The traditional view of Churchill during the Second World War is of a patriotic, energetic man who combined tactical acumen with the ability to make rousing and poetic speeches that inspired his people. Even allowing for exaggeration and distortion by propaganda, there is much truth in this perception of the man regularly voted the greatest Briton who ever lived.
However, at the start of 1942, the situation was the most difficult it had been since he became prime minister in May 1940. He had suffered a mild heart attack while in the US after addressing Congress, and ignored the advice of his doctor to take several weeks’ rest. Instead he returned to Britain to face discontent from both politicians and the press. He dealt with the former with typical defiance, but the latter proved harder to conquer, even though as a former war correspondent himself, he knew the importance of presenting a clear and simple story in an accessible fashion. He may have informed the king that he was confident of ultimate victory now that the USA had entered on their side – in his words, the UK and USA were now ‘married’ after many months of ‘walking out’1 – but after months of unconditional support, the newspapers had wearied of praise, and as the war entered its third year, deference gave way to anger.
‘It is a fact that we can lose the war. It is a fact that today we are losing it.’ So the Daily Mirror stated on 16 February. In its editorial, it railed against ‘over-confident, old-fashioned minds [muddling on]’, and announced, ‘it is the Government that needs warning’.* The Daily Mail was even more trenchant. It attacked Churchill personally, contrasting the prime minister who inspired and led the nation through Dunkirk and other European disasters with the figure who stood before them now. It even asked, with angry whimsy, whether there were in fact two Churchills, and stated that ‘with the second Mr Churchill, the nation is perplexed’.
The reason for the discontent expressed by the newspapers was the fall of Singapore on 15 February, when 85,000 British soldiers surrendered to a smaller Japanese force. It was a humiliating sequel to the events of Pearl Harbor; Churchill himself described it as ‘the greatest military disaster in recent history’. The king wrote in his diary, upon hearing the news, that he was ‘very depressed about everything … perhaps our way of living has been too comfortable of late years, there was no thought of war in it anyhow’,2 and elaborated on this in a letter to his mother. ‘I am very depressed about the loss of Singapore and the fact that we were not able to prevent the 5 German ships from getting through the Channel†.’ He concluded that ‘We are going through a bad phase at the moment, and it will take all our energies to stop adverse comment and criticism from the Press and others.’3
If there were any further doubts on the king’s part that his prime minister was the appropriate man for the job, they were dispelled by Hardinge. Although the private secretary had had his differences with Churchill around the time of the abdication, when they had found themselves on opposite sides, Hardinge was able to reassure his monarch that he had spoken with Eden and others, and that their unanimous verdict was ‘Winston is the right, and indeed the only, person to lead the country through the war.’4
He suggested, however, that combining the offices of prime minister and minister of defence was too onerous for one man, and the king broached this with Churchill at lunch on 17 February. His premier responded bullishly. He was embarrassed by the attack he faced from the hitherto loyal press, and the king wrote in his diary that ‘[Winston] is very angry about all this, & compares it to hunting the tiger with angry wasps about him.’ He reported Churchill saying, ‘I do wish that people would get on with the job & not criticise all the time’, but told the prime minister that he would have to watch his health.5
Yet both men knew that even in times of war, the purpose of the press was to sell newspapers. Without good news to report, they would turn on the prime minister as the most prominent scapegoat. The queen complained to Helen Hardinge that ‘perhaps we ought to clean up our journalists before we start on our task of reforming the world … they judge everyone by their own very low standard, and make it difficult for the ordinary man or woman to quite trust them as prophets or leaders of thought’, and half jokingly suggested that ‘I long to start scholarships for those intending to become journalists, and perhaps we might raise the standard a little, if the owners (who are to blame) would agree’,6 but the press could not simply be ignored.
It was no coincidence that Churchill agreed to reshuffle his government, ceding his leadership of the House of Commons to Anthony Eden and bringing the Labour politician Stafford Cripps into his War Cabinet. A further nod to the opposition came in his appointment of the Labour leader Clement Attlee as deputy prime minister. Had Churchill’s heart attack a couple of months before been more widely known about, Attlee may have expected to assume office sooner than he did.
