SPAIN WAS FAR FROM BEING AN IDEAL ASYLUM. UNDER THE fascist government of General Franco, who owed much to the Germans and Italians for the help given to the Insurgents during the Civil War, it would have been astonishing if Spain had not favoured the German cause. When France collapsed and the future of Britain seemed insecure, there was a great temptation for Franco to join in the war, seize Gibraltar and close that end of the Mediterranean to British shipping. He hesitated, partly because he had little wish to see Germany all-powerful in Europe, partly because he was determined not to involve his war-shattered country in further fighting unless he was convinced that the pickings would be rich and the risks minimal. He preferred to bide his time, but it was not a comfortable moment for an Englishman to be in Spain.
Among the most uncomfortable was the British Ambassador, whose task it was to convince the Spanish government that the war was not lost, Britain was still a force to be reckoned with, and any aggression on the part of the Spanish would in the long run cost them dear. It was the Duke’s good fortune that the man charged with this unappealing task was his old friend Samuel Hoare. Hoare had many enemies in London; Cadogan at the Foreign Office wrote splenetically when he heard of the appointment: ‘The quicker we get them out of the country the better. But I’d sooner send them to a penal settlement. He’ll be the Quisling of England when Germany conquers us and I’m dead.’1 But though the architect of the Hoare–Laval pact seemed to many an unfortunate choice for so important a post, he played a weak hand with considerable skill, consolidating such support as the British enjoyed within the Spanish government and countering the efforts of the Germans to cajole or frighten the Spanish into the war. He was disconcerted and not altogether pleased when a telephone call from Barcelona told him that the Duke of Windsor had entered his bailiwick, but concluded that he must do his best for his unexpected visitor.
He had no choice, anyway. Even in the chaotic crisis engendered by the fall of France, Churchill had found time to remark in Cabinet that steps must be taken to ensure the Duke’s safe return.2 Two days later Eden announced that the Duke had arrived in Barcelona and Churchill ordered that the Ambassador should get in touch to offer him help and hospitality.3 The King did much the same, though grumbling to his mother that David ‘never let anybody know his plans or intentions beforehand’4 – hardly a fair complaint, since the Duke had discussed his plans with the British Embassy and left with the Consul General. The Duke travelled on to Madrid, where he installed himself at the Ritz. Hoare called on him the same evening.
It cannot have been a cheerful conversation. Hoare was certainly among those who believed that the war, if not lost, was virtually unwinnable, and that a negotiated peace should not be ruled out. With the recollection of France’s ignominious defeat still fresh in his mind, and cut off from the belligerent zest of Churchill’s Britain, it is not surprising that the Duke held the same view. He was incautious in airing it outside the circle of the British Ambassador. He told a member of the American Embassy staff that ‘the most important thing now to be done was to end the war before thousands more were killed or maimed to save the faces of a few politicians’.5 To think this in June 1940 was forgivable; to say it openly to a representative of a foreign, even if friendly power, was to say the least indiscreet. It is hardly surprising that the British Ambassador had to telegraph London to urge the government to contradict German propaganda saying that Hoare and the Duke were carrying on negotiations for peace.6 Yet most of the time the Duke conducted himself well. Hoare’s final report to Churchill on the Windsors’ stay in Madrid concluded that the visit had stimulated German propaganda but had otherwise done good: ‘They have both been very discreet and have made a good impression on the Spaniards.’7 To Halifax he said they had ‘behaved admirably’ and had made themselves very popular with the Spaniards.8 They were the star turn at a vast reception at the British Embassy and put up a more than creditable performance: ‘So far from making any defeatist remarks, they went out of their way to show their belief in final victory.’9
When he reached Madrid the Duke found waiting for him a telegram from Churchill urging him to move on at once to Lisbon, whence a flying boat would take him back to England. Saighton Grange, a country house belonging to the Duke of Westminster, was offered him as a residence. It so happened that the Duke of Kent was at that moment embarking on a visit to Portugal. The Portuguese dictator, Salazar, had already told the British Ambassador, the Duke’s old friend from Vienna Walford Selby, that it would be ‘inconvenient and undesirable’ if the two Dukes were there at the same time.10 Whether word of this reached the Duke is unclear, but he fully shared Salazar’s view; the day after his arrival in Madrid Hoare cabled Churchill to say that the Duke would move to Lisbon as soon as his brother had departed – in a week or so.11 That the Duke did genuinely wish to avoid what could have been an awkward encounter is obviously the case, that he had other reasons for playing for time was unfortunately soon to be quite as clear.
