OPINION:
PRINCES AT WAR: THE BITTER BATTLE INSIDE BRITAIN’S ROYAL FAMILY IN THE DARKEST DAYS OF WWII
By Deborah Cadbury
Public Affairs, $28.99, 384 pages
There were four brothers in the British royal family when the nation was fighting for its survival in World War II, but only three played an honorable role in that epic struggle. The fourth was the Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII who gave up his throne and betrayed his country for the sake of Wallis Simpson, a hardboiled American gold digger in the process of getting her second divorce.
Historian Deborah Cadbury has written a truly damning indictment of the Windsors, stressing that there was nothing the duke would not do for the duchess after he abdicated his throne on the eve of World War II even if that meant sharing her admiration for Adolf Hitler and his monsters. The German dictator’s foreign secretary, the contemptible Joachim von Ribbentrop, reportedly sent the duchess 17 carnations a day as a token of his affection. And she was determined to be queen. What was even more incredible was that the duke was also determined she should be queen, or at least carry the title “Her Royal Highness.”
As bombs rained down on London and the British Empire staggered beneath the blows of the mighty German army, the former king’s only role was to repeatedly nag Buckingham Palace to bestow a title on his wife and give him a position of power in the wartime government. Those were the only requests he made, and it was clear that the duchess was the driving force.
The German government offered evidence that made clear she would “do anything to be queen” even if meant achieving that with Nazi approval. Her husband, once monarch of one of the world’s great powers, backed her every step of the way, pausing only to buy her fantastic jewelry. British intelligence had secret documents in 1940 stating, “Germans expect assistance from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the latter desiring at any price to become queen. The Germans propose to form an opposition government under Duke of Windsor, having first changed public opinion by propaganda. Germans think King George will abdicate during attack on London.”
Not even the Allied victory and destruction of Germany discouraged the duchess in her weird obsession for what she would never achieve. And nothing diminished the duke’s doglike devotion to her. Even when she began a humiliating postwar affair with a Woolworth heir, the duke crawled behind her. They lived the life of two tawdry libertines, fawning over the super rich and spending huge amounts of money probably taken from the royal coffers plundered by the duke.
He never stopped begging. His brother King George VI, the former Duke of York who never wanted to be king and was a decent and principled man, had to deal repeatedly amid wartime crises with the whining brother who had wrecked his own life and done grave disservice to his country. Perhaps the most devastating consequence of the duke’s pathetic life came when his brother finally told him he would return to England only to be buried there after his death.
Ms. Cadbury has written a riveting book that underlines the tragedy of an infinitely powerful family tainted by a scandal as sordid as the duchess could make it. What she cared about — after the crown of England — were her exquisite linens which were kept in the Windsors’ French chateau under German protection throughout the war. The Windsors were forced to spend the war in the Bahamas where he was a reluctant governor, living in luxury, pandering to the international rich, and as it turned out, offering what amounted to treasonable aid to Germany. Documents found after the war left no doubt what the former king was capable of in terms of treachery and disloyalty to his country and his family.
King George’s brothers, the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent, upheld the dignity of the family during the war. But only Gloucester survived. Kent was killed in a flying accident and King George’s fragile health was destroyed. Even speeches were torment for the king, who kept Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist standing by. He struggled for years to help the king overcome the stutter he had suffered since boyhood.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the king developed a deep friendship despite differences in personality. When the king died, it was Churchill who laid on his coffin a wreath that carried only two words “For Valor.” He was honoring the king’s courage by awarding him posthumously the words of the Victoria Cross that symbolized the ultimate bravery.
• Muriel Dobbin is a former White House and national political reporter for McClatchy newspapers and the Baltimore Sun.
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