GREAT BRITAIN: Golden Frame

(See front cover)

Leaving behind the home in which they lived as Duke & Duchess of York at No. 145 Piccadilly (see map, p. 21), the new King & Queen had just moved into Buckingham Palace last week. Installed with a big nursery window on the public facade of the Palace were popular Princesses Elizabeth, 10, and Margaret Rose, 6. Last week people who came to watch the daily change of the Guard amid stirring fanfare exchanged nods, smiles and waves with Their Royal Highnesses. Already Princess Betty is past mistress in attracting the popular affection inspired for 25 years by the Prince of Wales, and last week an exalted Briton who had just visited the Duke of Windsor brought home a pat remark. Said Edward, "less in the heat of anger than in philosophic amusement" according to his visitor:

"I always told those idiots not to put me in a golden frame."

The Kingdom & Empire are confident that the right people have now been golden-framed. Last week Buckingham Palace was a busy hive of active preparation for the gorgeous, solemn Coronation scheduled for May 12. The King had regular fittings of his various Crowns and Coronation garments, as did the Queen. Tightly boarded up already is Westminster Abbey and inside carpenters thwacked furiously, erecting that ominous-sounding platform, "The Scaffold," on which Their Majesties are joyously to be crowned.

Selassie, Göring & Pajamas. Zest and pace were given to the approaching Coronation by striking events last week. With faint shrugs and slightly lifted eyebrows civil servants of the Foreign Office told the press that, since His Majesty's Government still recognize the Ethiopian Government of Haile Selassie (although he has been driven from Addis Ababa) and the Spanish Government of Francisco Largo Caballero (although he has been driven from Madrid), invitations have had to be dispatched to these Governments asking them to send representatives to the Coronation. At news of this Benito Mussolini, who was recently appeased by a new British-Italian treaty supposed to have ended mutual animosity over Ethiopia (TIME, Jan. 11), grew furious. II Duce's press thundered that Italy's Royal House of Savoy is justly renowned for the wisdom of Vittorio Emanuele III, added that His Majesty "cannot make other than the correct choice" in deciding whether or not to send Italian Crown Prince Umberto to sit in Westminster Abbey with a black-faced Ethiopian.

Gleeful in England last week, ex-Emperor Haile Selassie hinted that he would send to the Coronation his favorite son-in-law, the doughty Ras (General) Desta Demtu, who was still in Ethiopia last week commanding the remnants of a native army. Few-hours later an Italian-led column of Ethiopian troops swooped down and routed the Ethiopian stragglers of Ras Desta Demtu. According to the Italian official version, Haile Selassie's designated Coronation envoy was implicated in the attempt to assassinate Italy's Viceroy in Addis Ababa by means of hand grenades (TIME, March 1). In short order Ras Desta Demtu was executed, and convalescent Viceroy Graziani radioed to Rome: "DUCE YOUR ORDERS HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT AS ALWAYS."