On 24 June he sent a personal message to Churchill. He was grateful for the offer of a flight back to England, he said, but he could not see what he could do once he got back which would not make his presence ‘an embarrassment to all concerned, myself included’. Instead, he suggested, as he was still anxious to serve the Empire, could not ‘some useful form of employment with more official backing than I have hitherto received’ be found for him somewhere outside the United Kingdom?12 Churchill replied that it would be best if such matters were discussed after the Duke had returned.13 The Duke now dug in his heels. He could not agree to return, he cabled, until ‘everything has been considered and I know the result’. He and the Duchess were not prepared once again to find themselves ‘regarded by the British public as in a different status to other members of my family’.14 In a supplementary note to Hoare he explained that he meant by this that he and the Duchess should be received regularly at Buckingham Palace and other royal residences: ‘We have no desire to sit in their laps, but THEY must make it publicly clear by whatever means they care to adopt, that this family feud is for once and for all at an end.’ What was more, if their return to England involved them in any additional taxation due to their loss of non-resident status, then this must be made good from the Civil List or other public funds.15 With some apprehension Hoare passed on these demands. ‘I could not have put more strongly case for immediate departure but with no result,’ he told Churchill.16 The following day he made the splendidly impracticable suggestion that a command at sea might be the best answer for the Duke’s future: ‘I feel that you will never have peace and perhaps I shall never get him away unless you can find something for him.’17
To lay down conditions in this way, and to badger the Prime Minister over points of protocol, at a moment when Britain, standing alone, seemed faced with imminent invasion and on Churchill’s shoulders rested the responsibility for its defence, is conduct that cannot be condoned. To state that something is inexcusable and then to excuse it is a posture not infrequently adopted by the biographer. Without seeking to excuse the Duke, it should be remembered that for the last nine months he had been brooding rancorously on the way he and his wife had been treated on their return to London. Since then had come the fresh and, in his eyes, still more cruel humiliation over his visits to British troops. His sense of proportion, never his strongest quality, had failed him totally, and he saw the wrongs done to him as iniquities rivalling in significance any outrage committed by the Germans. He was prepared to move on to Lisbon, in preparation for a return to England, but until his wrongs had been righted he was not going to take the next and final step. Otherwise he imagined a future in which he and his wife would be compelled to live perpetually as second-class citizens; despised poor relations who were not even accepted as relations; inhabiting a demi-monde in which nobody who prided himself on his respectability would dare to tread.
While these exchanges were going on and the Duke was leisurely preparing for the next stage in his journey, a sub-plot was being worked out of which he was almost entirely unaware. In his fascinating Operation Willi Michael Bloch has exposed the extraordinary lengths to which the Germans went to keep the Duke of Windsor in Europe, and make use of him as a tool of their policy. The news that he had taken refuge in Spain had caused great excitement in Berlin, particularly in the mind of Ribbentrop. The German Foreign Minister knew that the Duke had been well disposed to Germany before the war, he knew that the Duke thought the war unnecessary, he was soon to hear reports that the Duke was speaking in favour of a negotiated peace: from this it was but a step to imagining the Duke broadcasting to the British people to urge them to see reason and come to terms, or even returning to a German-occupied Britain as a puppet head of state. If this happy dénouement were to be achieved it was essential that the Duke should remain in Spain, a country sympathetic to the Axis cause, where he could constantly be available to the blandishments of German agents or their sympathizers. In Lisbon he would be that much less accessible to persuasion; once back in England or elsewhere in the Empire he would be lost for ever.
