Everyone alive in Britain on 3 September 1939 could remember exactly where they were at 11 a.m. when the radio announcer interrupted the scheduled broadcast to bring the country the lugubrious voice of Neville Chamberlain. The prime minister, who was suffering from a bad cold, announced that as the deadline set for the withdrawal of German troops from Poland had expired, ‘consequently this country is at war with Germany’.* Munich had been a mirage, and the piece of paper Chamberlain had held was now worthless. Immediately after he finished his speech, sirens wailed, sounding an air raid warning. On this occasion it was a test, but it would soon become a familiar, and unwelcome, accompaniment to everyday life.
The king had anticipated the news by beginning a diary the previous day. The first entry was ‘The die was cast. We were at war with Hitler & his regime, & all that it stands for.’ Yet he also confessed to ‘a certain feeling of relief that those ten anxious days of intensive negotiations with Germany over Poland, which at moments looked favourable, with Mussolini working for peace as well, were over’. At the outbreak of the previous war, he had been an eighteen-year-old midshipman on HMS Collingwood. Now he was an unanticipated monarch. He reflected stoically on what lay ahead. ‘For the last year, ever since the Munich agreement, Germany … [has] caused us incessant worry in crises of different magnitudes … so today, when the crisis is over, & the result of the breakdown of negotiations is war, the country is calm, firm and united behind its leaders, resolved to fight until liberty & justice are once again safe in the world.’1
He made his own broadcast that day, as he sought to inspire a nation. He asked that ‘my people at home and my peoples across the seas … stand calm, firm and united in this time of trial’. Speaking with conviction and determination, he said, ‘The task will be hard. There may be dark days ahead and war can no longer be confined to the battlefield. But we can only do the right as we see the right and reverently commit our cause to God.’
These words gave succour to his subjects and allies across the world. Yet when the Duke of Windsor was told by Sir Ronald Campbell, British ambassador to France, that his country was at war, his response was rather different. ‘I’m afraid in the end this may open the way for world communism’,2 he sighed, before shrugging and diving into the pool for a refreshing swim.* Some things, after all, were more important than a global conflict, even as he remained ambiguous about his preferred side.
He could at least claim that he had done his best for global diplomacy, albeit on a self-important basis. As war drew near, he had sent Hitler a telegram on 27th August asking if there was any way conflict might be avoided. He wrote, ‘Remembering your courtesy and our meeting two years ago, I address to you my entirely personal simple though very earnest appeal for your utmost influence towards the peaceful solution of the present problem.’ If he had believed his personal intervention would make any difference, he was delusional. Hitler’s reply of 2 September, ‘Assure you that attitude towards England remains the same and my wish to avoid a new war between our two countries remains’, was qualified by his remark that ‘It depends however on England whether relations between Germany and England can find the correct channel.’
Opinions differ as to whether Edward was attempting, in a blundering way, to do the right thing, or capable of considered, even treacherous actions. Attempting to open back-channel discussions with the most dangerous man in Europe, without consultation with the king, prime minister or any other interested parties, was an act of arrogant folly. But the duke believed that he had a good personal rapport with Hitler, after their meeting in September 1937, and the dictator was quixotic enough to have listened to him while ignoring more senior and knowledgeable men. Or perhaps Hitler, and those around him, had already identified Edward as a figure who might be of use to them if developments went their way. He was therefore humoured with a tolerance that they would not have extended to others, including his brother.
If the king had hoped that his triumphant visit to the United States and Canada would lead to a period of restful acclaim, he was disappointed. On 23 August, while at Balmoral, he was told that the Nazis had signed the German-Soviet Pact, which guaranteed a decade of peace between the two nations and therefore allowed Hitler to invade Poland without any fear of retaliation by Stalin. After sending a well-intentioned but useless message of friendship to the Emperor of Japan (‘dealing with Orientals, direct communication between Heads of State may be helpful’),3 the king left Balmoral for Buckingham Palace, to be in constant touch with Chamberlain and others.
