Edward VIII: the Plot to Topple a King, Channel 4, review One hopes that whoever succeeds Rowan Williams won't take their inspiration from Edward VIII: the Plot to Topple a King (Channel 4). For whereas the official version of the abdication has always had Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, and Geoffrey Dawson, the editor of The Times, conniving to nudge a love-struck monarch into exile, this engaging docudrama looked instead at the role of Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury (played here by David Calder). One was left in little doubt that the politician and the journalist had nothing on the cleric when it came to deploying underhand methods to get their way. Lang, we were told by an unseen narrator who sounded like she could do with a good cough sweet, was "the first media archbishop." A confidante of George V, Edward's father, he wrote the King's radio speeches, suggested his walkabouts and choreographed the 1935 Jubilee celebrations. Edward, for his part, was "the first media darling," adored by his people. And yet the only attribute the two men shared was their mutual loathing. Lang thought Edward too fond of "vulgar society." Edward described the archbishop as "too polished, too worldly - more interested in the pursuit of prestige and power than the abstractions of the human soul." If it had been 800 years earlier, perhaps he might have found someone to rid him of this turbulent priest. Instead, he was stuck with him. George V died in January 1936. Three hundred and twenty six days later, Lang had engineered Edward's abdication in favour of his brother, Albert. Some of the Archbishop's behaviour could be excused as the actions of a man trying to do what he fervently thought best - not just for himself, but for the country, the monarchy and the Church. His chaplain, Alan Don, whose newly discovered diaries formed the basis of this programme, was shocked by the pictures of Edward and the twice-divorced Mrs Simpson appearing in the foreign press. Lang thought he could mould the new king. And yet once it became clear that Edward had no intention of giving up Mrs Simpson, Lang's tactics became outrageous. When his cunning letters to Baldwin and Dawson had little effect, he got one of his staff to write a letter to the editor of The Times saying that Edward had used hypnotism to combat his alcoholism. Adding injury to insult, Lang gave his own public broadcast two days after the abdication, a spectacularly ill-judged act of hypocrisy which attacked the King as "misguided and disgusting" for finally doing what Lang had tried so hard to effect. Not that it seemed to bother Lang. He was soon back where he thought he belonged, having tea with the new queen. And at least everyone from the Duke of Cambridge to Colin Firth to everyone who enjoyed The King's Speech can be grateful for what he did.