54. The instinctive deference of the British even towards an ex-king living in exile was the main stumbling block between the Allies regarding the vexatious Windsor file. Prime Minister Winston Churchill bows as he bids farewell to the duke in 1953 during an infrequent visit to London.
55. The Queen Mother’s bereavement was used as a reason for delaying publication of the Windsor file. Here she is at Malvern College, watched by King George Vl’s biographer, stick-wielding Sir John Wheeler-Bennett. He tried to have the project to release German wartime documents scrapped in order to stop publication of material that may damage the royal family.
1. The Prince of Wales was the matinee idol of his age, the first royal pin-up whose his face adorned magazine covers and cigarette cards the world over. Here he is in Halifax, Nova Scotia, during his 1919 Canadian tour.
2. Behind the smiling image was a morose, often depressed young man who hated the whole palaver of what Edward called “princing.” When he was at sea during his extensive tours of the British Empire after the war, he would often spend days alone in his cabin. Only his cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten could rally his spirits.
3. Edward enjoyed a chilly, distant relationship with his father, King George V, and mother, Queen Mary. The future king was, though, idolized by his brothers and his sister, Princess Mary. Here are the family at the wedding of Albert, Duke of York, later King George Vl, to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923. From left to right: Prince Edward; Princess Mary; Henry, Duke of Gloucester; King George V; Albert, Duke of York; Queen Mary; and George, Duke of Kent.
4. The prince standing between Rosemary Leveson-Gower (on his left) and Diana Capel at the Duchess of Sutherland’s field hospital in Calais, France, in 1917. His parents vetoed his decision to marry Lady Leveson-Gower, Queen Mary arguing that there was a touch of madness in her mother’s family.
5. Prince Edward first met Freda Dudley Ward during an air raid on central London while he was on army leave. The wife of a Liberal Member of Parliament, Freda became his first great love and long-term mistress.
6. In the late 1920s Thelma, Viscountess Furness, the part-American second wife of a shipping company chairman, became Edward’s companion and mistress, acting as hostess at Fort Belvedere, his country home near Windsor Great Park. She first introduced the Prince of Wales to Wallis Simpson.
7. Finding a bride for the Prince of Wales became an international parlor game. Even German leader Adolf Hitler played, in 1934 suggesting Princess Friederike(far right), the daughter of Prince Ernst August and Princess Viktoria Luise, as a bride.
8. By the time Hitler became involved, the Prince of Wales was enamored with another married American, Wallis Simpson, pictured with her second husband, Ernest.
9. Wallis and her great friend Herman Rogers, who took many of the photographs seen for the first time in this volume, pictured in kimonos at his home in Peking, where Wallis stayed for a time in 1924.
10. The new king and Mrs. Simpson share an affectionate look during the famous Mediterranean cruise on board the Nahlin yacht in 1936, which confirmed to the watching world that she was the new royal mistress. Only the British were kept in the dark, thanks to the silence of the Establishment media.
11. The fact that the new king allowed himself to be photographed barechested horrified many, who considered his behavior undignified.
12. Wallis Simpson about to take a dip from the yacht Nahlin.
13. The king, pictured in snorkeling goggles, joins Mrs. Simpson on a secluded beach during the cruise.
14. The king had threatened suicide unless Wallis join him at Balmoral, the royal family’s Highland retreat. She did her best to lighten the mood, acting as his hostess.
15. Guests at Balmoral included the king’s younger brother the Duke of Kent and his wife, Princess Marina, as well as Louis and Edwina Mountbatten. They played arrow golf, a curious game imported from Austria.
16. The king takes a break to admire the scenery during a morning out stalking deer.
17. The king wearing a stalking cape, which provoked much mirth among the guests. From left to right: Lord Mountbatten, Edward Vlll, Katherine Rogers, Gladys Buist, Wallis Simpson, and Edwina Mountbatten.
18. Wallis’s affair with the king made her notorious. She was also said to have had an illicit romance with Italian foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano (left) and his German counterpart Joachim von Ribbentrop (centre). Here Hitler (right) is entertained at von Ribbentrop’s German home.
19. According to Father Odo, the Duke of Württemberg, von Ribbentrop sent Mrs. Simpson seventeen carnations to mark the number of occasions they had slept together.
20. Car salesman Guy Trundle was said by Scotland Yard to be yet another lover of Mrs. Simpson.
21. The king’s German cousin Carl Eduard, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who was also president of the German Red Cross, was often sent to London by Hitler to pick up the latest gossip and intrigue with his royal relations.
22. The popular new king championed the plight of war veterans and the unemployed, saying famously that “something must be done” during this tour of South Wales.
23. Protests—some spontaneous, some organized by British Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley—broke out after the king’s abdication broadcast.
24. The king makes his famous abdication broadcast, which he wrote himself with help from Winston Churchill, on December 11, 1936, from Windsor Castle.
25. During his exile in Austria in December 1936, the Duke of Windsor wrote to Herman Rogers, saying what a “ghastly time” he had experienced.
26. Herman and Katherine Rogers brought the guest book from their villa in the south of France for members of the wedding party to sign in order to mark the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s marriage at the Château de Candé. Signatures include Wallis’s aunt Bessie Merryman; Fruity Metcalfe and his wife, Lady Alexandra; Walter Monckton; and the officiating cleric, R. Anderson Jardine.
27. Wallis in gay mood after she and the duke were reunited after six months apart. Here taking tea are her future husband, her aunt Bessie Merryman, Katherine Rogers and equerry Dudley Forwood.