With his offer to write directly to Hitler tactfully refused, the monarch still hoped that peace could be salvaged at the last minute, as it had been in 1938. He remarked to Sir Miles Lampson, the British ambassador to Egypt, that he was annoyed that the crisis had spoilt the grouse season at Balmoral (‘1,600 brace in six days … never had so many grouse up there this year’) and that it was ‘utterly damnable that the villain Hitler had upset everything’. He trusted that the Führer’s actions were a show of strength that had little intent behind it. ‘HM now thought that there would be peace and that this time Hitler’s bluff had been called.’4
Others still believed that peace was possible. Hardinge wrote to his wife of the ‘unpleasant time of waiting’ that ‘it is impossible to foretell what the outcome will be. I think a great deal of the recent German bluster – including the Soviet pact – is intimidation, and if it is only a question of Danzig,* I feel that a solution can still be reached. If on the other hand Hitler is determined to smash Poland, and is encouraged to do so by his temporary immobilisation of Russia then there can be only one answer. It is impossible to tell you which of the two is the real motive.’ Nonetheless, he reassured her that military preparations were going smoothly, and suggested that ‘I suppose that within the next 48 hours we shall know where we are.’5
Behind the scenes, confidence gave way to panic. The duke could not be allowed to remain at large in France if war broke out, and so Monckton asked Wilson whether the government would be prepared to repatriate him. Wilson initially expressed little interest in helping his former sovereign, suggesting that Edward should make his own arrangements, but the king intervened, seeing the possibility of disaster if his brother were to be captured by the Germans. As Monckton later wrote, ‘though the situation was difficult and dangerous it was not “sans espoir”’.†6
On 29 August, he informed Wilson that the king would send a plane to France to collect Edward and Wallis in the event of the outbreak of war. Upon their return to Britain, they would stay with the duke’s best man, Fruity Metcalfe, and his wife in Sussex. Monckton also raised the possibility of what the former monarch would be expected to do during the war. He suggested, ‘the king has in mind the possibility of the Duke being a Deputy Commissioner for an area … I have not had a chance to say anything about this to the Duke.’7
Monckton soon discovered that Edward was less receptive to the idea of an immediate return to his home country than he had repeatedly claimed earlier in the year. He had wasted a vast amount of government time on the question of when he would be allowed back to Britain, and now, told that he could come home, he equivocated. The hill he chose for his stand was that he would not return unless he was billeted in either Windsor or one of the other royal castles. Therefore, with a pilot standing by, Monckton wrote, with understandable irritation, that ‘after a midnight conversation with Alec Hardinge, I was compelled to cancel the flight and war was declared with the Duke still at Antibes’.8
To watch from one’s swimming pool as Europe prepared to fight and then to refuse a lifeline because the standards of accommodation being offered did not live up to one’s regal standards shows a peerless level of narcissism. It would be almost admirable were it not for the duke’s failure to comprehend that there were more pressing concerns at hand than the level of comfort he was expected to endure. It was typical of him that after refusing the chance to return to Britain, he asked that the plane be made available to him anyway, for whatever purpose he wished. Germany was not very far away, after all.
Unsurprisingly, his reaction was met with anger by both the king and Chamberlain.* It was decided that he could now only return at public expense if he was prepared to take one of two minor roles, either deputy regional commissioner in Wales under the air marshal Lord Portal, or an army liaison officer. Both were proposed as punishment for his hubris, and Monckton was dispatched to France to ascertain whether he would accept such a demotion. As he handed him the task, the king remarked wryly, ‘You should write a book on “Odd Jobs I Have Done”.’9
Liaising with the duke proved to be an especially odd job. After Monckton landed in France, he and his flying officer were arrested on suspicion of being German spies. They were only released after a local clergyman threw up his hands in horror at their atrocious attempts at the language and said, ‘No one but an Englishman could speak such French!’ When they eventually arrived in Antibes, they were greeted by Metcalfe, still angry at the duke’s behaviour, and Monckton found that an apparently penitent Edward was prepared to accept one of the demeaning posts he was offered. He stated that he would rather serve as a liaison officer, which at least nodded to the military experience he had accrued in the previous war.
When he was told that he was being brought to Britain, however, he now demurred at flying, asking instead if he could travel by destroyer, as befitted his status. If this was intended as a means of frustrating his journey, it was unsuccessful. The HMS Kelly, captained by his friend Louis Mountbatten, was placed at his disposal, and the once unthinkable happened. Nearly three years after the abdication, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor returned to Britain.
