Завдання до Path tothe throne

Додаток 1

The unexpected twist

 By then, Elizabeth’s life had altered irrevocably. On 10 December 1936, just 325 days after becoming King, her uncle Edward VIII abdicated, broadcasting to the nation: “I have found it impossible to carry the heave burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as a King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love”. The woman in question was, of coutse, 39-year-old Wallis Simpson – an American divorcee in the middle of her second break-up.

The government, the domination of the Commonwealth and the Church of England, which at that time did not permit divorced people to remarry if their former spouse was still alive, simply would not accept it – much less the Windsor family who had long had misgivings about its eldest son’s choice of suitor. And so Mrs Simpson’s past predicated Elizabeth’s future. When the family had to move from their home in Piccadilly to the 600-roommed Buckingham Palace, Elizabeth, upon hearing the news, asked: “What, forever?” But from the moment she witnessed the deeply religious and powerfully majestic coronation of her father, with its incantations and traditions dating back to Saxon times, Elizabeth understood what awaited her. And in her father – crushingly shy and tortured by his stammer – she saw a man utterly committed to the role of King.