WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.759 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are taking 00:00:02.759 --> 00:00:06.559 a stack of source material that, and I really 00:00:06.559 --> 00:00:10.279 don't say this lightly, just completely dismantles 00:00:10.279 --> 00:00:12.679 one of the most persistent myths of the 20th 00:00:12.679 --> 00:00:16.280 century. We are looking at the life of King Edward 00:00:16.280 --> 00:00:18.679 VIII. It's a subject that almost everyone thinks 00:00:18.679 --> 00:00:20.760 they know, you know? Yeah. If you stop someone 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:22.480 on the street and you ask them about Edward VIII, 00:00:22.539 --> 00:00:24.960 they'll say, oh, the king who gave up his throne 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:27.379 for love. Exactly. The romance of the century. 00:00:27.379 --> 00:00:29.859 It's the ultimate romantic gesture. That's the 00:00:29.859 --> 00:00:32.380 story we've all been told. It is. We have been 00:00:32.380 --> 00:00:35.759 sold this almost Hollywood version of the story 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:39.420 for nearly 100 years. You have the handsome king, 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:42.920 the forbidden love, the tearful farewell speech. 00:00:43.789 --> 00:00:46.009 But when you actually sit down with the biographies, 00:00:46.009 --> 00:00:49.149 the government archives and especially the intelligence 00:00:49.149 --> 00:00:51.310 files that have been declassified over the decades, 00:00:51.469 --> 00:00:53.990 the story just shifts dramatically. It really 00:00:53.990 --> 00:00:55.850 does. It stops being a romance and it starts 00:00:55.850 --> 00:00:58.270 looking a lot more like a tragedy. Or maybe even 00:00:58.270 --> 00:01:00.289 a thriller. I would argue it borders on a horror 00:01:00.289 --> 00:01:02.350 story in places, especially when you get to the 00:01:02.350 --> 00:01:05.469 political implications. Oh, absolutely. Because 00:01:05.469 --> 00:01:08.049 when you strip away that whole romantic veneer, 00:01:08.069 --> 00:01:10.950 you're left with a man who was, frankly, deeply 00:01:10.950 --> 00:01:14.349 damaged psychologically, politically reckless, 00:01:14.469 --> 00:01:17.930 and who flirted very, very dangerously with the 00:01:17.930 --> 00:01:20.370 darkest forces of his era. We're going to unpack 00:01:20.370 --> 00:01:22.890 all of that. We really need to talk about the 00:01:22.890 --> 00:01:24.930 childhood trauma that seems to have completely 00:01:24.930 --> 00:01:28.219 rewired his brain. We have to cover the constitutional 00:01:28.219 --> 00:01:30.439 crisis that nearly broke the British Empire. 00:01:30.939 --> 00:01:34.319 And yes, the Nazi connection. And that connection 00:01:34.319 --> 00:01:36.939 is far more substantial than just a few awkward 00:01:36.939 --> 00:01:39.459 photos, which is what some people think. It is. 00:01:39.519 --> 00:01:41.980 So I think the central question we need to answer 00:01:41.980 --> 00:01:44.420 in this deep dive is really about the nature 00:01:44.420 --> 00:01:47.200 of that abdication. Was it a tragedy for the 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:49.780 nation losing their beloved king? Or was it, 00:01:49.799 --> 00:01:51.480 in hindsight, a kind of providential escape? 00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:53.400 Because as we go through the evidence, I think 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:55.000 you're going to see that if Edward had remained 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:57.180 on the throne, the history of World War II, and 00:01:57.180 --> 00:01:59.200 honestly, World War II today might have looked 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:02.280 completely unrecognizable. Okay, so to understand 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:04.659 the king who left, we have to understand the 00:02:04.659 --> 00:02:06.879 boy who was made. And the source material on 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:10.759 his childhood is, well, it's frankly harrowing. 