On 23 June, with the Duke about to arrive in Madrid, the German Ambassador, von Stohrer, telegraphed Berlin to report the news and request instructions.18 Ribbentrop replied asking if the Spaniards could detain the Windsors for a couple of weeks while exit visas were being granted.19 Stohrer saw the Spanish Foreign Minister, Colonel Beigbeder, who promised to do his best.20 In fact he did little but assure the Duke that the Spanish government would be delighted for him to stay for as long as he wanted and to offer him the Palace of the Caliph at Ronda for a residence. When the Duke called on Beigbeder shortly before he left Madrid he remarked – so Beigbeder told Stohrer and Stohrer Ribbentrop – that he would not return to England unless his wife were recognized as a member of the royal family and he were given a job of influence. He also ‘expressed himself … in strong terms against Churchill and the war’.21 When some years later the Duke was shown a copy of Stohrer’s despatch he wrote ‘Correct’ against the first point and ‘No’ against the second.22 Stohrer’s reliability as a witness is not made more impressive by the fact that in the same despatch he reported the Duke’s main reasons for proceeding to Portugal as being to replenish his supplies of money and to meet the Duke of Kent: the first irrelevant, the second the opposite of the truth.
On 2 July, while Ribbentrop considered how to prevent his prey eluding him and decided to have recourse to more drastic measures, the Duke left Madrid. The following day he arrived in Lisbon. Selby did all he could to make the party welcome. They were installed in the villa of a rich banker, Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva, at Cascais, a few miles outside Lisbon. The house had been recommended by the manager of the Palacio Hotel at Estoril, where the Duke had originally been intended to stay. Selby cheerfully admitted that Espírito Santo was well known for his pro-German sympathies, but said that as the Duke’s stay was likely to be only for a few days he had not felt it mattered.23 In fact Espírito Santo was probably more interested in the social kudos that would arise from the Duke’s presence in his house than any possible political dividend, but the Germans must have been grateful to find the Duke installed in the home of one of their supporters.
In spite of Hoare’s kind words, the Windsors do not seem to have learned great discretion during their stay in Madrid. On 20 July Herbert Pell, the American Minister, dined at Espírito Santo’s house and reported that they were outspoken against the British government. ‘Consider their presence in the United States might be disturbing and confusing,’ cabled Pell. They spoke of remaining abroad whether Churchill liked it or not ‘and desire apparently to make propaganda for peace’.24 An even odder conversation was recorded, though at second hand, by Marcus Cheke, who was a junior secretary in the British Embassy at the time. According to this the Duke predicted the fall of the Churchill government and its replacement by a Labour government which would negotiate peace with the Germans. The King would abdicate, there would be a virtual revolution, and he (the Duke) would be recalled. Britain would then lead a coalition of France, Spain and Portugal, and Germany would be left free to march on Russia. These ideas, said Cheke’s informant, were ‘put into the head of HRH by Frenchmen and Spaniards (not Germans with whom he had no contact) who were playing Germany’s game’.25 Hoyningen-Huene, the German Ambassador in Lisbon, told Ribbentrop that the Duke spoke freely in favour of compromise and said that the bombing of England would soon make it ready for peace.26 (Here too the Duke wrote an indignant ‘NO’ in the margin when he eventually saw the report.)27
Even though one can believe that such reports were dramatized by the hearers, it is obvious that the Duke was speaking wildly and foolishly and must have seemed a dangerous liability to the unfortunate Selby. David Eccles, who was working for the Ministry of Economic Warfare in Lisbon, was more responsible than anyone for keeping official tabs on the conduct of the royal visitor. ‘I distrust the Duke of Windsor,’ was his first reaction. ‘… I shall watch him at breakfast, lunch and dinner with a critical eye.’ After his first lunch at Cascais his suspicions were confirmed. ‘I wouldn’t give ten shillings for Wallis, she is a poor creature,’ he wrote. ‘He’s pretty fifth-column.’ Then he partially relented: ‘I am being seduced by the Windsors who have made a dead set at me, and by heaven when they turn their united charm on, it is hard to resist … They are the arch beach-combers of the world.’28
The extravagance of the Duke’s outbursts against the government reflected the progress or lack of it in the embittered arguments that were dragging on about his future. The King was emphatic that his brother must come home before anything could be decided. ‘I suspect “she” does not want to come here to be bombed and “she” hates flying,’ he told Queen Mary. There could be no question of the family meeting the Duchess.29 Hardinge encouraged this obduracy. ‘It is incredible to haggle in such a way at this time,’ he agreed with Churchill. With the King’s enthusiastic support, the Prime Minister sent off ‘a very stiff telegram’,30 which was awaiting the Duke when he arrived in Lisbon. It reminded him that he was a soldier and that his refusal to obey orders would create a serious situation. ‘I most strongly urge immediate compliance with wishes of Government,’ Churchill concluded.31 The Duke’s furious response was to draft a reply resigning all his military ranks. Before he could send it, however, an olive branch arrived from London; relieving him of an unpleasant choice between eating his words or sitting out the rest of the war in comfortable ignominy at Ronda.