If Edward had expected that he and his wife would be greeted with regal fanfare, he was disappointed. As she remarked to him when they arrived in Portsmouth, ‘I don’t know how this will work out. War should bring families together, even a Royal Family. But I don’t know.’10 Their welcome party was deliberately inauspicious, with only Monckton, Lady Metcalfe and the local naval commander present to mark their arrival, as a Royal Marines band parped out ‘God Save the King’. But if the Windsors had assumed that this was because of indifference on the king and queen’s part, they would have been mistaken. The queen fretted to Queen Mary on 31 August, ‘What are we going to do about Mrs S? Personally I do not wish to receive her, tho’ it must depend on circumstances; what do you feel about it, Mama?’11 Wallis was regarded with hostility by Queen Mary,* and the rest of the royal family, many of whom blamed her for Edward’s actions over the previous few years. Although this was unfair, it was easier to heap discredit upon the head of a wanton American rather than acknowledge that the former king had brought his difficulties on himself.†
Not everyone regarded Edward’s return with horror. Churchill wrote from Chartwell, his country home, to welcome him back, saying, ‘Your Royal Highness well knows how I have looked forward to this day.’ Making his excuses for not greeting him personally but instead being represented by his son, Randolph, he wrote that ‘We are plunged in a long and grievous struggle. But all will come right if we work together to the end.’12 His warm words concealed a pointed instruction as to the duke’s expected behaviour now that he had returned home.
The duke and duchess stayed with the Metcalfes while what Monckton referred to as ‘long and rather boring discussions’ took place about how Edward would be received by his brother, if at all, and what Wallis’s status should be. The lawyer eventually resolved the issue by excluding women from any meeting, explaining to Hardinge that ‘it would save trouble if it were a stag party’. The queen, with some relief, left London. Finally a solution was decided upon. On 14 September, nearly a fortnight after the outbreak of war, the king would receive the Duke of Windsor at Buckingham Palace. It would be the first time the two men had been together since 11 December 1936.
The country that Edward had returned to was already very different from the one he had left nearly three years before. Hardinge commented to his wife that ‘This is a very strange life that we lead here, particularly at night. Everything is hermetically sealed (as regards illumination) from sundown onwards. No street lights, and even the side-lights are covered with newspaper. If we go out on foot – taxis are not easy to come by – one has to take a torch as well as one’s respirator! In the day time is more normal, except that one must never be parted from one’s respirator, and of course uniforms are about everywhere. The nights are rather depressing – and when the days become short, and we revert to ordinary time, the duration of the gloom will be very great.’
While Hardinge acknowledged that public feeling was ‘admirable’ – ‘no hysterical people outside the Palace etc., and apparently not an atom of doubt about the propriety and justice of our cause’ – he nevertheless said that ‘It has been a v nerve-wracking time, especially on this Saturday night when the House of Commons was in an uproar – the Cabinet in revolt, the French looking as if they might run out, the Poles in despair and showing signs of breaking, and Turkey holding back from signing her treaty with us … Everyone’s nerves have been on edge and I sometimes feel quite exhausted by it.’13 It was into this febrile atmosphere that the former monarch returned, with all his attendant potential for mischief-making and general trouble.
Neither the king nor his brother wanted to see each other. When Churchill, now created First Lord of the Admiralty, visited the king on 5 September, he suggested that the duke’s return would be a good thing, only for the monarch to correct him: ‘Not for long.’14 Relations between them had been cold, and both found the idea of a reunion distressing. Yet the duke could no longer be allowed to remain on his own terms in France. Something had to be found for him to do, and for the first time in many years, he could make himself useful. And the former sovereign took the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to remind his younger brother that despite everything, he still considered himself primus inter pares.