00:02:10.819 --> 00:02:13.300 It's a tough read. We're back in the late Victorian 00:02:13.300 --> 00:02:17.000 era, 1894. He's born David, that was his family 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:19.280 name, the great -grandson of Queen Victoria. 00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:23.419 And the parenting style of that era, I mean... 00:02:23.599 --> 00:02:25.719 Distant doesn't quite cover it, does it? Not 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:28.460 even close. It was, for all intents and purposes, 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:31.280 institutionalized neglect. You have to remember 00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:34.319 the context. His father, the future George V, 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:36.639 was a naval officer. He ran his family like he 00:02:36.639 --> 00:02:38.919 ran a battleship. Right. He was a very harsh 00:02:38.919 --> 00:02:41.400 disciplinarian who believed that fear was a necessary 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:44.120 part of respect. And his mother, Queen Mary, 00:02:44.379 --> 00:02:46.539 while she had this private sense of humor, you 00:02:46.539 --> 00:02:48.479 see these anecdotes about her laughing at pranks 00:02:48.479 --> 00:02:51.219 like tadpoles on toes. You're right. In public, 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:53.800 she was completely austere. like a statue. She 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:55.840 just wasn't the type to offer any physical affection. 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:59.479 And into this really cold, formal environment 00:02:59.479 --> 00:03:02.419 comes the nanny. I was reading the account of 00:03:02.419 --> 00:03:04.740 his first few years, and this story about the 00:03:04.740 --> 00:03:06.860 pinching nanny isn't just some quirky anecdote. 00:03:07.159 --> 00:03:10.080 It reads like the origin story for a major psychological 00:03:10.080 --> 00:03:13.479 complex. It is absolutely pivotal. This nanny, 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:16.139 who was the primary caregiver for the future 00:03:16.139 --> 00:03:19.740 king of England, she had this sadistic streak. 00:03:20.300 --> 00:03:22.479 The sources tell us that before she would bring 00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:25.400 the young prince, David, into the drawing room 00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:27.780 to see his parents, which was his only scheduled 00:03:27.780 --> 00:03:30.020 time with them. His only time. His only time 00:03:30.020 --> 00:03:33.889 she would pinch him or twist his arm. So the 00:03:33.889 --> 00:03:36.310 child is already in physical pain before he even 00:03:36.310 --> 00:03:38.789 sees his parents. Precisely. So, of course, he 00:03:38.789 --> 00:03:41.169 would enter the room screaming and crying. And 00:03:41.169 --> 00:03:44.210 his parents, being these stiff Victorians who 00:03:44.210 --> 00:03:47.210 valued decorum above all else, were just annoyed 00:03:47.210 --> 00:03:50.469 by this badly behaved child. So they just dismiss 00:03:50.469 --> 00:03:52.349 him. They'd say, take him away. He goes back 00:03:52.349 --> 00:03:54.210 to the nanny. He goes straight back to the abuser. 00:03:54.210 --> 00:03:55.650 And just think about the kind of conditioning 00:03:55.650 --> 00:03:58.750 that establishes in a developing brain. The figures 00:03:58.750 --> 00:04:01.800 of authority. his parents, are associated with 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:05.560 rejection and annoyance. And the figure of abuse, 00:04:05.879 --> 00:04:08.099 the nanny, is the only one who actually keeps 00:04:08.099 --> 00:04:10.680 him. It creates this horrible cycle where pain 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:13.699 and affection become completely confused. The 00:04:13.699 --> 00:04:15.599 psychologists who are cited in the biographies, 00:04:15.620 --> 00:04:19.300 they point to this as the root of his later need 00:04:19.300 --> 