17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up

by Andrew Morton

  I saw him when she had gone away for a fortnight. He was miserable—haggard, dejected, not knowing what to do. Then I saw him when she had been back for a day or two, and he was a different man—gay, debonair, self-confident. Make no mistake he can’t live without her.

  Perhaps the most salient perspective on the royal drama has never before seen light of day. Throughout the abdication crisis, Herman Rogers was the calming voice at the heart of the storm, fending off the press from the gates of his villa, fielding frantic phone calls from the king, Walter Monckton, and others while soothing Wallis’s jangled nerves. His conduct earned the lasting respect not just of the waiting media, Edward and Mrs. Simpson, but his neighbour in New York State, President Roosevelt. Unlike most commentators, he actually knew both parties extremely well but was never tempted to join the debate.

  In a hitherto unpublished letter written to his godmother Sara Delano Roosevelt a month after the abdication, he stoutly defended Mrs. Simpson, arguing that nothing and no one could have stopped the king taking the action he did. He made clear that Wallis had every right to divorce Ernest Simpson, even if the king had not featured in her life. His argument suggests that Simpson’s affair with Mary Raffray began much earlier than has been previously suspected. He wrote:

  I now know that Mrs. S was always anxious to step out of the King’s life. Up until the very end she urged and begged him to give up all thought of her and remain on the throne. I like and admire the king enormously but I know just how obstinate he is. The decision was entirely his own, as he admitted in his radio farewell. Nothing and none could move him from the decision that was already firm in his mind—If Mrs. S had moved to Baltimore the king would have followed her there.

  I am sincerely convinced that there was no way to control him. As to Mrs. S Divorce I realize that many people believe it was based on collusion. I can only tell you that I KNOW there was no collusion—that king or no king she would have brought her action and that she had complete justice on her side. Time will undoubtedly prove the truth of this.

  You wrote to me frankly and I am doing the same to you because I feel that is what you want. What I say is between us—I have written to no one else in the world in defence of Mrs. S.

  The settled view, though, was that the king had been beguiled in some way by the devious, calculating foreigner. As traumatic and dislocating as the duke’s conduct had been, very quickly the country moved behind King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

  Lord and Lady Londonderry were typical, sending several unctuous letters to the Duke of Windsor offering their sympathy but privately, according to their daughter’s recollection, condemning his dereliction of duty and accusing him of being “hopeless.” They thought it a good thing that Mrs. Simpson had taken him away.

  Other accusing fingers pointed to Mrs. Simpson’s society friends, blaming them for the fiasco. In a reference to Emerald Cunard, Chips Channon, Lady Asquith, and others in the court of Queen Wallis, Nancy Astor said: “If she had not been accepted by them and run after, the King would have realized that he could not possibly get away with it.” A number of friends were quick to disassociate themselves from the now exiled American. Notoriously, Lady Cunard denied ever having met her.

  Poet and satirist Osbert Sitwell wrote the verse “Rat Week” about the disloyal, rootless, and shallow circle who deserted the ex-king and Mrs. Simpson following the abdication. Their influence, mused Sitwell, “must make even Judas queasy.” Naturally, the new queen loved the poem. “Absolutely brilliant,” she wrote to Sitwell, barely disguising her contempt for Lady Cunard and her set. She thought it “a pity” that the then German ambassador, von Ribbentrop, chose to associate with the Cunard crew, their behaviour giving him a false impression of the British people. “Do you suppose,” she mused to Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, “that he made his calculations of the British character and reactions to events from a study of her and her friends?”

  It was not just von Ribbentrop who had misjudged the king but the Fascists at home. In the fevered hours following the abdication it was rumoured that Britain’s Fascist leader, Oswald Mosley, could form a king’s government. There was even talk that he had drawn up a list of ministers—a Fascist government for a Fascist king. Mosley accused the Government of strongarm tactics, exercising “the most flagrant act of dictatorship in hustling Edward off his throne.” His newspaper, the Blackshirt, defended Edward under the banner headline “Let King Marry Woman of his Choice.” It was to no avail.