The two men’s accounts of the eventual encounter differed, but they concurred that it had been better than might have been expected, given what had passed. The king told the Duke of Kent afterwards that the meeting had been reasonable but ‘very unbrotherly’, and that Edward had been ‘in a very good mood, his usual swaggering one, laying down the law about everything’.15 He wrote in his diary that ‘there were no recriminations on either side’, and that the ‘very confident’ duke ‘looked very well and had lost the deep lines under his eyes’. As usual, Edward ‘seemed only to be thinking of himself ‘, taking care to ask about his younger brothers but pointedly making no reference to their mother or any other female member of the family. The king was struck by his determined aversion to discussing the past: ‘[he] had quite forgotten what he had done to his country in 1936’.16
Monckton, who had been waiting nearby for ‘an anxious hour’, was told by the king, ‘I think it went all right’, which Edward, ‘with a wary eye’, picked him up about later, saying that ‘it had been all right because, on [your] advice, [I] kept off all contentious subjects’.17 The duke referred to the meeting simply as ‘cordial enough’.18
The conversation stayed determinedly on the present. Edward presented himself as a committed patriot, and said that he would now prefer to remain in Britain in the role of deputy regional commissioner than head back to France. His brother gave his verbal assent to this, with the proviso that he would have to secure his ministers’ permission. According to the king, the duke then announced that he would go to Wales but wanted to have a month’s holiday in England first, flaunting Wallis to various Home Command army departments. As the monarch reported it, ‘I told him he would not get a good reception if he did.’19
Public reaction to the duke’s return had in fact been favourable, belying the fears of the prime minister and king. An editorial in The Times suggested that ‘It has always been tacitly assumed that war would sweep away the difficulties there may have been in the hour of the Duke’s earlier return’ and that ‘[events] relieve his homecoming of all possible traces of controversy or embarrassment’. It added, in a coded message to all parties, ‘No-one could dream of the Duke’s absence from England at a time in which absence would become intolerable exile, or suppose for a moment that anything would be lacking on the Government’s part to speed the fulfilment of his dearest and most urgent wish.’20
The duke knew that his return was conditional, at best. He was not received by any other member of his family – Queen Mary told the king at lunch that ‘she had no intention of seeing him if she could avoid it’*21 – and Wallis remained persona non grata. Although a meeting with Churchill on 15 September was warm, there was still tension between them, best expressed by Churchill’s question, ‘We are all in this together, aren’t we?’22 Edward was able to reassure him of his bona fides, but a subsequent interview with Chamberlain was less happy, as the ‘broken, nervous’ prime minister reminded the duke of his unpopularity with many politicians and statesmen.
Including, it soon transpired, the Secretary of State for War, Leslie Hore-Belisha. The two had been broadly on the same side during the abdication crisis, but now Hore-Belisha had the distasteful task of informing Edward that he was not wanted in Britain after all, and that the Welsh post had been withdrawn. Instead he was expected to head to the Howard-Vyse mission† in France, where he would serve as an acting major general, a role far below his honorary rank of field marshal.
This was done under royal instructions. Hore-Belisha wrote in his diary that the king seemed in a ‘distressed’ and ‘very disturbed’ state after his interview with his brother and said that ‘the Duke never had any discipline in his life’. The monarch complained that every previous ruler had succeeded to the throne after their predecessor had died, but ‘mine is not only alive, but very much so’.23 He informed Chamberlain that ‘the sooner [the duke] went to France the better for all concerned. He is not wanted here’,24 and wrote in his diary that ‘I did not want D attached to any unit of the British Army … in the British Military Mission in France, D would get access to the secret plans of the French, [and] would pass them on to his wife’. Nonetheless, he reflected that ‘there was nothing for him to do in England, & that they were better out of it’.25
Edward was therefore told that he would not be able to take a tour of his former country, on the grounds that soldiers were not allowed to assume their new postings when it suited them, and that his roving around a nation in a state of war would attract unnecessary attention. To his credit, he did not remonstrate or argue at this humiliating demotion, but instead asked whether he might have some time with Wallis in England first. In Hore-Belisha’s tactful words, he ‘appreciated all the arguments and expressed agreement’.
The duke and Wallis remained with the Metcalfes for nearly a fortnight while he received his formal instructions and was measured for his uniform. It was in such attire that Nicolson saw him at a social engagement. The politician remarked, ‘he is dressed in khaki with all his decorations and looks grotesquely young … I have seldom seen the Duke in such cheerful spirits and it was rather touching to witness their delight at being back in England.’26 Edward was cheered in the streets, received thousands of complimentary letters* and generally enjoyed a hero’s welcome that belied the doubts that had been displayed by so many.