00:04:21.500 for, well, for domination by women, right? He 00:04:21.500 --> 00:04:23.560 wasn't looking for an equal partner. No, he was 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:25.959 conditioned to seek out women who would control 00:04:25.959 --> 00:04:28.819 him. He developed a personality that was, on 00:04:28.819 --> 00:04:30.540 the one hand, and rebellious against tradition, 00:04:30.759 --> 00:04:33.540 but on the other hand, desperate for a strong, 00:04:33.540 --> 00:04:36.220 controlling female figure to organize his life. 00:04:36.379 --> 00:04:39.540 He wanted a governess, not a wife. Yeah. And 00:04:39.540 --> 00:04:42.379 that need for submission, it becomes the defining 00:04:42.379 --> 00:04:45.600 thread of his entire romantic life. Before we 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:47.240 get to the women, though, we have to talk about 00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:49.500 his development, or I guess his lack of development. 00:04:49.660 --> 00:04:51.720 He goes through the standard royal education, 00:04:52.100 --> 00:04:56.019 Osborne, Dartmouth, then on to Oxford. But reading 00:04:56.019 --> 00:04:58.259 the reports from his tutors, there's this recurring 00:04:58.259 --> 00:05:00.600 theme. It wasn't just that he wasn't book smart. 00:05:01.019 --> 00:05:04.160 He seemed almost incapable of deep thought. He 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:07.079 was intellectually incurious. That's probably 00:05:07.079 --> 00:05:10.100 the most polite way to put it. At Oxford, he 00:05:10.100 --> 00:05:12.699 attended Magdalen College. But he left after 00:05:12.699 --> 00:05:15.560 eight terms without any degree, no qualifications 00:05:15.560 --> 00:05:18.379 whatsoever. The president of the college even 00:05:18.379 --> 00:05:20.680 noted that he would never be bookish. But it's 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:22.839 more than just not liking books, isn't it? As 00:05:22.839 --> 00:05:25.819 a prince, and certainly as a future king, Your 00:05:25.819 --> 00:05:29.319 entire job involves reading state papers. Constantly. 00:05:29.439 --> 00:05:31.660 It involves understanding the nuances of the 00:05:31.660 --> 00:05:34.480 Constitution, of foreign policy. The sources 00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:36.740 all suggest he just never developed the discipline 00:05:36.740 --> 00:05:39.680 to sit in a chair and focus on a complex problem 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:42.120 for more than a few minutes at a time. He had 00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:44.759 this frantic energy. He was brilliant at the 00:05:44.759 --> 00:05:47.019 surface level stuff, the handshakes, the smiles, 00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:49.959 the small talk. He could charm anyone. But no 00:05:49.959 --> 00:05:52.529 depth. Absolutely no, Devin. That becomes incredibly 00:05:52.529 --> 00:05:55.029 dangerous when you are the head of state. He 00:05:55.029 --> 00:05:57.589 relied on his intuition and his charm rather 00:05:57.589 --> 00:05:59.750 than on actual knowledge. Speaking of charm, 00:05:59.870 --> 00:06:02.529 we can't ignore the World War I era. This is 00:06:02.529 --> 00:06:04.050 really where the myth of the People's Prince 00:06:04.050 --> 00:06:07.149 is born. He wanted to fight, didn't he? He did, 00:06:07.329 --> 00:06:09.230 and you have to give him credit for that. His 00:06:09.230 --> 00:06:12.310 desire to serve was absolutely genuine. When 00:06:12.310 --> 00:06:15.329 war broke out in 1914, he was desperate to go 00:06:15.329 --> 00:06:17.930 to the front with the grenadier guards. But Lord 00:06:17.930 --> 00:06:20.660 Kitchener... The Secretary of State for War had 00:06:20.660 --> 00:06:23.319 to be the adult in the room. That's right. He 00:06:23.319 --> 00:06:26.189 famously told the prince, I don't care if you 00:06:26.189 --> 00:06:28.410 get killed, but I cannot have the heir to the 00:06:28.410 --> 00:06:30.529 throne captured. Right. It would be the ultimate 00:06:30.529 --> 00:06:33.269 hostage situation. Yeah. A propaganda disaster 00:06:33.269 --> 00:06:36.389 for Britain. Exactly. So he was banned from the 00:06:36.389 --> 00:06:39.389 frontline charges, but he spent the war visiting 00:06:39.389 --> 00:06:41.850 the troops, often getting very, very close to 00:06:41.850 --> 00:06:44.810 the danger zones. He saw the squalor of the trenches 00:06:44.810 --> 00:06:47.069 firsthand. And he won the military cross for 00:06:47.069 --> 00:06:49.069 it. He did. And the soldiers, they loved him 00:06:49.069 --> 00:06:51.069 for it. He wasn't sitting in a palace somewhere. 