The idea that the Duke might be found some sort of job overseas had been considered for some time in London. It had at one time been suggested that he could be accommodated on Wavell’s staff in Cairo.32 Then Churchill had a better idea. The Dominions did not want him but could not some colony be found which he could govern? He put it to the King, who ‘at once said that “she” would be and obstacle as David’s wife’.33 George VI did not think this ruled out the possibility, however, and Churchill discussed the matter in Cabinet and then ordered the Colonial Secretary, Lord Lloyd, to scour the world for a suitable territory. Dubiously Lloyd suggested the Bahamas: small, reasonably salubrious, and not of much significance. Churchill leapt at the idea, whereupon Lloyd had second thoughts. As Lascelles’s brother-in-law he had had ample opportunity over the last decade to hear bad things about the Duke of Windsor; now he decided he would be more dangerous in a colony than at home. He formally placed his objections on record.34 Churchill brushed them aside. ‘Do you think he’ll take it?’ he asked Lord Beaverbrook, who happened to be there when the telegram was drafted. ‘Sure he will, and he’ll find it a great relief.’ ‘Not half as much as his brother will,’ replied Churchill.35
No one was enthusiastic about the appointment. The Duke must have some sort of job, the King told his mother, ‘and though there may be criticism and the Bahamian ladies won’t like it,’ it was at least better than having him at home.36 Halifax echoed the thought; a good plan, he conceded, but ‘I am sorry for the Bahamas’.37 The Countess of Athlone could see no virtue in the plan and felt that it proved ‘terrible treachery’ and ‘horrible machinations’ were at work at home. ‘If David could not be King because of that wife, how can he be the King’s representative?’ she asked. He would be King himself next, or worse still he might decide to visit the Athlones at Government House in Ottawa. What grounds could they give for refusing to receive the Duchess if he did? ‘None! … Oh dear, oh dear, the future is going to be more and more difficult. Knowing the nice old-fashioned people of the Bahamas I can picture their distress and the joy of the vulgar drinking Americans who will flock there more than ever.’38 The Duke of Kent professed to feel that his brother had behaved disgracefully: ‘to accept to be Governor of a small place like that is fantastic!’39 Queen Mary would not even accept that the appointment had been intended. The whole thing, she believed, arose from a misunderstanding between Churchill and the Duke. The Duke had asked if he could be found a house to retire to in the Bahamas, Churchill had got hold of the wrong end of the stick and made him Governor. ‘A great mistake to my mind on account of her.’40
It cannot be said that the offer was accepted more enthusiastically than it was made. The proposal was ‘anything but welcomed and was in fact most heart-breaking for both of us’, the Duchess told Alexandra Metcalfe.41 But it was a solution to his problem. It would be a job in the service of his country, and however defeatist he might sometimes have sounded, his patriotism need never have been in question. There was not any real doubt that he would accept the Bahamas; but that did not mean he would not make himself thoroughly difficult while the details of his appointment were being worked out.
