the making of historical dramas. A backlash is already beginning against its re-writing of history, and few are more trenchant than British ex-pat and enfant terrible, Christopher Hitchens, in this article for online magazine Slate. Vigorous as ever, Hitchens’ article is worthwhile in that it allows history teachers and students - to say nothing of the general reader - to once again cull the sources in testing the veracity of a piece of filmic history. Hitchens goes to town against the film for two major historical faults - its portrayal of Winston Churchill as a sympathetic friend to the Duke of York and future George VI; and its portrayal of the same George VI as some sort of doughty fighter against Nazism. These are, he says, quite culpably inaccurate. Churchill (as any fule kno) maintained an extraordinary commitment not to the Duke of York but his embattled elder brother, ‘David’ (Edward VIII). Whilst Baldwin was brilliantly managing the abdication of the love-struck monarch, Churchill was stuck firmly in the soon-to-be-ex monarch’s crowd of loyal cheer-leaders - Hitchens even quotes one of the future PM’s purpler passages about Edward. It wasn’t his only inter-war error of judgement of course - he remained a firm opponent of any form of self-government for India, and was responsible for the not so good return to the gold standard as Chancellor.
Meanwhile, Hitchens’ other gripe is about George VI as Nazi fighter. While the King won tremendous - and well deserved - plaudits for his stolid symbolic leadership during the Blitz, he was a fervent supporter of Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement towards Hitler, maintaining this stance even when Chamberlain had to resign by proposing fellow appeaser Lord Halifax as his replacement. Hitchens quotes historian Andrew Roberts on George’s invitation to Chamberlain to share the royal balcony before Parliament had even had a chance to debate the Munich proposals. Roberts describes this as:
“the most unconstitutional act by a British Sovereign in the present century.”
So a new film about history and new debates about historicity. A gift for the British historian at all levels!