00:06:51.209 --> 00:06:53.629 He was out there in the mud with them. This created 00:06:53.629 --> 00:06:56.379 a bond. him and the veterans that lasted for 00:06:56.379 --> 00:06:59.319 decades. And that popularity just exploded in 00:06:59.319 --> 00:07:01.899 the 1920s. I think it's hard for us to grasp 00:07:01.899 --> 00:07:03.579 now because we have so many celebrities, but 00:07:03.579 --> 00:07:07.040 in the 1920s, he was the global superstar. Oh, 00:07:07.079 --> 00:07:09.600 there was no one bigger. He was the most photographed 00:07:09.600 --> 00:07:12.439 person in the world. He was young, handsome, 00:07:12.819 --> 00:07:15.620 unmarried, the most eligible bachelor on the 00:07:15.620 --> 00:07:19.860 entire planet. He did 16 major tours of the empire 00:07:19.860 --> 00:07:24.100 between 1919 and 1935. He was the face of Britain. 00:07:24.279 --> 00:07:26.579 I read that note about American fashion, that 00:07:26.579 --> 00:07:28.680 American men were more interested in the cut 00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:31.600 of his suits than in their own president. If 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:33.839 the Prince of Wales wore a Windsor knot or a 00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:36.269 certain type of sweater. The garment industry 00:07:36.269 --> 00:07:38.829 would sell out overnight. He was the first modern 00:07:38.829 --> 00:07:41.089 celebrity royal. He understood the camera. He 00:07:41.089 --> 00:07:43.129 understood branding. But there was a real dissonance, 00:07:43.129 --> 00:07:44.970 wasn't there, between the brand and the man? 00:07:45.149 --> 00:07:47.790 Well, the brand was modern, empathetic man of 00:07:47.790 --> 00:07:50.730 the people. The private man held views that were. 00:07:51.199 --> 00:07:53.879 Well, shockingly reactionary, even for his time. 00:07:54.019 --> 00:07:55.959 They were. And this brings us to the letters, 00:07:56.019 --> 00:07:58.360 specifically the letter from his tour of Australia 00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:01.259 in 1920. It's so jarring because it just completely 00:08:01.259 --> 00:08:03.699 contradicts that friend of the common man image. 00:08:03.920 --> 00:08:06.319 What does it say? It's a difficult read. He wrote 00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:08.439 privately about the indigenous Australians he 00:08:08.439 --> 00:08:10.860 encountered. He referred to them as the lowest 00:08:10.860 --> 00:08:14.379 known form of human beings. And, quote, the nearest 00:08:14.379 --> 00:08:17.720 thing to monkeys. That is just repulsive. It 00:08:17.720 --> 00:08:21.339 is. And it reveals this deep -seated racial prejudice. 00:08:21.699 --> 00:08:24.560 He believed firmly in the hierarchy of empire 00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:28.060 and in white superiority. So while he was out 00:08:28.060 --> 00:08:30.279 there shaking hands and smiling for the cameras, 00:08:30.399 --> 00:08:33.419 privately he held this real disdain for many 00:08:33.419 --> 00:08:36.120 of the people he was destined to rule. So his 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:38.759 populism was more about vanity then, about being 00:08:38.759 --> 00:08:41.200 loved by the crowds. I think so. It was about 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:44.059 adulation, not about actual respect for the people. 