Iris meets the Prince of Wales

I’ve always wanted to write a festive mystery, and I also wanted to set an Iris Woodmore book in Winchester. When I came across a visit the Prince of Wales made to Winchester in 1923, it provided the perfect start to A Corpse in Christmas Close.





When it’s announced that Prince Edward will be honoured with the Freedom of the City of Winchester on 7 November 1923, reporter Iris Woodmore and photographer Robbie Roper are sent to cover the event for The Walden Herald.

The Daily Mirror front page 8 November 1923

In the first chapters, I’ve depicted the actual royal itinerary for the day, which sees Iris and Robbie trailing the prince across the city as he visits a newly built garden suburb, a hospital, the castle and cathedral, and watches a game of football at Winchester College.

Prince Edward (or David, as he was known within the royal family) was very different from his father, King George V. The prince rejected the aloofness of the Edwardian era, embracing the new freedom of the Roaring Twenties. He was keen to meet people from all over the world and between 1919 and 1923 travelled over 100,000 miles by land and sea.

On 7 November 1923, his day started when the royal train arrived at Winchester Station at eleven o’clock. The prince was greeted by the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, Major General J. E. B. Seeley and a Royal Air Force guard of honour.
 

A Rolls Royce took him to the Guildhall, where the mayor presented his royal highness with a Freedom of the City decree encased in an oak casket made from eight-hundred-year-old beams taken from Winchester Cathedral.

The Prince of Wales planting a tree at Stanmore on 7 November 1923

The prince was then driven ‘through cheering crowds to the Garden City at Stanmore’ to plant a commemorative tree.

The new garden suburb was erected under the national building scheme after the government promised to provide ‘homes fit for heroes’ for the soldiers returning from the Great War.

A new plaque was put under the commemorative tree in 2023 to mark 100 years since the prince’s visit.

Pupils line the entrance to Winchester College

On his visit to Winchester, the prince managed to squeeze in a visit to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital before attending a private luncheon with the Lord Lieutenant at Winchester Castle. After lunch, he attended a short service at Winchester Cathedral before spending the afternoon at Winchester College. 

At Winchester College, the prince meets one of my regular characters, Percy Baverstock, who's a former pupil. Together, they watch a game of Fifteens. Percy explains that this is a football match played between Commoners and Houses under the Winchester Code, regarded by some as the oldest football code still in existence.

The prince’s last engagement of the day was to attend a service in the college chapel where the Bishop of Gloucester consecrated a new altar and screen as part of the college’s war memorial. The prince then took the royal train back to London. 

Edward and Mrs Simpson, 1936

In A Corpse in Christmas Close, Iris catches the prince’s eye as she’s wearing trousers. Robbie jokes that Queen Mary would be appalled by her attire and would forbid her son from courting a woman she disapproved of, little knowing what was to come thirteen years later.

Prince Edward was known for his energy and informality, stopping to shake hands and chat with people wherever he went, which made him popular across the globe. However, the nation turned against him when, in 1936, he chose to abdicate in order to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.

At 326 days, Edward VIII was one of the shortest-reigning British monarchs.