There is no news at 10 Downing Street ‘apart from the fact that the Duke of Windsor is being cantankerous and maddening’, wrote Churchill’s secretary, Jock Colville, gloomily in his diary.42 There were two themes on which the Duke elected to madden the Prime Minister. The first, and least justifiable, was whether he should be allowed to reclaim his soldier servants from active service and take them with him to the Bahamas. When the War Office demurred he sent his comptroller Phillips, who happened to be in London, to see the Prime Minister and explain that it would be a ‘serious handicap starting with new valet’, and that Piper Alistair Fletcher must be released.43 It is difficult to decide which was the more frivolous: to seek to remove a young and able-bodied soldier from the Army in wartime, or to pester the Prime Minister on such a matter in July 1940. The Duke, however, had convinced himself that he had been pushed around beyond the limits of endurance, and was determined to make a stand; on what issue it did not really matter. Churchill replied, with commendable restraint, that it was out of the question to release soldiers from the Army for such a purpose. ‘Such a step would be viewed with general disapprobation in times like these, and I should ill serve Your Royal Highness by countenancing it.’44 Lloyd, now evidently once more committed to the Duke’s appointment, pleaded that Churchill should relent. He had discussed the matter with Lascelles and Monckton and both stressed that ‘HRH had to be treated as a petulant baby, and that there was a by no means remote possibility that he was prepared to force a break on this subject’.45 Churchill was unmoved. He must have been equally unimpressed by the intercepted telegram from the Duchess of Windsor to Gray Phillips expressing alarm at the government’s obstinacy over the soldier servants – ‘if treatment persists and obstacles put in way, am afraid of outcome’.46 Hardinge saw the telegram and commented balefully: ‘This is not the first time that the lady has come under suspicion for her anti-British activity, and as long as we never forget the power that she can exert on him in her efforts to avenge herself on this country, we shall be all right.’47
Another issue on which the Duke had rather better grounds for complaint simultaneously came to the boil. The Duke had set his heart on travelling to the Bahamas by way of New York, so as to do some shopping and allow his wife to see her doctors. Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador, took alarm: ‘If he visits New York there will inevitably be a great deal of publicity, much of which will be of an icy character and which will have a most unfortunate effect at the present juncture.’48 The Duke had already booked his passage on the SS Excalibur, which sailed direct to New York; the Foreign Office offered to pay the shipping line all the costs of diverting the ship to Bermuda, expected to be between $15,000 and $20,000.49 Suddenly the Duke found his jaunt to New York cancelled. He wrote in rage to Churchill: ‘Have been messed about quite long enough and detect in Foreign Office attitude the very same hands at work as in my last job. Strongly urge you to support the arrangements I have made, otherwise will have to reconsider my position.’50 Always a pragmatist when he had to be, Churchill calculated that something must be conceded. The government could not agree to the Duke going to New York at this period, he telegraphed, ‘but I have now succeeded in overcoming War Office objection to departure of Fletcher’.51 With this partial victory the Duke had to be content.
With the problems resolved and the post formally accepted, messages of good will were exchanged on all sides. Nassau had a lovely climate and a flow of interesting visitors, Churchill reassured the Duke. ‘I am sure that Your Royal Highness and the Duchess will lend a distinction and a dignity to the Governorship.’52 The King too wrote sympathetically. He was so glad his brother had accepted the post, he said: ‘Winston and I both saw the difficulty of your coming here, and I am sure you realized it as well. I am afraid you have had a good deal of trouble in arranging the journey … I have seen all your telegrams to Winston. Fletcher is returning to you after all. There was a muddle made over him … Do please write to me from the Bahamas as to your doings there,’ was the King’s conclusion; an invitation of which the Duke rarely availed himself.53
While this acrimonious bickering was going on, the Germans had been working to ensure that the journey never took place. On 11 July Ribbentrop sent instructions to Stohrer stressing the importance of inducing the Duke to return to Spain. Once there, he was to be persuaded, or if necessary compelled, to stay there and to be wooed with promises of a return to the throne after the Churchill clique had been overthrown and peace restored by German arms. Ribbentrop claimed to have proof that the British Secret Service planned to do away with the Duke once they had got him safely to the Bahamas; whether he himself believed this fantasy, or merely thought that it might frighten the Duke if passed back to him by the Spaniards, must remain uncertain.54 As part of the softening-up operation, the Duchess was allowed to despatch her maid, Jeanne-Marguerite Moulichon, to Paris to collect certain of her mistress’s most treasured possessions. Through the Spanish Foreign Ministry the Duke had already requested that his houses in Paris and at Cap d’Antibes should be looked after by the Germans for the duration of the war,55 now he compounded this already deplorable indiscretion by allowing his wife to send an emissary into the heart of German-occupied France so as to suit their personal convenience. The Germans can hardly be blamed for thinking that he must be in a mood to serve their ends in more important ways. Mademoiselle Moulichon’s mission was spun out almost indefinitely, to her own great alarm and discomfort, thus providing another reason why the Windsors should delay their departure from Europe.
As an emissary to persuade the Duke of the benefits of a return to Spain and the perils of a journey to the Bahamas, Don Miguel Primo de Rivera, the amiable but light-weight son of the former dictator, was despatched to Cascais. His efforts, the Duke recollected many years later, were ‘distinctly half-hearted … I suspect that he realized he was up against a “stone wall” from the outset of his mission’.56 To judge from Primo de Rivera’s account of their meetings, admittedly at third hand as passed on by Don Miguel to the Spanish Minister of the Interior, Serrano Suñer, and thence to Stohrer, the wall was not as stony as all that. The Duke spoke with striking frankness about his lack of enthusiasm for the government in London, described the King as totally stupid ‘reichlich töricht’ and the Queen as a clever intriguer, appeared enthusiastic about the idea of returning to live in Spain, and said that he was considering making a public declaration of his opposition to present British policy.57 (The Duke denied that he spoke of making any such public declaration when he saw a copy of Stohrer’s report in 1953.)58 When Primo de Rivera suggested that the Duke of Windsor might one day return to the throne of Britain, the Duke replied that constitutionally this would be impossible. But if Britain lost the war, Don Miguel argued, even the British constitution would not be inviolate. At this ‘the Duchess in particular became very thoughtful’.59
Meanwhile Ribbentrop decided to reinforce the efforts of his Ambassadors by sending an energetic young SS officer, Walter Schellenberg, to mount an operation to get the Duke back to Spain. In his self-serving yet not unconvincing memoirs, Schellenberg has described how he was summoned by Ribbentrop and told that the Duke was a German sympathizer who needed to be rescued from the grasp of the British Secret Service, by coercion if no other method offered. Schellenberg asked how it would help to coerce the Duke into leaving Portugal if his future usefulness depended on his good will towards Germany. Ribbentrop explained that force would be necessary only insofar as the Duke’s hesitation ‘might be based on a fear psychosis which forceful action on our part would help him to overcome’. Schellenberg was empowered to offer to deposit fifty million Swiss francs in a Spanish bank account if the Duke would make some statement disassociating himself from official British policy – and there would be more to follow if that proved insufficient.60
Schellenberg states that the more he looked into the project, the more convinced he became that it was all based on casual remarks by the Duke which had no real significance. When he got to Lisbon he found that this view was shared by the German Ambassador, Hoyningen-Huene. He did his duty manfully, however; suborned the Portuguese police, placed his own men in the Windsors’ household, and tried to foment the Duke’s anxiety by hiring ruffians to throw stones at his windows and having a bouquet delivered at the house with a note reading: ‘Beware of the machinations of the British Secret Service – a Portuguese friend who has your interests at heart.’61 An elaborate scheme was worked out, by which the Windsors would leave Lisbon for a shooting holiday on the Portuguese border and then step, or be moved forcibly over the frontier into Spain.62 Schellenberg also told the Portuguese that a bomb was to be placed in the ship carrying the Duke to the Bahamas, a rumour that was duly passed on to the putative victim and caused much alarm. On 24 July Primo de Rivera applied what was intended to be the final touch to the conspiracy with a letter from Madrid setting out the appalling risks the Windsors were running at the hands of British Secret Service agents, and explaining the plan by which they could escape to Spain. Having thus escaped the clutches of their enemies, the Windsors could settle in Spain in dignified retirement, move on to any other neutral country or, if they wished, proceed to England. According to the emissary who delivered the letter, the Duke read and reread it but made no comment beyond saying that he must think it over.63
