Edward VIII, desiring to marry the American socialite Wallis Simpson against widespread British opposition, signed the instrument of abdication to renounce the throne in favour of his brother George VI.

Edward VIII, later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 20 January 1936 until his abdication in December of the same year.

Wallis, Duchess of Windsor was an American socialite and the wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.

In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was in the process of divorcing her second.

George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of India from 1936 until the British Raj was dissolved in August 1947, and the first Head of the Commonwealth following the London Declaration of 1949.