Seasoned observers of the duke may have wondered at the conciliatory attitude he had displayed since his return to Britain. He had been snubbed, patronised and treated without the dignity he might have expected.* Rather than arguing or remonstrating, however, he took chastening blows without demur. Those who knew him of old may have wondered what his agenda was.
Hardinge was unimpressed by the prodigal duke. The two men had cordially loathed one another when they had been monarch and private secretary in 1936, and their reunion was an unhappy one. Hardinge wrote to his wife on 17 September apologising for his ‘rather crotchety’ temper and giving Edward’s presence as its reason. ‘My nerves have been so completely exhausted – and I am trying to restore them with more [Duke of Windsor] – but altogether without success.’ He went on to outline Edward’s wish to roam the country before heading to Paris. Some government figures were sympathetic (‘Horace Wilson and Hore-Belisha were very ready to acquiesce’), but Hardinge wrote with relief that ‘luckily Ironside† would have none of it, and said that he would send the Duke his orders to go to his job in Paris before the end of this week!’ The private secretary continued to distrust his former master, and the duchess. ‘He (the Duke) is not going to be told any secrets because of her known unreliability. I think this is quite a good solution.’27 Even in absentia, as she tarried with the Metcalfes, the Duchess of Windsor continued to horrify the highest echelons of British society.
On 29 September, Edward and Wallis returned to France, with the duke ready to report for duty at Vincennes to Major General Sir Richard Howard-Vyse, aka ‘the Wombat’. He wrote to Monckton in good spirits on 2 October, saying that apart from a ‘filthy rough crossing’, he was pleased to be back in France and that he wished to remain in Paris. He commented that ‘I shall have to be away a certain amount touring various areas … besides we have an excellent cellar’.
He kept any political discussion to a minimum, other than to comment that ‘I did not like the tone of [Churchill’s] broadcast of yesterday.* I have no idea what force the Nazi-Soviet peace overtures will take or how they will be presented, but it seems to me sheer folly and a betrayal of the people to follow Winston’s line and not at least make a pretence of examining them.’ He also expressed his hopes to see Monckton again soon, as ‘while great caution must be exercised, there is much to say that I cannot possibly write’.28
The duke may have expected that his role would be little more than a sinecure, an opportunity to be photographed looking serious in uniform. Yet the Wombat and those around him had other intentions. Hardinge had indicated that Edward was only to be used sparingly, writing to Howard-Vyse that any occasional visits to be made to the GHQ ‘would only be done for some special purpose and that [Edward] would have instructions to return as soon as his task had been accomplished, and not be allowed to go drifting about at his pleasure’.29
It has been suggested† that Howard-Vyse’s department was an informal espionage organisation, intended to spy on their French allies. The British distrusted their comrades-in-arms, whom they found secretive and obstructive, from the commander-in-chief, General Gamelin, downwards. The high-profile presence of the Duke of Windsor made it harder for the French to obstruct their allies’ fact-finding forays into their lines without causing a diplomatic furore. Brigadier Davy, the mission’s chief of staff, described it as nothing less than ‘a heaven-sent opportunity of visiting the French front’.30
Edward began October 1939 energetically. He and Metcalfe travelled 800 miles together along the Maginot Line, France’s major defence fortifications, and the duke compiled reports for Ironside. He noted both how poor the defences were, making a mockery of the oft-repeated claims of French excellence and insuperability, and how low morale was. The forces were obsessed with feuding with one another and seemed entirely unprepared for war. Describing Gamelin evocatively as a ‘weak sister’ – his knowledge of family rows gave him experience of this – Edward decided there was no serious possibility that the French could resist a full German assault. The War Office received his reports and ignored them, believing them to be dictated by a desire to make trouble. This would prove to be a mistake, but the duke was regarded so poorly that his useful counsel was regarded with suspicion.