Enough was known in London about what was going on to cause some alarm. If the Duke changed his mind about the Bahamas and decided to retire to Spain it would, to say the least, cause much embarrassment. Hoare cabled Selby in dismay at rumours that the Duke was coming back to Madrid to launch a peace initiative. ‘I much hope you will dissuade HRH from coming here,’ he wrote.64 According to Monckton there was doubt in Whitehall about whether the Duke would take up his post as Governor and, if he did, what his frame of mind would be: ‘So I was sent out on what turned out to be another very odd job.’65 Late in the evening of 28 July Monckton landed at Lisbon. Schellenberg reported that an English minister travelling under the name of Sir Walter Turner Monckstone was said to have arrived but that he was too crafty to be taken in by such an obvious subterfuge: ‘It is possible,’ he surmised, ‘that it concerns a member of the personal police of the reigning King by the name of Camerone.’66
Monckton/Monckstone/Camerone found the Duke in a muddled and demoralized condition. He did not believe that the British Secret Service were really plotting his assassination, but who could be sure of anything in these dark days? He was unhappy about the prospect of a return to Spain, yet might it not perhaps be the best course from the point of view of his own long-term future? He felt there was a real risk that the Germans were planning to murder him once he got to the Bahamas, even if it was only so as to throw the blame on the British. How could he be protected from such a menace? He suggested his departure should be postponed by another two or three weeks. Monckton injected some robust common sense into the welter of irresolution and apprehension. What could the possible motive be for an assassination plot? he asked. There was not a shred of evidence that it existed except in the mind of Primo de Rivera and the Germans. If it would help, the Duke could be accompanied on the journey by a Scotland Yard detective. Further delay would only increase whatever risk there might be.67 At the same time he tried to convince the Duke that Britain was determined to continue the war and believed in the end it would win. Monckton went to Lisbon to tell the Duke ‘about the government policy here, which I gather was rather different from his ideas as to what we ought to do’, King George VI told Hoare.68
Once Monckton had arrived the always slight possibility of the Duke failing to take up his appointment in the Bahamas disappeared altogether. Primo de Rivera made one last effort to persuade him to put off his departure until the facts of the plot against his life had been fully established. Monckton demanded to know what evidence there was that the plot existed. Primo de Rivera said that names and details would be forthcoming in ten or twelve days. Monckton countered that in that case the Windsors would sail as planned. If the plot were a reality there would be time enough to stop them when they reached Bermuda. The Duke was convinced that there would only be the smallest risk in his proceeding, certainly less great than that involved by his remaining in Lisbon. The Windsors sailed at 3 p.m. on 1 August on the Excalibur.
The story was not quite over. Two days after their departure Stohrer reported that up to the last moment they had been in two minds as to whether or not to sail. The Duke had told Espírito Santo that he saw in many ways it would have been better for him to have remained in Europe, ‘so as to be able to step in at the decisive moment’. He believed, however, that he would still be able to do this from the Bahamas if need arose.69 A fortnight later Hoyningen-Huene cabled from Lisbon to say that Espírito Santo had received a telegram from the Duke in Bermuda, ‘asking him to send a communication as soon as action was advisable’.70 If Espírito Santo was reported – and reporting – faithfully, then it would suggest the Duke was foreseeing the possibility that Britain might soon be on the verge of defeat, and that the intervention of a mediator acceptable to both sides would then become essential if total destruction were to be avoided. In such a crisis, he might have been such a man. Espírito Santo was not a particularly reliable witness and would have wished to make his reports to the German Ambassador as palatable as possible. The second message is particularly suspect. As Michael Bloch has argued, why should the Duke send from Bermuda a telegram which he must have known would be intercepted by the British and was calculated to arouse the darkest suspicions of the authorities. His behaviour would be odder still, since the message did nothing except confirm an arrangement that, if Espírito Santo is to be believed, had already been agreed at a meeting only two weeks before.71 Whether there was any message, and if so what it said and what it meant, remains singularly obscure. But even though the details can be questioned and the extent of the Duke’s indiscretion minimized, there seems little doubt that he did think Britain was likely to lose the war and that, in such a case, he believed he might have a role to play.
