Michael Murray on the Windsor friendship with Arthur Davis; Eve Neigerat at Boston Public Library for information on Cleveland Amory; Alicia Nieva-Woodgate for talking to me about Alice Gordon; Cinda Nofziger at the Bentley Historical Library; Russell Nype for talking about his father; Christopher and Julie Oakes for talking about the Oakes family; Maria Ognjanovich at Monuments Men Foundation For the Preservation of Art for research on the Anthony Blunt mission to Germany; David Olson at Columbia University Library for the Hubert Pell memoir;
James Owen, the author of the standard book on the Oakes murder, for making his research notes available; Allen Packwood, Andrew Riley and Tom Davies at the Churchill College Archives, who are always unfailingly helpful; Jane Parr at Boston University Libraries for Stephen Birmingham’s papers; Sarah Patton at the Hoover Institute; Jonathan Petropoulos for useful discussions; John Pickering for help tracing the Wachman family; Michael Pye, the author of an excellent book on the Windsors in the Bahamas; Heather Riser at the University of Virginia for the Stettinius correspondence;
Mike Rothmiller for research in LAPD files; Patrick Salmon, Chief Historian at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, for help locating various papers; Edith A. Sandler at the Library of Congress for Robert Bingham’s papers; Charlie Scheips for help with Lady Mendl; Dorothy Schmidt-Spilos for talking about her grandfather Walter Foskett; Francine Sears for talking about her friendship with the Windsors; Anne Sebba for various leads; Lucy Smith-Ryland for an introduction; David Storrier for talking about his uncle David Storrier; Lara Szypszak at the Library of Congress for copying the papers of Courtney Letts de Espil and Clare Booth Luce;
John Tackett for guidance on Palm Beach Society; Jane Tatam, ghost writer of Anne Seagrim; Tim Tate; Bruce Taylor, Peter Russell’s biographer, for details of Russell’s activities in the summer of 1940; Taki Theodoracopulos for talking about the Windsors and their circle; Peter Thompson for lending a recorded phone call with Alfred de Marigny; Marcus Tian for copying in Columbia University Library; Charles Tilbury for lending the unpublished diaries and letters of Valentine Lawford; Phil Tomacelli for revealing that the Duke of Windsor’s MI5 file was destroyed in 1945; Sibilla Tomacelli for talking about her friendship with the Windsors;
Stephen Trott for information on Pitsford Hall; Matt Tyrnauer; Vianca Victor at Columbia University Library; John Waddilove for talking about his father; Jehane Wake for help with Rex Benson; Lord and Lady Wakehurst for tracing the Dugdale diaries; Pat Wertheim for insights into the Oakes case; Nigel West for as always perceptive insights; Professor Douglas Wheeler for help on Portugal during the Second World War; Joan Wheeler-Bennett for talking about Sir John Wheeler-Bennett; Lord Wigram; Paul Willetts for help with Princess Dimitri; Craig Wright at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library; and Irene Wright for introductions on David Storrier.
As ever, I am grateful to my agent Bill Hamilton for brilliant agenting and the very professional and friendly team at Bonnier – publisher Matt Phillips, editor Justine Taylor, publicists Jenna Petts and Lizzie Dorney-Kingdom, marketing manager Jessica Tackie, production controller Ella Holden, picture researcher Fiona Greenway and audio editors Laura Makela and Alexandra Schmidt. For the third time, by special request, Barry Johnston has expertly and conscientiously copyedited the text. My wife Angela was the first person to read the book, and the book is dedicated with love to her and our two children, Robert and Alice.
Attempts have been made to clear all permissions but do contact me with any corrections or new information at [email protected].
Fiction and Drama
SELECTED FICTION ABOUT THE WINDSORS
Gertrude Stein, Ida, Random House, 1941:
A novel, about a woman famous for being famous, based on the modernist Stein’s former Baltimore neighbour, Wallis Simpson.
Henry Patterson, To Catch a King, Stein & Day, 1979:
Retelling of Operation Willi in which the Duke of Windsor pretends to cooperate with the Nazis, but instead sends their invasion plans to Churchill.
Clive Irving, Axis, Atheneum, 1980:
The exploits of Walter Schellenberg, including the attempted kidnapping of the Duke of Windsor in 1940.
Timothy Findley, Famous Last Words, Macmillan, 1981:
Reminiscences of American fascist Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, where the Windsors conspire with Ribbentrop to overthrow Hitler.
Pauline Glen, The Windsor Plot, Arlington Books, 1981:
Another take on Operation Willi involving foiled assassinations of King George VI and Churchill.
