Wow, was I deluded about the abdication of King Edward VIII! In my mind, it was a wonderfully romantic story about how he sacrificed the monarchy in order to marry his true love, the twice-divorced American, Wallis Simpson.
Yeah, it wasn’t like that at all. I feel so naive!
Instead, Lownie gives us the story of the besotted King Edward VIII (the Duke of Windsor once he abdicated) and his ‘love’, Wallis Simpson – who actually didn’t seem to like him very much. The book covers the period from his abdication up to the end of the couple’s lives – he lived another 36 years and she survived for 50 years after the critical 1936 date.
Lownie doesn’t pack any punches with his portrayal of the Duke at all. We are given a portrait of a spoilt and entitled man who wanted to have his cake and eat it too – he campaigned throughout his life for Wallis to have an HRH title and kept trying to ingratiate himself back into the UK monarchy by asking for cushy diplomatic positions in America or Canada.
Instead, he ended up in the Bahamas and complained endlessly – while also communicating covertly with key players in Nazi Germany. If that wasn’t enough to warrant the ‘traitor’ in the title of the book, his continued insistence on trying to broker a peace deal with Germany ran counter to the UK’s war efforts and his meeting with Hitler was dodgy in the extreme. Luckily, as traitorous as he was, he was also wildly incompetent and ineffectual so his efforts came to naught.
Post-war, the Duke embarked on an endless round of parties and indulged his bisexual side in fairly spectacular style if the account here is to be believed! There are some eye-opening stories indeed, even as the Duke seemed to become increasingly irrelevant on the world stage and more an embarrassing uncle for the Queen to try to ignore.
Wallis Simpson doesn’t emerge from Lownie’s account any better than the Duke. She didn’t really want him to abdicate for her, conducted open affairs, was vain and spiteful and also entitled – the way the couple ran up debts was shocking. Yet he seemed to adore her – even if he was rewarded by being ignored as he called for her in his dying days.
Lownie’s book also doesn’t present a sympathetic picture of the British monarchy. It was obvious that they needed to sideline the Nazi-sympathising couple and stop the Duke’s blundering in political matters, but the Royal Family emerge from this book as a heartless corporation who are willing to cut off their own when they won’t play the game – echoes of Harry and Meghan are strong here. The description of Wallis’ small, private funeral and low-key burial seem quite poignant, even given her less-than-positive qualities.
The audiobook is read by Lownie himself which works nicely, although I’d have liked a bit more emphasis at times. There were some truly shocking and outrageous stories in there that maybe warranted a bit more liveliness in the telling.
I absolutely loved this book – it’s an era of history about which I knew shamefully little and I found it fascinating. It’s an absolute hand grenade of a book – explosive and shocking – and you can imagine that the Royal Family should be diving for cover!
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Header photo by GR Stocks on Unsplash
It’s always amazing to me when I relearn about history and all of the things I (and other people) have gotten wrong