  “I regret,” said Mosley at a meeting in east London the day after the abdication, “that the king did not see fit to stay and fight his battle, which is the battle of the people, because I knew the battle could have been won.”

  The Nazi hierarchy were equally nonplussed, angry and bewildered that, as Beaverbrook pithily put it, “their cock wouldn’t fight.” Given his position and popularity, the king did little, if anything, to garner political support. It was as if he wanted an excuse, any excuse, to escape his destiny. Hitler’s friend Unity Mitford watched the abdication statement being read out from the gallery in the House of Lords and commented: “Oh dear, Hitler will be dreadfully upset about this. He wanted Edward to stay on the throne.”

  The Nazi leadership were not impressed. As Joseph Goebbels caustically observed: “He had made a complete fool of himself. What’s more, it was lacking in dignity and taste. It was not the way to do it. Especially if one is king.”

  The Führer had every right to be confused. A senior civil servant close to Baldwin observed that it was obvious that von Ribbentrop was “stuffing Hitler with the idea that the Government would be defeated and Edward would remain on the throne.” Ribbentrop blamed “the machinations of dark Bolshevist powers against the ‘Führer will’ of the young king.” Once more he summoned his staff and informed them: “I shall report all further details orally to my Führer.”

  As far as von Ribbentrop was concerned, the abdication was the result of a conspiracy of Jews, Freemasons, and other dark forces inside the British Establishment. He told Hitler that the marriage issue was a false front used by Baldwin to oust the king because of his pro-German views. German diplomat Wolfgang von Putlitz, who was spying for the British, told his secret service controller: “We are absolutely powerless in the face of this nonsense.”

  As historian Gerhard L. Weinberg observes: “If von Ribbentrop’s reports to Hitler on the abdication crisis border on the lunatic, this reflected not only their author’s general level of intelligence but also his rather tenuous connection with his official post.”

  A quietly jubilant Sir Eric Phipps, the much put-upon British ambassador in Berlin, concluded that von Ribbentrop’s carefully laid plans to carry out mischief and intrigue in Britain had “in certain important details miscarried.” There was joy also in the Russian embassy in London, Ambassador Ivan Maisky reporting to Moscow that the abdication was a real blow to Hitler. It is a perspective shared by historian Ian Kershaw: “The abdication of King Edward VIII, whose strong pro-German inclinations and autocratic tendencies would almost certainly have caused difficulties for the government quite beyond the business of Mrs Simpson, proved to be an unalloyed gain for Britain.”

  Following Edward’s unceremonious departure, von Ribbentrop, like a lover scorned, became increasingly anti-British, fervent in his belief that the pursuit of friendship with Britain was futile. It didn’t help his mood that his son had been turned down for a place at the elite Eton College.

  If he had been less dogmatic, a more objective reading of the British political scene would have drawn von Ribbentrop to a rather different conclusion. Winston Churchill, the most hostile of Germany’s enemies and a vigorous supporter of British rearmament, was grievously wounded politically by Edward’s abdication. A king’s party had formed around him, the consensus being, in Beaverbrook’s phrase, to “bugger Baldwin.” He badly misjudged the political mood. When Churchill, “filled with emotion and brandy,” rose in the House of Commons to speak in favour of giving
the king time to resolve his position, he was met with such hostility that he left the chamber.

  His political career lay in tatters, the way now open for Eden and Chamberlain to pursue a more conciliatory foreign policy with the Germans. Future prime minister Harold Macmillan observed that the abdication crisis “undermined the reputation and political stature of the greatest and most prescient statesman then living.”

  Hitler’s other miscalculation was to assume that Edward VIII had as much influence over foreign policy as his forebear and namesake Edward VII, whose anti-German policies had contributed to the Triple Entente. While this error was understandable, what was unbelievable—even to fellow German diplomats—was von Ribbentrop’s knee-jerk reaction, namely to blame the Jews and Freemasons.