The greater presence of Labour politicians in the Cabinet led to another change in personnel. Beaverbrook had served within the War Cabinet since Churchill’s appointment in May 1940, and his roles had included Minister of Aircraft Production, and Minister of Supply. In February 1942, he was appointed to the new role of Minister of War Production. The title sounded impressive, but he came up against the Labour politician Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service, who mistrusted Beaverbrook and denied him the chance to have any autonomous influence on his department. The media magnate resigned in a fit of pique after a mere twelve days in his post.
The king, who had remained opposed to Beaverbrook, was sanguine about his departure. He wrote in his diary on 19 February, ‘I am glad Winston has been prevailed upon to make [the changes] before and not after the debate [of confidence in the government]. The House of Commons wants Winston to lead them; but they don’t like the way he treats them. He likes getting his own way with no interference from anybody and nobody will stand for that sort of treatment in this country. Everybody wants to help him with his job, & they understand his responsibilities in leading them in this total war.’7 He was more explicit to Halifax, referring to the ‘worrying time’ that he had faced due to the criticism of Churchill in the papers. He complained, ‘if only the press would play fair and give them a chance to get results’. The unspoken rejoinder was that Churchill had had nearly two years in power. Although he had proved himself a master of rhetoric, what the country now needed was military success.
Even the prime minister felt uncertain as to what would now happen. Atypically, the king reported him as being ‘gloomy about the future, as he cannot see how we can reinforce any part of the world sufficiently’, and asked ‘can we stick together in the face of all this adversity? We must somehow.’8 Churchill was not in good health, and even as the monarch counselled rest for his premier, he once again professed himself disheartened by the situation. ‘Anything can happen, & it will be wonderful if we can be lucky anywhere.’9 There was even the previously unthinkable suggestion that with France under Pétain, Britain would find itself at war with its neighbour for the first time since 1815.
The Americans had joined the war, as desired, but it would take some time for their physical presence to be felt, and even longer for it to make any real difference. As Churchill unsuccessfully urged military commanders in South East Asia to fight to the last man and to refuse to surrender, citing the bravery of the Soviets who were battling Hitler, he seemed a diminished presence. Chips Channon, admittedly no partisan, described him in his diary on 25 February as speaking with a scowl, and concluded that ‘[Winston] has lost the house.’10
Channon was not the only one who pronounced him doomed. Appeasement had been becalmed since 1940, but whispers that a negotiated peace with Germany might still be the best option could be heard again in members’ clubs and Mayfair houses. If the talk did not move beyond whispers, that was only because, with Chamberlain dead and Halifax in America, there was no champion for such a path in the War Cabinet. But the status quo seemed untenable too. As Cosmo Lang prepared to retire as Archbishop of Canterbury, he suggested that 29 March – Palm Sunday – should be designated a national day of prayer. The king liked the idea, but Churchill was unimpressed. He snorted, ‘If we can’t bloody well fight, we’d better pray.’11
There were some minor things that could be done for public relations purposes. Princess Elizabeth was appointed colonel of the Grenadier Guards on her sixteenth birthday on 21 April, and she took the role characteristically seriously, conducting an inspection of the regiment at Windsor Castle that day: it was her first official public engagement. She conducted herself with confidence, perhaps too much so; one officer remarked to Crawfie, after the princess made some criticisms of the Grenadiers in slightly too loud a voice, that ‘the first requisite of a really good officer is to be able to temper justice with mercy’.12
Churchill, meanwhile, suggested to the king in January that he should visit Northern Ireland to meet the American troops who were arriving there, with a view to distributing films of the occasion via newsreels, which he believed would be useful for both American and European propaganda purposes. And the Duke of Gloucester, who had recently become a father for the first time, was dispatched in April on a long military tour of places in Africa, India and the Middle East. The aim was to remind the Commonwealth and its troops that they had not been forgotten by the royal family, nor by the country itself. As the duke, whom his eldest brother had caustically nicknamed ‘the Unknown Soldier’, put it in unassuming fashion, ‘It might do more good than harm.’13 Once on his travels, he was kept away from the dangers of the German advance, and instead spent much of his time drinking whisky in official residences and offering deathless insights. He reported to a no doubt astonished king that ‘the desert is a very healthy place, except during an actual battle’.14
Yet it said much for the febrile atmosphere that while Gloucester was gazing at the desert, one Conservative MP, Sir John Wardlaw-Milne, attempted to force Churchill’s dismissal via a vote of no confidence. The prime minister had been a less confident performer in the Commons in the early months of 1942, leading Channon to describe him as ‘uneasy, halting, almost inarticulate’15 on 12 April. As the so-called Baedeker raids wreaked havoc on Britain’s historic cities, including Norwich, Exeter and Bath, the prime minister’s reputation showed few signs of recovery.