Nonetheless, believing that he was making a difference, he was in the best spirits he had been in since the abdication. Metcalfe praised his ‘splendid form’ and called him ‘absolutely delightful company’, with the proviso that when bills had to be settled, the duke’s old closeness about money caused him to become ‘frightful’.31 Yet even minor transgressions became redolent of his untrustworthiness. He had a chance encounter with the Duke of Gloucester, who was serving as a liaison officer to Lord Gort,* and it made for an awkward meeting. Edward was seen wearing the uniform of marshal of the RAF, which he was not entitled to in his major general role. And eventually, when he took a salute from the men that was intended for Gort, he was formally reprimanded and removed from his duties. By way of reprisal, he referred to his superior as ‘Fat-boy Gort’.32
One does not have to like the duke to see that he was treated dismally over this period by everyone from the king downwards. He had been sent to France to keep him out of trouble in Britain, but the necessity of finding something for him to do that would not lead to embarrassment proved beyond the beleaguered British forces. There was also resentment towards him from the other officers, epitomised by the comment by Henry Pownall, Gort’s chief of staff, that ‘If Master W thinks he can stage a come-back he’s mighty wrong.’33 The duke was seen as an attention-seeker who wished to hog the limelight, and was treated as such, to his anger and distress. Hardinge wrote a tart memorandum in which he summarised the matter: ‘The Duke of Windsor is supposed to be serving in France as a Major-General on the Staff, and not as a member of the Royal Family enjoying special privileges. If it is not HRH’s desire to give his services under the same conditions as any other soldier, different arrangements will have to be made, and the reason publicly explained, if necessary.’34
Edward remained unpopular with his family. The queen remarked to Hardinge on 30 October that ‘On the BBC news this afternoon there was an account of the Duke of Windsor looking younger (& I suppose more beautiful) than ever, making a tour of the Maginot Line & chatting to Tommies … & saying how glad he was to find such true friendship between them etc.’ She was unimpressed. ‘I don’t want to be super critical, but it sounds so like the old stuff, & never a mention of the poor Duke of Gloucester or Duke of Kent … I am sure that we must be on the look-out for these advertisements.’ Absence had not made her impressions of her brother-in-law any warmer. She told the receptive Hardinge, ‘I do not trust him one inch.’35
When the duke became aware of this ‘back-door intrigue’, he reacted decisively. In early November, he returned briefly to London, staying at Claridge’s hotel. He demanded to see the king to discuss his military appointment, which he told Monckton was now untenable and intolerable, due to ‘the recent exposure of a network of intrigue against me’. He asked the lawyer, who was now working in the propaganda office, to arrange a meeting, and described the nature of this campaign of intrigue as ‘so virrulent [sic] that I wish to seek both your and Winston’s advice before seeing the King, only of course he is not to know this’.36
He wrote angrily to Churchill on 12 November, seeking the counsel of the politician he explicitly described as a father figure. ‘The situation is neither new nor surprising, being merely fresh evidence of my brother’s continued efforts to humiliate me by every means in his and his courtiers’ power.’ He bemoaned the king’s involvement in attempts to ban him from entering British-occupied areas in France, and stated that ‘I must confront my brother with all this and protest, firstly against the order itself as undermining … my position as a major general in the army … and secondly, against the underhand way in which the order was given, and in which it was to be applied.’37
For the duke to have presented his brother with allegations of underhand behaviour would have been disastrous, especially if such an encounter had become public knowledge. Monckton explained that it would be impossible for a formal meeting of this nature to take place without the presence of both General Iron-side and the Wombat, and that since Howard-Vyse was still in France, ‘I do not think … the King would be willing to discuss the matter with you.’38 He suggested that the visit would be abortive, something echoed by Churchill, who wrote, ‘It seems to me very probable … that the King would refuse to see you.’ He also noted that, humiliatingly, ‘an order might be given by the War Office for your immediate return, which you would have to set an example in obeying’.
Instead, Churchill told the duke to take his uncomfortable treatment with equanimity. ‘In my opinion it would be utterly impossible to make head against the Royal and military authority under which you now lie; and any protests would only expose you to rebuff and vexation.’ The First Lord appealed to Edward’s pride by saying that he should naturally ‘treat all minor questions of ceremony and precedence as entirely beneath your interest and dignity’, and that if he did not allow himself to be riled, ‘your Royal Highness would place yourself in an unassailable position, and clothe yourself in impenetrable armour’.39 It was excellent advice, but Edward was too proud to take it with the humility it merited. After all, who was he if not the former king-emperor?