  Once Hitler was convinced of this conspiracy fairy tale, it developed in his mind until he believed that Edward had actually been removed by Churchill. The politician had cunningly manoeuvred the king into a dubious marriage so that it would be easier to oust him.

  The final deduction Hitler made was that the British and French were implacable “hate opponents” of Germany. Naturally von Ribbentrop agreed, saying that once Edward was gone, all hope of an Anglo-German rapprochement was finished. Even though he was busily constructing alliances against Britain at the time, such was the self-delusion in the Nazi leadership that they persuaded themselves that they had once dreamed of a settled friendship with Britain.

  An early sign that the Nazi wolf was baring its teeth came a few weeks after the abdication when the Mountbatten clan planned to throw a welcome party for diplomat Prince Ludwig von Hessen-Darmstadt, known as Prince Lu, after he arrived in London to take up a position at the embassy as von Ribbentrop’s assistant. Guests invited to their magnificent Brook House home on Park Lane, Mayfair, included the new King George VI and his queen. Hitler, still fuming about Edward’s departure, apparently forbade Prince Lu to attend.

  The first few weeks following the abdication were undoubtedly the most difficult for the couple. For six months before Mrs. Simpson’s divorce became final in April 1937, they had to remain apart, preferably in separate countries, so as to avoid possible accusations of fraternization or collusion. Christmas was the low point, away from each other and isolated from their friends and family. The duke described his new life as “hell,” expressing his frustration in a letter to Herman Rogers sent three days before Christmas:

  What a ghastly time have all of us been through but the worst is over now and I know how marvelous you have both of you been to HER. It really is hell having to be separated all these months and all so unnecessary really—however it seems we can’t meet so that’s that and we’ll make it however hard and trying—There’s something so utterly grand and lovely to look forward to.

  As the weeks passed, he was slowly discovering that life as a former monarch did not have quite the same perks and privileges as his previous occupation. First one equerry was summoned back to Buckingham Palace by the new king and then a second man, having little sympathy for Mrs. Simpson, decided to return to London as well. A junior member of the Foreign Office staff in Vienna, Dudley Forwood, was dragooned into service. For the next three years he became the duke’s sole equerry and private secretary.

  As Forwood later recalled: “I found out soon enough that the Duke was not altogether reconciled to his new status. Although he was plainly a broken man, a shell, he still expected a full service, a monarch’s service.”

  Even his choice of Forwood was a tricky issue, giving him an insight into the brave new world he had embraced. His friend Sir Walford Selby—the British ambassador to Austria—and American ambassador Messersmith joined forces and pleaded with the duke not to appoint Forwood to such a sensitive and senior position as private secretary. Both men felt that the twenty-four-year-old honorary embassy attaché was too young and inexperienced. In the face of this opposition the duke exploded in irritation. “You are telling me I don’t know people—that I’m no judge of people. How should I be a judge of people? I’ve never had the chance to form my own opinions about people. They were always made for me.” A cipher no more, from now on he was determined to make his own choices in his own way and accept the consequences. For a man so used to being guided and advised by sober, serious men, relying on his own judgement or the conclusions of foreigners or expats who had lost touch with the pulse of English society was as thrilling as it was fraught. As Walter Monckton noted with some concern: “With someone so quick to take a point and so impressionable as the Duke this was a constant anxiety to me.”

  In the interminable weeks and months following the abdication, the duke went walking, shooting, or skiing, deliberately keeping a low profile. For Wallis, playing bridge or poker was her favourite way of killing time. After one bridge game, in the company of novelist Somerset Maugham, designer Sybil Colefax, and the Rogerses, there was an inquest about why she had not used her king of hearts. “My kings don’t take tricks, they only abdicate,” replied Wallis wryly.