Hardinge had suggested to Monckton in March that ‘we have had a thoroughly dreary time here lately. One set-back after another gave the disgruntled in Parliament and the press … the chance of excessive criticism … the result of such an abuse of our freedom of the press has been a temporary loss of confidence among the people in the competence of their leaders’. He hinted at an authoritarian attitude when he complained that ‘a large section of the press seems unable to see that their “freedom”, if carried to excess, ceases to be a healthy symbol of democracy and becomes a deadly boomerang by creating doubts and thereby undermining morale’, before hoping that ‘this unpleasant phase is now passing’.*16
Despite Hardinge and the queen being united against a free press, the papers were nevertheless fulfilling their democratic function by allowing dissatisfaction with politicians to be voiced. Had the complaints gathered momentum, they might have caused damage to the government and to Churchill himself. Yet Wardlaw-Milne had pitched his tent in the wrong camp. He announced that in order to restore public faith in the conduct of the war, it was time for a new commander-in-chief of the British forces. His nominee was none other than the Duke of Gloucester.
The suggestion was risible. Channon wrote of the ‘disrespectful laughter’ that the proposal engendered, and noted, ‘I at once saw Winston’s face light up, as if a lamp had been lit within him, and he smiled genially. He knew now that he had been saved.’17 Only a matter of a few days before, Churchill’s friend and confidant Bob Boothby had had a tense meeting with him. Boothby later commented that ‘It was the only time in the whole of the war that I saw [Churchill] looking really anxious, because the only thing in the world he feared was Parliament.’ Now his fears were extinguished.
If Wardlaw-Milne had been a stooge, his suggestion, delivered without the knowledge or approval of Gloucester,* could not have served Churchill better. The proposal was defeated by 475 votes to 25, and the prime minister’s reputation, at its lowest point in his premiership, was saved. Churchill’s own assessment of the scheme was that ‘the combination of a Supreme War Commander with almost unlimited powers and his association with a Royal Duke seemed to have some flavour of dictatorship about it’.18 It also returned the press to his side. The New Statesman described Wardlaw-Milne’s scheme as ‘fantastic and preposterous’, and noted that nobody ‘at this grave crisis in our history [could think that] the appointment as Commander-in-Chief of a Royal Duke is a suitable remedy’.19 The implication was clear. Churchill had been warned, but without any better candidate for prime minister, he would not face another challenge. There would be no further vote of no confidence in him for the remainder of the war. By 28 April, the king was able to report with relief that ‘Winston was happier about things in general’, as he noted, ‘German civilian morale is not too good.’20
It was a rare moment of relief. Throughout the spring and early summer of 1942, Churchill and Roosevelt were engaged in planning for the foundation of an American-backed second front in Europe, hoping to relieve some of the pressure from the Soviets. Churchill had quipped to Colville that ‘if Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons’, but now he was obliged to bring Stalin and Roosevelt into operations, if not in person: the two men were hardly natural allies. And the king was kept involved too. He shook off any resentment he had felt towards the president to tell him on 11 March, ‘Though it will take time & great effort on all our parts to prepare, the final issue i.e. victory is without any doubt to be with us.’21
In April, the king was reunited with Hopkins, who continued to serve as Roosevelt’s representative on earth, or at least in Britain. At one lunch with Churchill, Hopkins and Alan Brooke, the prime minister’s military adviser and chief of the Imperial General Staff, there was a discussion of German strategy. Brooke suggested that Hitler was likely to attack Cyprus and Syria and concentrate his efforts against the eastern Mediterranean, meaning that for the first time since the war began, the theatre of conflict would shift away from Europe and towards Africa. This meant that an Anglo-American invasion of Europe, which Stalin was pressing for, would not happen in 1942 or 1943. Instead, by July, the Allied powers had decided that North Africa would become the scene for Operation Torch, which would take place that autumn.
Churchill, recognising that Stalin would be angered by this development, decided to head to Moscow himself to discuss military matters. Before his departure, the king wrote to him with his usual warmth, as a comrade-in-arms. Saluting his ‘epoch-making’ mission, he said, ‘I shall follow your journey with the greatest interest & shall be more than delighted when you are safely home again. As I have told you before, your welfare means a great deal not only to the United Nations, but to me personally.’ He signed himself ‘your very sincere and grateful friend’, prompting Churchill to write to him by hand to thank him: ‘Always sir you are [very] good to me … I trust indeed and pray that this journey of mine will be fruitful.’*22
The monarch had written to Monckton earlier in the year to discuss the departure of the Egyptian King Farouk, which the lawyer had assisted in facilitating. The king speculated, ‘I don’t suppose it has ever fallen to the lot of one man to have had to prepare two instruments of abdication in his life time.’ As he acknowledged that ‘your job of propaganda must be getting harder and harder to put overseeing the position we have got into in the Far East’, he declared, ‘we cannot be fighting battles everywhere at once’. He affirmed his solidarity with the prime minister (‘Winston has had a bad time with all the misplaced criticism he has had to put up with … he has the country solidly behind him’) and acknowledged his own fears. ‘I have been very worried over this & other events of late, but one has to steel oneself against getting depressed.’ There was also a lighter moment for both men. The king told Monckton that ‘I gave the Queen your “love and duty”, at which she was both surprised and pleased. I wonder if you did not mean “loyal duty”! Anyhow it made us laugh.’23 The relief was much needed.
Meanwhile, the king’s assistant private secretary, Tommy Lascelles, decided to resume writing a diary. It began on 2 June, as he sat in Buckingham Palace listening to the construction of a new air raid shelter and looking at the cellophane that had replaced the glass blown out of the windows in the previous year’s attacks. Despite the less than tranquil surroundings, he felt philosophical. ‘Today is the first [day] this year that can be compared to a summer’s day – it is indeed a perfect one; coming as it does with a spell of good news,* it makes one wonder if the almost unalleviated sombreness and anxiety of the past two and a half years may not be beginning to lift.’
There were few rational grounds for Lascelles’ optimism. Hitler was still dominant throughout Europe, Churchill was beleaguered and large parts of Britain had been reduced to rubble. The notable military engagements of the past two years had been defeats, and now that America had finally entered the war, there were no further dei ex machina that might lead to victory. In late October, the king summarised the events of the past three years in downbeat fashion. ‘Much has happened since I started this volume 8 months ago … most of its contents are very depressing reading as very few of our military expeditions were successful … I hope that the next volume will contain some more exhilarating news of a success or two.’24
Thankfully, it would. Lascelles epitomised the spirit many felt. The country had been bombed, brutalised and battered. But it had not been beaten. The glass had been blown away, and the usual trappings and formality of Buckingham Palace replaced by the noisy banging of workmen. Yet still it stood, the symbolic representation of Britain, undaunted by everything that had battered it over the previous thirty-three months.
Had Lascelles known that in a further thirty-three months the war would be all but over, he might have allowed himself triumphalism, assuming that he did not have to ask ‘Which side won?’
Thousands of miles away, a similar question occupied the thoughts of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. While Wallis was relieved that America had finally entered the war, writing to her aunt Bessie to say, ‘[it] is better than being on the outside … just think what a real fight it is going to be after the peace’,25 the duke moaned to Allen that ‘with Japan’s unparalleled treachery and the entry of the United States into the war, the Bahamas winter tourist season dies a natural death’.26 Although he acknowledged that ‘these are only local hardships and easy to bear as compared to the lot of most other countries’, it demonstrated the regal detachment with which he viewed a conflict that he believed his country should never have entered into.
He occupied himself with local matters, which he executed with a mixture of weariness and occasional interest. Yet America’s entry into the war had an unwelcome side effect, and that was the renewed scrutiny that Axel Wenner-Gren would now be placed under.
FBI surveillance of Wenner-Gren had continued, but although there were fears that he had visited Peru the previous summer with a view to investing his millions in South American projects, potentially backed by German money, there was no hard evidence against him. He was seen as dubious, but while America remained ostensibly neutral, he could hardly be described as an enemy alien. Edward had even attempted to intercede to support his proposed purchase of a large section of the Bahamas. This led Halifax to comment on the ‘awkward repercussions’ of the duke’s involvement, given that MI5 and the Admiralty believed that Wenner-Gren possessed ‘doubtful political proclivities’. The Foreign Office responded that the matter was ‘of some delicacy’ because of Edward and Wenner-Gren’s friendship, and noted that ‘the Duke is well aware that Wenner-Gren is regarded with some suspicion both here and in the United States of America but he does not himself share those suspicions’.27 Washington, meanwhile, described the idea as ‘thoroughly undesirable’, not least because Wenner-Gren continued to make remarks suggesting that the war was a tragedy and that he could intercede and bring peace to the world. The press caustically referred to him as ‘Göring’s pal’.
Matters changed after Pearl Harbor. On 14 January 1942, Wenner-Gren was placed on a ‘Proclaimed List of Blocked Nationals’ by the American State Department. This made suspicion against him official, and prevented him from entering America, being allowed to do any business with the country’s citizens or being able to make use of his Electrolux assets there. The British government, under diplomatic pressure from their allies, issued a similar edict. Wenner-Gren was now castigated as a Nazi sympathiser and a collaborator, and his reputation was destroyed. It was rumoured that Roosevelt had been personally responsible for placing him on the blacklist.
This left the duke in a quandary. He was loyal to his friends, and Wenner-Gren had been one of the few people in the Bahamas with whom he was able to consort on equal terms. It helped that Wenner-Gren’s financial expertise had been available to prop up his governorship. But Edward was now deprived of both friend and cash. Given persistent rumours in America of his own ambiguous sympathies,* he was unable to offer the support to Wenner-Gren that he may have wished. The closest he could do was to issue a statement in his role as governor denying the suggestion that the industrialist’s home at Hog Island was a clandestine hotbed of fascism. It stated, ‘As a result of continuous rumours to the effect that there are various forms of secret facilities available to the enemy on the Wenner-Gren estate on Hog Island … a most thorough search … has failed to reveal the existence of anything of a suspicious nature.’28
But as he had discovered during the abdication crisis, ‘nor can weak truth your reputation save’. As Wallis wrote to her aunt to complain about how the saga was giving the duke ‘no end of trouble with all [Wenner-Gren’s] enterprises closing down’ and the proliferation of ‘wild stories’ about his activities, the couple were concerned about being linked to the scandal. Wallis observed that ‘the real news value of l’affaire Wenner-Gren was that he was “Windsor’s pal” etc. and one article went so far as to say that he was chiefly known in the world not as one of the great international financiers but as the friend of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’.29 The threat was clear: if they did not drop Wenner-Gren as both friend and business associate and end contact with him, their own standing would be damaged. It might even be that questions would be asked once again about their activities in Lisbon, and the taint of collaboration – or worse – with the enemy placed upon them.
It is to Edward’s personal credit that he did not wish to break off association with Wenner-Gren, whom he believed had been convicted in the court of public opinion without any evidence. He may have felt that it reflected his own fate. Yet he also had to consider his and Wallis’s future. They had enjoyed their trip to America in late 1941, and hoped to visit the country again later that year. Should they be associated with a disgraced and pro-German figure, they would be added to the list of blocked nationals. This would both jeopardise their chances of being able to leave the Bahamas and have far-reaching consequences for what would become of them after the war. Therefore, despite the duke writing to Wenner-Gren to assure him that he believed in his innocence, he and Wallis considered themselves warned off. They never saw him again, and Wenner-Gren died in 1962, his loyalties still ambiguous.
Thus shriven from bad influence, Edward set about making Nassau and his headquarters at Government House safe from U-boat attacks, as he and Wallis looked on scornfully at the recent influx of Americans to the island. Their opinions could be discerned by a letter Wallis wrote to her aunt on 30 March, in which she called the Americans ‘awful people … it is as though you associated with the shop-owners of Washington’, and moaned, ‘I really do wish we could move somewhere inhabited at least by our own class.’30
A more respectable figure was John Dauglish, Bishop of Nassau, who was leaving the island to return to England. The duchess bore such affection for him that she offered to write a letter of introduction on his behalf to her mother-in-law. Despite the animosity that Wallis and Queen Mary bore one another – they had never spoken directly and had only met twice, briefly, during the reign of George V – Wallis wrote to her that ‘it has always been a source of sorrow and regret to me that I have been the cause of any separation that exists between mother and son and I can’t help feel that there must be moments, however fleeting they may be, when you wonder how David is’. After praising Dauglish as ‘a delightful man’ and suggesting him as a means of first-hand news of her eldest son, she noted that ‘the horrors of war and the endless separation of families have in my mind stressed the importance of family ties’. The letter was successful in its aim for Dauglish to be received, but Wallis later wrote that ‘when the Bishop mentioned [to Queen Mary] what I was doing with, I judge, some show of appreciation and approval, there was no response. He was met with a stone wall of disinterest.’*31
With Wenner-Gren ostracised, the duke and duchess cast around for another ally. A meeting with Edward’s old supporter Beaverbrook, holidaying in Nassau after his departure from the Cabinet, provided succour. The duke asked the publisher-turnedpolitician for support, saying, ‘a timely word from you may eventually result in the employment of my services in a more useful sphere than my present one’.32 Yet Beaverbrook was a pragmatist. He had been happy to help Edward when he was king but now saw little benefit to himself in such aid. He promised that he would do all he could, and then did nothing. The governor and his wife remained friendless and alone.
Another American journey offered relief, even if its purpose – for the duke to discuss how the United States and the Bahamas might cooperate on defence – led Wallis to complain to her aunt, ‘is it worthwhile for me to attempt the trip? I get so little pleasure with the endless publicity and being gazed at everywhere.’ Yet Edward would not let his wife remain at home without him. They left together on 28 May, although Halifax remained unconvinced about the wisdom of the journey. He had sent a telegram to the Foreign Office the previous month stating that while Roosevelt had no objection to the couple’s presence, ‘for my part I shall regret the [Duke of Windsor’s] visit. We are in a wave of anti-British sentiment which shows some signs of receding, but there are plenty of elements that will only too readily seize on anything to whip it up again.’ He concluded that ‘if the visit is inevitable, [I hope] it may be as unostentatious and limited as possible’.33 He was more candid to his sister. ‘We are at the moment rather feeling the oppression of several imminent visits that will be exacting of time and effort … the Duke threatens to stay longer, and I am sure will waste an incredible amount of my time … I don’t think it is at all a good plan them coming here.’34
Meanwhile, a proposed visit to South America was vetoed by Eden, who told Churchill, ‘[a visit] would certainly arouse suspicions in Washington … any prominent visitor to Latin America must be able to speak with authority and first-hand knowledge of what we are doing here in the way of winning the war … the Duke of Windsor could not do this’.35 It was a recurrent theme amongst official communications at this time that Edward’s suggested journeys should if possible be curtailed. Another telegram from the British High Commissioner in South Africa, sounded out about the possibility of him taking an ambassadorial post in the country, stated, ‘I cannot but feel that [the duke’s] presence in official capacity anywhere in Southern Africa might have the most awkward consequences on public opinion both Afrikaans and British.’*36
The king was fully aware of the difficulties his brother presented. He wrote that ‘D has written to W asking to leave the Bahamas in August where he has been for 2 years. Where can he go and what job can he do? He cannot come here anyhow, W and I are certain of this, the Dominions don’t want him, there is nothing he can do in America, and he wants a temperate climate to live in. W suggests Southern Rhodesia, which is vacant. But would they like it, & [Jan] Smuts† has to be asked as well.’ He concluded, with understandable exasperation, ‘it is a very difficult problem’.37
Edward and Wallis therefore arrived in the United States with the taint of the shop-soiled about them. This arose both from association with Wenner-Gren and from the sense that their visit, important though its intentions were, was taking place at the wrong time. It was compounded by Halifax stating that he was too busy to receive them in Washington, leaving hosting duties to his wife instead. There was an unflattering article about the duchess in one of the papers, which the ambassador called ‘pretty unpleasant, but not quite as bad as she thought’, but which indicated the opprobrium that both were held in by certain sectors.
Halifax expressed his personal disdain for the duke and his plans to his sister. ‘If only such articles would make them realise that people are not all clamouring to see and cheer them, much good will have been done.’ He remained sceptical about what Edward’s further use might be. ‘I simply cannot see that young man’s future. He can’t live for ever in the Bahamas and I don’t quite know where else he can live. I have very little doubt that he sees himself as permanent Ambassador in Washington one of these days, but I don’t think that would be a terribly good plan!’38
Before anything of any diplomatic worth could be achieved, the duke had to return urgently to Nassau, as a riot had broken out there due to dissatisfaction with wages being paid for local work. He was occupied for the next ten days attempting to ameliorate the situation: the longest time he had been apart from Wallis since their marriage. The British government offered little help, but politicians were appalled by a broadcast he made in which he promised the rioters redress for their grievances in the form of a shilling’s rise in their wages.
The remainder of the trip was more satisfactory. The duke had an audience with the president, whom he praised as ‘the soul of affability’ and who spoke candidly to his guest. Decades later, Edward wrote that ‘I haven’t a clue as to what he really wanted from me … I rather suspect [I was there] because he, a man who had achieved on his own the summit of political power within a man’s reach, was curious about the motives and reasoning of a man who could give up an inherited position of comparative renown.’39 And after the duke had fulfilled various requirements of waving and smiling and being photographed, Halifax wrote in his diary, ‘I thought that he was in better temper than when he was here last, no doubt due to having been soothed after a week’s companionship with the Duchess.’40
Nonetheless, there were still moments of embarrassment. An objection was raised by a small group of women to the duchess visiting a United Services Organisation club, to which Wallis angrily responded, ‘I don’t care whether I see their old Club.’ The businessman Walter Hoving* described the matter as ‘most unfortunate’41 to Halifax, who in turn noted to Lord Cranborne, Secretary of State for the Colonies, that ‘I had very little doubt that Mr Hoving found himself face to face with some anti-Duchess of Windsor feeling among the elite of Long Island, and thought that the easiest get-out for him was to shove it onto the “British”.’
Despite the relative success of the visit, Halifax remained unhappy about the idea of similar embassies in the future. ‘I thought you might like to see this minor storm in a teacup as, if I am right, it does furnish some evidence of what the Duke and Duchess are both reluctant to believe, namely that there is still a good deal of feeling against them in American quarters, and that therefore the less publicity they court, the better. I have no doubt that as long as they are in the Bahamas, we shall be subjected to these periodic invasions, but I don’t suppose there is anything that you can do about it. He is getting pretty fed up with the Bahamas, as you no doubt know!’42
The duke and duchess reluctantly returned to Nassau at the beginning of July. They were accompanied by their friends Herman and Katherine Rogers, who expected a relaxing holiday but who soon wilted in the extreme warmth and had to return home. Wallis told her aunt, ‘I am afraid the heat put up Herman’s temperature and rather dragged him down … I miss them a lot.’43 Halifax’s activities were regarded with suspicion – ‘I hear [he] works continually against the Duke even to putting spokes in the wheels of things he tried to arrange for the Colony’ – but Wallis dismissed her husband’s tormentors as ‘funny people’ and expressed her hope that ‘they better get on with the war and not be so small’.44
After the frustrations and difficulties of the past year, their lives in the Bahamas had settled into a rut. Although Churchill, who had seen them in Washington, described the duke as settling into his work and prepared to divide his time between his role and occasional visits to the United States in a private capacity, this was disingenuous. The governor’s responsibilities were far from merely ceremonial, and being regarded with both suspicion and condescension made for difficult working relationships with Britain and America. The risk of the local inhabitants once again rising into violence was ever present, as was the possibility of Government House being targeted by a U-boat. And it was painfully hot. It must have seemed as if matters could not get any worse.
In wartime, they always could.