Michael Kilian, Dance on a Sinking Ship, St Martin’s, 1988:
A 1935 cruise with various English aristocrats, including the Mountbattens, Charles Lindberg, and the Windsors, involving Soviet and Nazi agents.
Graham Fisher, The Plot to Kill Wallis Simpson, St Martin’s Press, 1989:
A faction on a plot to murder Wallis Simpson.
Anne Edward, Wallis, Rowman, 1991:
Biographical novel up to the Abdication.
Peter MacAlan, The Windsor Protocol, Severn House, 1993:
Another variation on Hitler placing Windsor on the British throne.
Elizabeth Luard, Emerald, 1994:
The story of the secret love-child of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Emerald Alexandra Mary Fitzwallace, born in May 1937, set in France, Mexico and New York.
Max Collins, Carnal Hours, Dutton, 1994:
Chicago detective Nathan Heller investigates the death of Sir Harry Oakes.
Eliot Roosevelt, A Royal Murder, St Martin’s Press, 1994:
Crime novel featuring sleuth First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt investigating the murder of a wealthy Swedish businessman in 1940 Bahamas, involving the Windsors and Nazi plots to gain a foothold in the Americas.
Al & Joanna Lacy, A Prince Among Them, 2001:
Kidnap attempt on the young Prince of Wales.
Robert Oldham, Saving the King, Raven, 2001:
Alternative history of Second World War Britain, in which Britain has been invaded by the Germans and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor are poised to take the throne.
William Boyd, Any Human Heart, Hamish Hamilton, 2002:
In his journals Logan Mountstuart journeys through the twentieth century, where he becomes intimately involved with the Windsors in the Bahamas.
Guy Walters, The Leader, Headline, 2003:
An alternative history with Edward VIII on the throne with Wallis, Oswald Mosley as Prime Minister, and Winston Churchill imprisoned on the Isle of Man.
Rose Tremain, The Darkness of Wallis Simpson, Chatto, 2005:
Title story in a collection of short stories in which Wallis on her death bed looks back on her early life.
Javier Marias, Your Face Tomorrow III: Poison, Shadow and Farewell, New Directions, 2005:
Sir Peter Wheeler, based on Sir Peter Russell, is tasked to shepherd the Windsors to the Bahamas.
James Irwin, Mokanshan: A Tale of Wallis Simpson’s Naughty Shanghai Postcards, iUniverse, 2005:
In 1936 the lost nude negatives of Wallis from her time in China become the target of the British Government, Nazi agents, Chiang Kai-shek, the media and crime syndicates.
Laurie Graham, Gone with the Windsors, Collins, 2005:
The fictional diary of Maybell Brumby, a wealthy American widow and social-climbing friend of Wallis Simpson, covering Wallis’s life between 1932 and 1940.
Helen Batting, Wallis Simpson’s Diary, Pen Press, 2006:
A satirical fictionalisation of Wallis’s 1934 diary.
Mitch Silver, In Secret Service, Simon & Schuster, 2007:
An unpublished Ian Fleming memoir outlining, amongst much else, the Windsors’ links to the Nazis.
Tom Gabbay, The Lisbon Crossing, William Morrow, 2007:
A spy thriller, partly based in wartime Lisbon, featuring the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Clive Fletcher, The Duke of Windsor’s Last Secrets, Lulu, 2008:
The last secrets include the China Dossi
er, the Windsors’ links with the Nazis, a jewellery scam, and the Windsors’ links to Rudolf Hess.
Carlos Mundy, The Toucan Lodge, New Generation Publishing, 2009:
Novel based on the author’s father’s exploits as an MI6 agent, during which he met the Windsors.
Rebecca Dean, The Golden Prince, Broadway Books, 2010:
Romantic novel, set in 1912, with the seventeen-year-old Prince of Wales falling in love at a country house weekend.
Kate Auspitz, The War Memoir of (HRH) the Duchess of Windsor, Quartet, 2011:
A supposed memoir by the Duchess of Windsor, found after her death, suggesting the marriage was engineered to save Britain from a Nazi king.
Rebecca Dean, The Shadow Queen, Broadway, 2012:
An imaginative recreation of Wallis’s early life until she meets the Prince of Wales.
Juliet Nicolson, Abdication, Bloomsbury, 2012:
The events of 1936 seen through the eyes of May Thomas, who has come from Barbados looking for her first job, and Evangeline Nettlefold, an old school friend of Wallis Simpson.