  As the months passed, it became abundantly clear that her husband-to-be had played his cards extraordinarily badly. He started with a strong hand but came away with virtually nothing, trumped on every trick by his younger brother George VI. The duke naïvely expected his family to accept the reshuffled deck, let him sit out a few hands and, at some future, mutually agreed date, allow him to continue playing as before. He believed that he could, as it were, stand behind the new king and instruct him on how best to play his hand. It was one of his first miscalculations.

  In mid-January 1937 he wrote to the king promising to do all he could to help him but pleaded with his brother to help stop the constant attacks on himself and Mrs. Simpson. Most hurtful, apart from the swirling rumour of Mrs. Simpson’s affair with the German ambassador, was the totally false story that she had made off with Queen Alexandra’s fabled emeralds, which she had retrieved from Garrard, the royal jewelers.

  This letter was followed up with numerous phone calls in which the ex-king fulminated against his mother, Queen Mary, and his stuttering, stammering brother. The duke, bored and lonely in his Austrian redoubt, bombarded him with requests, demands, and unwanted advice on how to rule his kingdom. Such were the length and frequency of his phone calls to London that his hostess, Baroness Rothschild, who joked that she was not a member of the “rich branch” of the family, worried about how she would pay the bills. Edward was also concerned with the financial settlement for himself, the title for his future wife, as well as the guest list and setting for his wedding which, he told the king, would take place after the Coronation in May. He wanted the marriage to be grand, dignified, and thronged with members of both families. The ex-king was to get a rude awakening.

  Such was the persistence of this royal back-seat driver that George VI lost patience with his brother and instructed the phone operators at Buckingham Palace no longer to automatically put through the duke’s calls. Instead he sent Sir Walter Monckton to Austria to explain the new facts of life to his brother.

  As Walter Monckton tactfully recorded: “The Duke of Windsor was particularly quick in understanding decisions and good on the telephone, whereas King George VI had not the same quickness and was troubled by the impediment in his speech.”

  While the duke was not completely in the wilderness—his sister, Princess Mary, paid a week-long visit and his “heavy” daily postbag bulged with family correspondence—there was no disguising the widening gulf between the two brothers. The process was accelerated by a campaign of malicious gossip, not only against the duke but against the new king, too. It was sparked by the king’s decision not to attend the Accession Durbar in India in the winter of 1937–38, a refusal that was seen by many, especially supporters of the charismatic duke, as suggesting that George VI was not quite up to the job. There were whispers in society circles, now willing to believe anything after the drama of the abdication, that he was too nervy even to make it to the May Coronation. His cause had not been helped by the controversial
radio broadcast made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang, days after the abdication, in which he unctuously criticized the duke and his social circle but also drew attention—unhelpful as far as George VI was concerned—to the new king’s speech defect.

  Over the next few months, despite Monckton’s honeyed words and consoling gestures, the duke was thwarted at every turn in his menu of demands. The duke felt that, at some point, he could return to public life in Britain and the empire, albeit in a diminished role as the king’s supportive older brother. In contrast, the king and his court saw him and his bride as a threat, Edward VIII’s decision to place personal desires above duty to the Crown utterly antithetical to the meaning of monarchy.

  While he had chosen not to make that personal sacrifice, the duke expected his younger brother, who was not as well equipped, either physically or mentally, for his unexpected elevation, to take on the onerous task of kingship.

  There was, too, a fear, harking back to medieval times, that no shaft of light should illuminate the old king. Those at court, particularly the new queen, felt that, having willingly cast himself into the outer darkness, he should remain in exile. Any premature return would be deemed a threat to the new king and the new order. Over New Year, the abdication was the sole topic of conversation among the royal family.

  Court librarian Owen Morshead recalled the king and queen dwelling on Edward’s extraordinary personality and his ability to charm people. The queen, he noted, addressed the unspoken fear, saying that if he parted from Mrs. Simpson “it would be dangerous to have such a powerful personality, so magnetic, hanging about doing nothing.” Even though in time the new prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, came around to the notion of allowing the duke to return to England albeit with a considerably diminished royal role, the queen was implacably opposed. As Walter Monckton recalled: