Archbishop Cosmo Gordon Lang’s reputation has been restored – 80 years on from the Year of Three Kings.
On the bright, chilly morning of 23 January 1936, thousands of people gathered in Edinburgh’s historic High Street to officially hear news they already knew.
As a nearby clock marked noon, the city’s Lord Provost, Sir Louis Stewart Gumley followed the city halberdiers and the bearers of the city mace and sword onto the platform of the Mercat Cross, on which were draped “the insignia of their office”. Following a fanfare of trumpets, Gumley – his voice carried to the expectant crowd by newly installed loudspeakers, and to a far wider audience by BBC Radio – read out a royal proclamation issued earlier in London, concluding:
“The High and Mighty Prince Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become our only lawful and rightful liege Lord Edward the Eighth, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India, to whom we do acknowledge all faith and constant obedience, with all hearty and humble affection, beseeching God, by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal Prince Edward the Eight with long and happy years to reign over us.”
The proclamation was then repeated “to all the people of Scotland” by Sir Francis J Grant, the country’s chief of heraldry, the Lord Lyon King of Arms. A subsequent fanfare and rendition of the National Anthem was answered by a 21 gun salute from Edinburgh Castle. Grant then stepped to the front of the platform and called for three cheers for the King. According to one witness, the first response was “somewhat halting” but the second “gained in volume, and the third rose to a mighty crescendo of loyal feeling”.
Almost certainly, no one that day would have believed they’d be repeating the ceremony a mere 11 months later; 1936 proved to be the Year of Three Kings.
One prominent figure in the crisis that struck the British monarchy 80 years ago was not in Edinburgh that day. Cosmo Gordon Lang may have been an elder brother of the then- Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, but his own religious duties had required him to stay in London – for he was the Primate of All England, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Born in Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, on 31 October 1864, this second son of the Rev Dr John Marshall Lang had grown up in Edinburgh’s Morningside and then Glasgow’s Woodlands. He earned his first degree at Glasgow University and then, as was common at the time, opted to continue his studies in England. He read the Classics at Balliol College, Oxford, although the distractions of rugby and student life almost wrecked his academic career.
Lang eventually gained “a very good First” in Modern History and considered studying law, but a potentially distinguished legal career was abandoned in 1889 when he chose to seek ordination into the Church of England – no small matter for someone brought up within the Presbyterian traditions of the Church of Scotland.
His subsequent Church career was arguably “meteoric”; after serving in London’s East End and the North of England, he was appointment Archbishop of Canterbury in 1928, at the age of 64.
Lang’s subsequent reputation, since his death in December 1945, has been tarnished by accusations of snobbery, appeasement, repressed homosexuality and ineffectiveness as a spiritual leader. According to Dr Robert Beaken in his 2012 book, Cosmo Lang: Archbishop in War and Crisis, most of these claims are at best unfair, at worse biased and inaccurate. That being the case, one popular perception of Lang at the time certainly has proved wide off the mark. Lang was certainly not an “uninvolved bystander” during the abdication crisis in 1936.
Lang was involved from early on and, while some have suggested he put pressure on Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, it’s fairer to suggest that, at least on this occasion, both men simply held similar opinions about the impossibility of the King’s consort, Mrs Wallis Simpson becoming Queen.
Lang’s rise through the ranks of the Church of England had inevitably brought him into contact with the Royal Family, and he had formed genuinely deep friendships with George V and his wife Queen Mary. He would also later find a place in the affections of the monarch’s quieter grandson Albert, Duke of York, and officiated at his wedding to his Scottish bride, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon – later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
Neither of these relationships particularly endeared Lang to Edward, then Prince of Wales; for any friend of his father was viewed as a potential spy. In his 1951-published memoir, Edward later wrote of being aware of Lang as “a shadowy, hovering presence” who was “invisibly and noiselessly about” during the abdication crisis.
So why was this?
Lang appears to have held no personal animosity towards Edward VIII but was certainly dismayed by the monarch’s behaviour following his accession. Long story short, Lang had little reason to intervene on behalf of a monarch whom he believed was willing to risk the British throne by making an un-Christian – some might even say adulterous – marriage to a double divorcee.
By the summer of 1936, the date of the following year’s Coronation – at which Lang would officiate – had been proclaimed with some fanfare from Edinburgh’s Mercat Cross, but relations between Archbishop and monarch had cooled significantly. For the first time in 25 years, Lang was not invited to join the King at Balmoral. Instead, Lang opted to spend some time alone at his private “getaway”, Ballure House in Kintyre.
The only exception was a visit to the Scottish residence of the Duke and Duchess of York, with their children. “It was strange to think of the destiny which may be awaiting the little Elizabeth,” he wrote later, which certainly suggests that by this time Lang was considering the need for a new line of succession.
Lang’s determination that Edward must go – constitutionally, and even geographically – was underscored in a private, handwritten letter to Baldwin, received just before a pivotal meeting during which an emboldened Baldwin told the King that he must choose either Mrs Simpson or the Crown.
After some considerable procrastination, Edward chose to abdicate in favour of his brother, making his historic broadcast to the nation and empire on 10 December 1936.
Lang’s initial notoriety regarding the abdication came from an ill-informed radio broadcast, which many saw as the Archbishop unnecessarily “kicking a man when he’s down”. Ironically, Lang was simply the first to use radio to openly criticise a member of the Royal Family, and drew the ire of a public unwilling to lose their dream of a matinée idol monarch.
So it was that, on the cold morning of 14 December 1936, at Edinburgh’s Mercat Cross, Lord Provost Gumley once again read out a Royal Proclamation, “beseeching God, by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal Prince George the Sixth with long and happy years to reign over us.”
This new monarch would reign for just 16 years; however, his daughter Elizabeth, whom Lang had christened, has since become the longest reigning British monarch.
First published in The Scots Magazine, January 2016.