D.J. Taylor, The Windsor Faction, Chatto, 2013:
Edward succeeds to the throne after the sudden death of his mistress Wallis – was she murdered? – in a counter-factual story on what his reign might have been like.
Liz Trenow, The Forgotten Seamstress, Avon, 2014:
A quilt produced in 1910 by a seamstress at Buckingham Palace, who falls in love with a young Prince of Wales, reveals its secrets to the seamstress’s daughter.
Jose Goulao, A King Up Hitler’s Sleeve, Author House, 2014:
The Nazi intrigues with the Duke of Windsor, 1937–1940.
Hugh Robertson, The Fools’ Crowns: King or Pawn, Alresford Publishing, 2014:
The Abdication Crisis and was the world’s most famous playboy prince a traitor?
Hugh Robertson, The Fools’ Crowns: Traitors’ Games, Alresford Publishing, 2014:
A mix of fact and fiction leading up to the wedding of the Duke of Windsor to Wallis Simpson and the events that followed.
Kate Auspitz, Wallis’s War: A Novel of Diplomacy and Intrigue, University of Chicago Press, 2015:
Satirical fictional memoir, in which Wallis intrigues against Edward.
Harry Leavey, The Duchess and the Soldier’s Revenge: The Secret to the Royal Windsor Jewel Heist, Create Space, 2016:
Fictionalised account of the 1946 Ednam robbery, interweaving the lives of the Windsors and the burglar Leslie Holmes, written by Holmes’s granddaughter.
Beatriz Williams, The Golden Hour, Morrow, 2019:
Leonora ‘Lulu’ Randolph arrives in the Bahamas in 1941 to write about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and discovers some uncomfortable truths.
Hugh Robertson, The Fools’ Crowns: The Court of Knaves, Alresford Publishing, 2020:
The German tour in 1937.
SELECTED DRAMAS ABOUT THE WINDSORS
George Bernard Shaw, The King, the Constitution and the Lady, 1936:
Short play about the Abdication.
Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, Abdication, 1948:
Best known as the translator of Thomas Mann, Abdication had its premiere in Dublin in 1948.
Royce Royton, Crown Matrimonial, 1972:
Play about the Abdication.
Dan Sutherland, The Woman I Love, 1978:
Another Abdication play, it was filmed that year with Richard Chamberlain and Faye Dunaway in the central roles.
Simon Raven, Edward and Mrs Simpson, 1978:
Seven-part TV series based on Frances Donaldson’s biography, with Edward Fox as Edward, Cynthia Harris as Wallis, and Peggy Ashcroft as Queen Mary.
Jack Higgins, To Catch a King, 1984:
Based on the 1979 Jack Higgins thriller about the wartime plot to kidnap the Duke of Windsor, the film starred Robert Wagner.
William Luce, The Woman He Loved, 1988:
Reverential film starring Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, and Olivia de Haviland as Aunt Bessie.
James Leasor, Passion and Paradise, 1989:
Film of the murder of Harry Oakes – played by Rod Steiger – based on Leasor’s book.
Elizabeth Proud, The Life and Legends of Wallis Simpson, 1996:
A three-part BBC radio drama about Wallis Simpson.
William May, Always, 1997:
Musical based on the Windsor love story.
Linda Grifiths, The Duchess, aka Wallis Simpson, 1998:
A magical realist play on Wallis Simpson told with a little help from her friend Noël Coward and a host of ‘society ghosties’.
Gary Kirkham, Queen Milli of Galt, 2005:
A romantic comedy, based on a real episode, about a 1919 romance between the Prince of Wales and a Canadian woman, Millicent Milroy, who later claimed to have had a morganatic marriage with him.
Sarah Williams, Wallis & Edward, 2005:
TV movie starring Joely Richardson.
Robin Glendinning, The Windsor Jewels, 2007:
BBC Radio black comedy based on the 1946 Ednam jewellery robbery.
David Seidler, The Kings Speech, 2010:
Film focusing on the relationship between George VI and speech therapist Lionel Logue, it has a cameo role for Edward VIII.
William Boyd, Any Human Heart, 2010:
Four-part TV series based on William Boyd’s novel of the same name.
Nicholas Wright, The Last Duchess, 2011:
Stage play based on Caroline Blackwood’s book about the relationship between Maître Blum and Wallis.
Madonna, WE, 2011:
Film focused on Wallis Simpson, written, produced and directed by Madonna.
Bob Kingdom, An Audience with the Duke of Windsor, 2012:
One man show at Edinburgh Festival, starring Bob Kingdom.