00:08:44.299 --> 00:08:46.980 So we have a prince. who is vain intellectually 00:08:46.980 --> 00:08:51.360 lazy privately bigoted but publicly adored and 00:08:51.360 --> 00:08:54.720 as he enters his 30s this rebel prince lifestyle 00:08:54.720 --> 00:08:57.980 starts to cause some real headaches for the establishment 00:08:57.980 --> 00:09:00.419 he's partying in paris he's running with a fast 00:09:00.419 --> 00:09:02.720 set and he's pursuing married women this is the 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:05.220 other psychological pattern that emerges he had 00:09:05.220 --> 00:09:07.440 long affairs with frida dudley ward and then 00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:09.600 lady furnace both of them married the theory 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:11.690 is that married women were safe Right. Because 00:09:11.690 --> 00:09:13.049 they couldn't demand marriage. Exactly. They 00:09:13.049 --> 00:09:14.950 were safe, but they also represented a conquest. 00:09:15.289 --> 00:09:17.350 He was taking something that belonged to another 00:09:17.350 --> 00:09:19.450 man. It was part of the rebellion. But there 00:09:19.450 --> 00:09:22.309 was one moment where this recklessness almost 00:09:22.309 --> 00:09:24.809 caused a massive scandal years before Wallace. 00:09:25.370 --> 00:09:28.919 The Marguerite Albert affair. This sounds like 00:09:28.919 --> 00:09:30.840 something out of a noir film. It really does. 00:09:31.159 --> 00:09:33.440 Marguerite Albert was a very well -known Parisian 00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:36.220 courtesan. Edward had a passionate affair with 00:09:36.220 --> 00:09:38.779 her during the war and, like a fool, wrote her 00:09:38.779 --> 00:09:41.039 some incredibly indiscreet letters. What was 00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:43.340 in them? Letters that criticized the war effort, 00:09:43.580 --> 00:09:46.019 letters that criticized his own father, the king. 00:09:46.220 --> 00:09:49.340 Just dynamite. So you flash forward a few years 00:09:49.340 --> 00:09:51.340 and Marguerite sheets her husband, an Egyptian 00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:54.379 millionaire, dead at the Savoy Hotel in London. 00:09:54.539 --> 00:09:57.019 She murders him. in london kills him and she 00:09:57.019 --> 00:09:59.580 goes on trial for murder at the old bailey the 00:09:59.580 --> 00:10:02.179 royal household is in a complete panic because 00:10:02.179 --> 00:10:04.440 she still has these letters if she releases them 00:10:04.440 --> 00:10:06.720 or if they're entered into evidence the prince's 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:09.080 reputation is absolutely ruined and there is 00:10:09.080 --> 00:10:11.240 a lot of evidence to suggest a deal was struck 00:10:11.240 --> 00:10:14.259 the palace worked behind the scenes pulling strings 00:10:14.259 --> 00:10:16.659 to ensure her acquittal in exchange for the return 00:10:16.659 --> 00:10:19.480 of those letters that is a staggering abuse of 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:22.240 power just to cover up a prince's indiscretion 00:10:22.490 --> 00:10:24.970 You would think a close call like that, a murder 00:10:24.970 --> 00:10:27.250 trial involving an ex -lover, would scare him 00:10:27.250 --> 00:10:29.269 straight. It didn't. He didn't learn a thing. 00:10:29.509 --> 00:10:32.070 I think he just felt invincible. His father, 00:10:32.289 --> 00:10:35.509 George V, watched all this behavior with just 00:10:35.509 --> 00:10:38.149 growing horror. And there's that famous quote 00:10:38.149 --> 00:10:40.129 from George V, which turned out to be a prophecy. 00:10:40.409 --> 00:10:42.850 It's chilling. He said, after I am dead, the 00:10:42.850 --> 00:10:45.950 boy will ruin himself in 12 months. 12 months. 00:10:46.110 --> 00:10:48.590 And he was off by what? Less than a month? Hauntingly 00:10:48.590 --> 00:10:51.720 accurate. George V knew his son's character flaws 00:10:51.720 --> 00:10:54.899 better than anyone. He even told a courtier that 00:10:54.899 --> 00:10:57.080 he prayed to God that Edward would never marry 00:10:57.080 --> 00:10:59.440 and have children so that the throne would pass 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:02.120 to his second son, Albert Bertie, and his granddaughter, 00:11:02.379 --> 00:11:05.120 Lilibet. Imagine a father praying for his own 00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:07.860 line to end with his eldest son because he trusts 00:11:07.860 --> 00:11:10.000 him so little. That is just, it's devastating. 