28. The duchess poses for the camera in the days leading up to the wedding.
29. Edward and Wallis signed the wedding guest book together with members of their staff, who included the duke’s private secretary Thomas Carter and the duchess’s secretary Gertrude Bedford, as well as their florist Constance Spry.
30. A moment of reflection for the newly married couple following the short ceremony.
31. The duke and duchess celebrating their union with a cup of tea. Also seen are Dudley Forwood, Katherine Rogers, and the Rev. R. Anderson Jardine, who defied the church hierarchy to marry the exiled couple.
32. In spite of dire warnings, the duke insisted on visiting Germany in October 1937, ostensibly to review housing conditions. Here he listens with amusement to Dr. Joseph Goebbels, German propaganda minister, at a party given in honour of the duke and duchess by their host, Nazi labour minister, Dr. Robert Ley.
33. During the visit, the normally animated duchess seemed subdued, shooting a look of undisguised loathing at their host, the bibulous labour leader Robert Ley (left), during a tour of Berlin. She found his frequent drunkenness and off-colour jokes offensive.
34. The duke, in the company of Dr. Ley, inspects a Reich guard of honour. On several occasions the duke responded in kind to Nazi salutes.
35. The duke’s fifty-minute solo meeting with Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, Obersalzberg, was the highlight of the twelve-day visit. It is hard to see what they had in common; one man wanted to rule the world, the other gave up his world for the woman he loved.
36. Hitler says goodbye to the duke after their one-on-one conversation, while his translator Paul Schmidt (far left) and Dr. Ley (left) look on. During their time together, the duchess was entertained by deputy Nazi leader Rudolf Hess.
37. A Nazi soldier salutes the duke and duchess as they drive away, following, the historic meeting with
Hitler.
38. In the summer of 1938, as Europe stood on the brink of war, the Windsors went sightseeing, visiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa with Katherine (pictured) and Herman Rogers onboard the yacht Gulzar. The ducal couple had planned to visit the United States but faced hostile opposition from labour unions, who were furious at their trip to Nazi Germany, a nation where unions had been crushed.
39. As the couple leaves the island of Ischia, it looks like the duke is forcing the duchess either to wave to the crowd gathered on the quayside or salute a slogan that reads EUROPE WILL BE FASCIST. The ambiguity of the picture reflects the duke’s mixed public messages regarding his political beliefs and the true nature of his feelings about Hitler and fascism.
40. Controversial businessman Charles Bedaux was the focus for union hostility after he organized an extensive tour of America so that the duke and duchess could visit factories and housing projects. He aimed to promote the duke as “Edward the Peacemaker,” but widespread opposition forced an abrupt cancellation. Clockwise from left: Charles Bedaux, Katherine Rogers, the Duke of Windsor, Fern Bedaux, and the Duchess of Windsor.
41. The Windsors at war, Wallis in her French Red Cross uniform and the duke in the uniform of a major general in the Welsh Guards. The couple’s loose table talk was suspected of aiding the Nazis.
42. During their flight from France after the German invasion in May 1940, the duke and duchess stayed in Madrid and Lisbon, where they were the subject of a kidnap plot nicknamed Operation Willi.
43. As the memo from von Ribbentrop to Hitler shows, the German leader was kept up to date with every twist and turn in the plot to kidnap the duke and duchess. In the last throw of the dice, Hitler ordered them to be taken by force.
44. The duke was made Governor of the Bahamas to keep him out of trouble. However, in late 1940 he seems to have become implicated in a freelance British plot to engineer a peace deal.
45. Also involved in the peace plot were Hitler’s favourite spy Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe and her lover, Hitler’s former adjutant Fritz Wiedemann.
46. Such was the official suspicion surrounding the ducal couple that when they visited America in early 1941, President Roosevelt ordered the FBI to place them under surveillance.
47. The duke’s friendship with Swedish businessman Axel Wenner-Gren, who was placed on an official blacklist, was also deemed suspect by the American government.
48. General Motors executive James Mooney, a long-time friend of the duke, was treated with suspicion because of his links with the Nazi hierarchy.
49. The attempt by the British first to destroy and then delay publication of the sensational Windsor file relating to the duke’s wartime behaviour placed a severe strain on relations between the Allies. King George Vl was greatly agitated by the possible consequences for the monarchy should the file be published.
50. The duke and his loyal legal advisor Walter Monckton addressed the numerous issues raised by the existence of the Windsor file, which suggested that the duke was defeatist and did not believe Britain could survive an invasion by the Nazis.
51. Within weeks of the war ending, royal courtier and Soviet spy Anthony Blunt, pictured when he was a student at Cambridge University, was sent by King George Vl to a German castle to pick up historic letters from Queen Victoria. It was thought that his short trip had an ulterior motive—to bring back to Buckingham Palace any correspondence between the Duke of Windsor and the Nazi hierarchy.
52. Foreign Office librarian and translator Lieutenant Colonel Robert Currie Thomson, pictured here with a young family friend at Thomson’s north London home, found the incriminating microfilmed royal cache buried in a wood on a German country estate.
53. American historian and wartime State Department official David Harris was the David who took on the government Goliath, warning his superiors that they would be breaking the law should they agree to British demands to destroy the Windsor file.
54. The instinctive deference of the British even towards an ex-king living in exile was the main stumbling block between the Allies regarding the vexatious Windsor file. Prime Minister Winston Churchill bows as he bids farewell to the duke in 1953 during an infrequent visit to London.
55. The Queen Mother’s bereavement was used as a reason for delaying publication of the Windsor file. Here she is at Malvern College, watched by King George Vl’s biographer, stick-wielding Sir John Wheeler-Bennett. He tried to have the project to release German wartime documents scrapped in order to stop publication of material that may damage the royal family.
17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up Page 40