Rose Tremain, The Darkness of Wallis Simpson, 2015:
Radio adaptation of Rose Tremain’s story with Elizabeth McGovern in the title role.
Selected Bibliography
BOOKS
Airlie, Countess of, Thatched with Gold (Hutchinson, 1962).
Alford, Kenneth, The Spoils of World War II: The American Military’s Role in Stealing Europe’s Treasures (Birch Lane, 1994).
Allen, Martin, Hidden Agenda: How the Duke of Windsor Betrayed the Allies (Macmillan, 2000).
Allen, Martin, The Hitler–Hess Deception (Collins, 2003).
Allen, Peter, The Crown and the Swastika (Robert Hale, 1983).
Alsop, Susan, To Marietta from Paris 1945–1960 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976).
Amory, Cleveland, The Last Resorts (Harper, 1948).
Amory, Cleveland, Who Killed Society? (Harper, 1960).
Amory, Cleveland, The Best Cat Ever (Little, Brown, 1993).
Baker, Norman, And What Do You Do? (Biteback, 2019).
Baldwin, Billy with Michael Gardine, Billy Baldwin, An Autobiography (Little, Brown, 1985).
Balfour, John, Not Too Correct an Aureole (Michael Russell, 1983).
Balfour, Neil and Sally Mackay, Paul of Yugoslavia: Britain’s Maligned Friend (Hamish Hamilton, 1980).
Barber, Noel, The Natives Were Friendly (Macmillan, 1977).
Barnes, John and David Nicholson, The Leo Amery Diaries, Vol, 2, 1929–1945 (Hutchinson, 1988).
Barrie, J.J., The King’s Son: The True Story of the Duke of Windsor’s Only Son! (Custom Book Publications, 2019).
Beaton, Cecil, The Wandering Years (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1961).
Beaton, Cecil, Self Portrait with Friends: The Selected Diaries of Cecil Beaton 1926–1974 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970).
Beaton, Cecil, The Parting Years (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978).
Beaverbrook, Max, The Abdication of King Edward VIII (Hamish Hamilton, 1966).
Beevor, Anthony and Artemis Cooper, Paris After the Liberation (Hamish Hamilton, 1994).
Bernays, Robert and Nick Smart (eds.), The Diaries and Letters of Robert Bernays,1932–1939 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1996).
Birkenhead, Lord, Walter Monckton, (Weidenfeld & Ni
colson, 1969).
Birmingham, Stephen, Duchess (Little, Brown, 1981).
Birmingham, Stephen, The Right People: A Portrait of the American Social Establishment (Little, Brown, 1958).
Blackwood, Caroline, The Last of the Duchess (Macmillan, 1995).
Bloch, Michael, The Duke of Windsor’s War (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982).
Bloch, Michael, Operation Willi: The Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor, July 1940 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984).
Bloch, Michael (ed.), Wallis and Edward: Letters 1931–1937 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986).
Bloch, Michael, The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor (Bantam, 1988).
Bloch, Michael, The Reign & Abdication of Edward VIII (Bantam, 1990).
Bloch, Michael, Ribbentrop (Bantam, 1992).
Bloch, Michael, The Duchess of Windsor (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996).
Bloomenkranz, Sol, Charles Bedaux: Deciphering an Enigma (iUniverse, 2012).
Bocca, Geoffrey, She Might Have Been Queen (Express Books, 1955).
Bocca, Geoffrey, The Life and Death of Harry Oakes (Weidenfeld, 1959).
Boelcke, Willi A. (ed.), The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels, October 1939–March 1943 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970).
Borkin, Joseph, Robert R. Young (Harper & Row, 1969).
Bowers, Scotty, Full Service (Grove Press, 2013).
Bradford, Sarah, King George VI (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989).
Bragg, Melvyn, Richard Burton: A Life (Little, Brown, 1988).
Brendon, Piers and Philip Whitehead, The Windsors: A Dynasty Revealed (Hodder & Stoughton, 1994).
Brendon, Piers, Edward VIII: The Uncrowned King (Allen Lane, 2016).
Brody, Iles, Gone with the Windsors (John Winston Company, 1953).
Brown, Anthony Cave, The Secret Servant: The Life of Sir Stewart Menzies (Michael Joseph, 1988).
Browne, Anthony Montague, Long Sunset (Cassell, 1995).
Bryan III, J. and C.J.V. Murphy, The Windsor Story (Granada, 1979) .
Traitor King Page 33