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:13.279 And that brings us to the catalyst for the ruin, 00:11:13.559 --> 00:11:16.639 Wallace Simpson. Enter Mrs. Simpson. She meets 00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:19.539 Edward in 1931. She's introduced by his then 00:11:19.539 --> 00:11:21.940 -mistress, Lady Furness. At this point, she's 00:11:21.940 --> 00:11:24.399 an American, married to her second husband, Ernest 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:27.139 Simpson, and she has one divorce already behind 00:11:27.139 --> 00:11:30.139 her. So she is technically a double divorcee 00:11:30.139 --> 00:11:32.759 in waiting. Correct. And in the very rigid social 00:11:32.759 --> 00:11:36.019 hierarchy of 1930s Britain, she was completely 00:11:36.019 --> 00:11:39.000 unacceptable. But for Edward, she was a revelation. 00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:42.480 Why? What was so different about her? She wasn't 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:44.940 impressed by his title. She didn't fawn over 00:11:44.940 --> 00:11:47.379 him like every other woman did. She was irreverent. 00:11:47.399 --> 00:11:50.700 She teased him. She treated him, you know, not 00:11:50.700 --> 00:11:53.340 like a prince. And the power dynamic just flipped 00:11:53.340 --> 00:11:56.559 immediately. I was looking at the special branch 00:11:56.559 --> 00:11:59.120 reports, because of course the police were watching 00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:01.899 the prince's new girlfriend. There's this specific 00:12:01.899 --> 00:12:04.399 report from a visit to an antique shop. Yes. 00:12:04.750 --> 00:12:06.470 The officer noted that Wallace seemed to have 00:12:06.470 --> 00:12:09.169 the prints completely under her thumb. She would 00:12:09.169 --> 00:12:11.570 snap her fingers, tell him what to buy, tell 00:12:11.570 --> 00:12:13.789 him to stop fidgeting. And he loved it. He adored 00:12:13.789 --> 00:12:16.289 it. Witnesses described him gazing at her with 00:12:16.289 --> 00:12:19.669 this dog -like devotion. She became the mother 00:12:19.669 --> 00:12:21.990 figure, the nanny figure that he'd been craving 00:12:21.990 --> 00:12:24.759 his entire life. Exactly. She organized his life. 00:12:24.860 --> 00:12:27.059 She provided the discipline he couldn't provide 00:12:27.059 --> 00:12:30.039 for himself. But to his family, she was a complete 00:12:30.039 --> 00:12:32.059 disaster. They met her once, right? They met 00:12:32.059 --> 00:12:34.740 her once at a party. But after that, as the relationship 00:12:34.740 --> 00:12:37.440 became more serious and more obvious, George 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:40.279 V and Queen Mary refused to receive her. She 00:12:40.279 --> 00:12:42.279 was banned from the court. So the tension is 00:12:42.279 --> 00:12:45.340 building. And then, in January 1936, the old 00:12:45.340 --> 00:12:49.519 king, George V, Guys, Edward becomes King Edward 00:12:49.519 --> 00:12:54.019 VIII, and the 326 -day reign begins. And he starts 00:12:54.019 --> 00:12:56.659 breaking rules literally on day one. Day one. 00:12:56.720 --> 00:12:59.179 The accession proclamation, the official announcement 00:12:59.179 --> 00:13:02.120 of the new king, is read at St. James's Palace. 00:13:02.859 --> 00:13:05.120 Now, tradition dictates that the new monarch 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:07.159 does not attend. They're supposed to be in seclusion, 00:13:07.240 --> 00:13:09.399 mourning their predecessor. But Edward is there. 00:13:09.559 --> 00:13:11.659 Oh, he's there. He's watching from a window at 00:13:11.659 --> 00:13:14.360 St. James's Palace, and he is not alone. He is 00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:15.960 standing there right next to Wallis Simpson. 