Denied an opportunity to see the king, he instead occupied himself by dining with Monckton. He vented spleen about his brother, his family and how much better the country would be doing if he was still in charge. On one occasion, they were joined by Beaverbrook, and they had what Monckton called ‘a very frank talk’ about the war. Appeasement had given way to a realisation that ‘there was nothing to be done but fight it’. Still, as Monckton put it, ‘it was like walking further and further into a thick wood knowing that whichever way you went there was a pit which you could not avoid at the other end’.
Between dinners, Edward wrote to Monckton to sneer that his brother was ‘scared of a tête à tête’ and that ‘he won’t face me alone’ but insisted on being accompanied by Howard-Vyse. If this happened, the duke wished for Monckton to be present too, on the grounds that ‘I hope that the meeting may well prove to be the best and anyway … the last round of the series of contests in which you and I have been engaged for the last three years.’40 In the event, this mano-a-mano combat never took place.
The duke hoped to recruit Ironside, a ‘forceful personality’, to his cause and to ask him to put his case to the king. He observed that ‘the second line of defence in Queen Elizabeth is of Maginot proportions, so that Ironside, like Hitler, may be up against a tougher proposition than he knows’. Even as he claimed not to wish to drag the general into ‘a private family feud’,41 his earlier stance of cooperation and amiability had disappeared. In its place was a determination to settle old scores.
A compromise was ultimately reached. The duke was allowed to visit British troops as long as there was a specific reason for his visit and with approval from his superiors. He boasted to Monckton, ‘I have won my point’, but conceded that ‘the edge has naturally been taken off the keenness in the job, and I am only really carrying on because it’s the [role] that suits the Duchess and myself the best’. Self-absorption dominated all, even now.
When the king visited France in early December, his brother was advised to remain a tactful distance away. Wallis described this to her aunt as ‘all very childish … competition still exists in the English mind – so one must hide so there is no rivalry’.42 During his trip, the king, encouraged by Hardinge, decided that Hore-Belisha should be fired on the grounds of incompetence. This was no hardship, as the monarch disliked the Secretary of State for War. He had written in his diary on 11 October that ‘Hore-Belisha must always steal a march on his expert advisers if he can. He likes the limelight & personal kudos.’43
Hore-Belisha’s involvement in the so-called ‘pillbox affair’, in which he made the criticism that too few pillbox defences were being constructed for the British Expeditionary Force, proved to be his downfall, not least because of latent (and overt) anti-Semitism. That he was later proved to be correct did not help his cause. Hardinge wrote cryptically to his wife on 5 December that ‘H[RH] has been terribly upset over the incident of which you know, but today he seems to be happier. I do not think we have heard the last of it, as the feeling on all sides out there is so strong against the individual in question, that I wish his position is almost impossible.’44
In January 1940, Hore-Belisha was dismissed, amidst disquiet about his performance.* The ease with which this was accomplished indicated both that Hardinge remained the most political of private secretaries and also that the king, apparently in thrall to him, was happy to facilitate his desires. As Channon put it, ‘the King himself insisted on Leslie’s resignation … egged on by both the Queen and the Duke of Gloucester’.45 Although the diarist was a friend of Hore-Belisha and loathed Hardinge, to whom he referred as the ‘Black Rat’,† there is no reason to doubt the veracity of his account. Once, this action would have been seen as epochal, but now it was clear that at a time of war, the monarch’s power was in the ascendant. Major personnel decisions could be taken quickly and unilaterally.
One man who suffered from these developments was the Duke of Windsor. For all his faults, there was some truth in his statement that he was ‘banished from the hearts of the citizens’, and that he and Wallis were treated like ‘rats in a trap until the end of the war’.46 He had behaved in a conciliatory fashion, but the hostility he received left him in no doubt that he would never be accepted or welcomed back by the elite, even as the public offered him a warmer reception.
The couple were easy prey for someone who would show them the attention and respect they craved. It was unsurprising, then, that the German ambassador to the Hague could tell his masters in Berlin, at the beginning of 1940, that he was the proud possessor of ‘a line leading to the Duke of Windsor’.47