Chapter Fourteen: ‘False Rumour and Wild Surmise’

  1. Noël Coward to Robert Vansittart, 21 August 1940, in Sunday Telegraph, 4 November 2007

  2. Warwick, p.157

  3. Ibid.

  4. Watson, p.169

  5. Alec Hardinge to Jack Lowther, 14 March 1941, Royal Archives, RA GDKH/ENGT/A40

  6. Duke of Kent to Betty Lawson-Johnston, 9 September 1941, in Cadbury, p.238

  7. Larman, p.27

  8. Duke of Kent to Betty-Lawson Johnston, 22 September 1939, in Cadbury, p.107

  9. Aronson, p.54

  10. Warwick, p.116

  11. Archibald Sinclair to House of Commons, 7 October 1942, Hansard

  12. Halifax to Mary Wood, 17 September 1942, Halifax Archives, HALIFAX A2/278/26

  13. Halifax to Mary Wood, 27 August 1942, Halifax Archives, HALIFAX A2/278/14

  14. ‘Scandal of a royal death’, Daily Post, 22 December 2003

  15. George VI to Helen Hardinge, 4 September 1942, Hardinge Papers, U2117 (Acc 2349/81)

  16. Watson, p.180

  17. Queen Elizabeth to Osbert Sitwell, 14 September 1942, in Shawcross, Counting One’s Blessings, p.324

  18. Channon, 6 September 1942

  19. Lascelles, 25 August 1942

  20. Duke of Windsor to George VI, 15 September 1942, Royal Archives, RA/GVI/PRIV/01/02/16

  21. Lascelles, 29 August 1942

  22. 29 August 1942, in Payn and Morley

  23. Channon, 29 August 1942

  24. George VI diary, 29 August 1942, Royal Archives

  25. Wallis Windsor to Bessie Merriman, 29 August 1942, in Bloch, The Reign & Abdication of Edward VIII, p.273

  26. Duke of Windsor to Sibyl Colefax, 1 October 1942, Bodleian Archives, Ms Eng c5272

  27. George VI to Queen Mary, 22 October 1942, Royal Archives, RA/QM/ PRIV/CC13/27

  28. George VI diary, 14 September 1942, Royal Archives

  29. George VI to Duke of Windsor, 30 October 1942, Royal Archives, RA/ C042A/17