00:13:16.220 --> 00:13:18.320 The cameras catch it. They do. It was a massive 00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:20.519 statement. He was effectively saying to the world, 00:13:20.639 --> 00:13:23.460 I am the king, this is the woman I am with, and 00:13:23.460 --> 00:13:25.679 I don't care about your traditions. It really 00:13:25.679 --> 00:13:28.639 sets the tone for a reign that was just defined 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:31.620 by vanity and a complete disregard for protocol. 00:13:32.169 --> 00:13:35.009 I have to ask you about the coins. This detail, 00:13:35.149 --> 00:13:38.149 it feels so petty, but it says so much about 00:13:38.149 --> 00:13:41.269 his mindset. It is the ultimate example of his 00:13:41.269 --> 00:13:44.169 vanity. There's a tradition in British numismatics 00:13:44.169 --> 00:13:46.610 coin design that goes back to the 17th century. 00:13:46.830 --> 00:13:49.710 Each monarch faces the opposite direction of 00:13:49.710 --> 00:13:54.690 their predecessor. George V faced left. So legally 00:13:54.690 --> 00:13:57.049 and traditionally, Edward VIII should face right. 00:13:57.210 --> 00:13:59.490 But he refused. He refused. He absolutely insisted 00:13:59.490 --> 00:14:02.450 on facing left. And the reason? He preferred 00:14:02.450 --> 00:14:04.909 his profile from the left side. He thought it 00:14:04.909 --> 00:14:06.909 showed the parting in his hair better. You're 00:14:06.909 --> 00:14:09.129 killing me. He broke a 300 -year -old tradition 00:14:09.129 --> 00:14:11.289 for his hair part. He did, and the royal mint 00:14:11.289 --> 00:14:13.690 actually had to scramble to create these designs. 00:14:13.909 --> 00:14:16.590 The irony is, because he abdicated before the 00:14:16.590 --> 00:14:18.970 coinage could be mass -produced, very few were 00:14:18.970 --> 00:14:21.029 ever actually issued. So what happened with his 00:14:21.029 --> 00:14:23.950 brother, George VI? Did he face right? No, and 00:14:23.950 --> 00:14:25.990 this is the really fascinating part. George VI 00:14:25.990 --> 00:14:28.830 decided to face left as well. So he broke the 00:14:28.830 --> 00:14:31.700 tradition too. No, he faced left to maintain 00:14:31.700 --> 00:14:34.740 the tradition. He acted as if Edward had faced 00:14:34.740 --> 00:14:37.100 right, as if he was following him in the proper 00:14:37.100 --> 00:14:40.100 sequence. He effectively erased Edward's reign 00:14:40.100 --> 00:14:42.480 from the numismatic history. That is a subtle 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:45.500 but absolutely brutal edit of history. It is. 00:14:45.879 --> 00:14:48.139 But while he's worrying about his profile on 00:14:48.139 --> 00:14:51.220 a coin, the actual work of being king is just 00:14:51.220 --> 00:14:54.620 falling apart. We touched on the red boxes earlier. 00:14:54.740 --> 00:14:57.360 Can you explain why this was such a security 00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:00.320 nightmare? The red boxes are the lifeblood of 00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:02.080 the British government. They contain the cabinet 00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:04.419 minutes, the foreign office telegrams, intelligence 00:15:04.419 --> 00:15:07.480 reports, the most sensitive secrets of the entire 00:15:07.480 --> 00:15:10.059 empire. The king is supposed to read them, sign 00:15:10.059 --> 00:15:13.379 them, and return them securely. He was leaving 00:15:13.379 --> 00:15:15.980 them lying around. At his country home, Fort 00:15:15.980 --> 00:15:18.840 Belvedere, ministers would visit and find top 00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:21.500 secret documents scattered on tables, some with 00:15:21.500 --> 00:15:24.100 cocktail glass rings on them. Oh, no. And Fort 00:15:24.100 --> 00:15:26.240 Belvedere was a party house. Wallace was always 00:15:26.240 --> 00:15:28.240 there. Her friends were there, some of whom had 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:30.399 very questionable connections to foreign powers. 