Enough was known about these visions in London to raise grave doubts about the Duke of Windsor’s loyalty. Hardinge made notes from an intelligence report: ‘Germans expect assistance from Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Latter desiring at any price to become Queen. Germans have been negotiating with her since June 27th. Status quo in England except for undertaking to form anti-Russian alliance. German purpose to form Opposition Government under Duke of Windsor, having first changed public opinion by propaganda. Germans think King George will abdicate during attack on London.’72 Hardinge was more than ready to believe the worst of his former monarch, and to assume that he would not merely have accepted such a role if it had been offered him by the Germans but would have rejoiced in the disaster to his country which opened the way for him.
Lord Caldecote, the Secretary of State for the Dominions, was no more charitable. When called on by the Prime Minister to prepare a draft to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers announcing the Duke’s appointment as Governor of the Bahamas he put forward: ‘The activities of the Duke of Windsor on the Continent in recent months have been causing His Majesty and myself grave uneasiness as his inclinations are well known to be pro-Nazi and he may become a centre of intrigue. We regard it as a real danger that he should move freely on the Continent.’ Churchill scratched this out and substituted: ‘The position of the Duke of Windsor in recent months has been causing His Majesty and His Majesty’s Government embarrassment, as though his loyalties are unimpeachable, there is always a backwash of Nazi intrigue which seeks to make trouble about him.’73 It was Churchill’s version that was sent out to the leaders of the Commonwealth, and was sent by Halifax to Roosevelt in a slightly modified form.74
Churchill was perhaps too benevolent, but he was nearer the mark than Caldecote. A great many people believed in June and July 1940 that Britain was likely to lose the war. The Duke’s fault was that he said so aloud, and not just to his fellow countrymen. He did not do so to Britain’s enemies, however; all the evidence is that he had no direct contact with any representative of Germany or Italy, that he believed the Spaniards and Portuguese to whom he spoke supported the British cause, or at least were anxious above all to see peace restored, and that even to these his outbursts were infrequent. One such outburst was too many, and the Duke repeated the offence, but he never consciously aided the enemy cause.
The crucial though hypothetical question is: what would the Duke have done if Germany had invaded and conquered Britain? Would he have joined whatever might be left of Britain’s government in exile? Would he have done what he could to secure better terms for his defeated country but remained abroad himself? Or would he have allowed himself to be placed back on the throne as a Nazi puppet? It is unlikely that even the Duke had thought through how he would react in such dire circumstances. All one can do is base a surmise on the flimsy grounds of psychological speculation. Everything that is known of the Duke’s character – his obstinacy, his pride, his courage, his conviction that with all their faults the British were the best of peoples – suggests that he would never have played the traitor’s part. He may have longed to get his own back on his relations and have deplored the policies of the government, but he had always been and remained a patriot. He could not have allowed himself to rule by favour of the Germans over a sullen and resentful people. The case can so obviously not be proven one way or the other that it is hardly worth lengthy argument: one can only state as a matter of personal conviction that though the Duke of Windsor can fairly from time to time be dubbed defeatist, silly, irresponsible, indiscreet, he never hoped for the downfall of his fellow countrymen and would never have agreed to be imposed upon them by German arms. Ribbentrop deluded himself; the British can count themselves fortunate that the circumstances never arose in which he would have discovered his mistake.