00:15:30.620 --> 00:15:33.299 So the government is thinking, we have a king 00:15:33.299 --> 00:15:36.620 who is careless with our secrets. And he's hanging 00:15:36.620 --> 00:15:39.440 out with people we absolutely do not trust. It 00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:41.820 got so bad that the prime minister and the cabinet 00:15:41.820 --> 00:15:44.059 secretary actually started withholding documents 00:15:44.059 --> 00:15:46.799 from him. They stopped showing the king the most 00:15:46.799 --> 00:15:49.759 sensitive material. Just think about that. The 00:15:49.759 --> 00:15:51.799 government did not trust the head of state with 00:15:51.799 --> 00:15:54.320 the state's own secrets. The constitutional relationship 00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:56.919 was breaking down before the abdication crisis 00:15:56.919 --> 00:15:59.679 even formally began. And on top of that, he was 00:15:59.679 --> 00:16:01.779 dabbling in politics, wasn't he? The tour of 00:16:01.779 --> 00:16:04.120 the Welsh mining villages. This is a very famous 00:16:04.120 --> 00:16:08.549 moment. November 1936. He visits South Wales, 00:16:08.750 --> 00:16:10.750 which had been devastated by the Great Depression. 00:16:11.629 --> 00:16:14.350 Unemployment was sky high. He sees the poverty 00:16:14.350 --> 00:16:17.169 and he says, quote, something must be done. Which 00:16:17.169 --> 00:16:19.909 on the surface sounds like a good thing. A compassionate 00:16:19.909 --> 00:16:22.549 king. And to the public, it was. They cheered 00:16:22.549 --> 00:16:24.909 him for it. But to the government, it was an 00:16:24.909 --> 00:16:27.330 absolute nightmare. Because in the British Constitution, 00:16:27.730 --> 00:16:30.620 the king cannot make policy. He reigns, but he 00:16:30.620 --> 00:16:33.159 doesn't rule. He acts on the advice of his ministers. 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:36.259 By saying, something must be done, he was publicly 00:16:36.259 --> 00:16:38.220 criticizing the elected government's handling 00:16:38.220 --> 00:16:40.240 of the economy. It looked like he was trying 00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:43.279 to lead a populist movement against his own prime 00:16:43.279 --> 00:16:45.899 minister. He was acting like a politician, not 00:16:45.899 --> 00:16:48.399 a constitutional monarch. And that brings us 00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:51.559 to the climax, the abdication crisis. November 00:16:51.559 --> 00:16:55.419 and December 1936. Edward decides he is going 00:16:55.419 --> 00:16:58.419 to marry Wallis Simpson. Her second divorce is 00:16:58.419 --> 00:17:01.240 finalized. He tells the prime minister, Stanley 00:17:01.240 --> 00:17:03.740 Baldwin. And Baldwin says no. But we need to 00:17:03.740 --> 00:17:05.880 break down why he said no, because it wasn't 00:17:05.880 --> 00:17:09.619 just we don't like her. There were three massive, 00:17:09.720 --> 00:17:13.440 immovable barriers. Religion, the people, and 00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:15.059 the dominions. That's right. Let's take religion 00:17:15.059 --> 00:17:17.799 first. As king, Edward was the supreme governor 00:17:17.799 --> 00:17:20.299 of the Church of England. In 1936, the church 00:17:20.299 --> 00:17:22.759 strictly forbade the remarriage of divorced persons 00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:24.920 if a former spouse was still living. And Wallace 00:17:24.920 --> 00:17:29.079 had two living ex -husbands. two so edward could 00:17:29.079 --> 00:17:31.940 not promise to uphold the church's laws while 00:17:31.940 --> 00:17:34.319 simultaneously breaking them in his own personal 00:17:34.319 --> 00:17:36.960 life it was a complete logical impossibility 00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:38.819 okay so that's the religious barrier then there's 00:17:38.819 --> 00:17:41.309 the people Baldwin and the cabinet were convinced 00:17:41.309 --> 00:17:44.029 that the British public, specifically the conservative 00:17:44.029 --> 00:17:47.009 middle class, would never accept Wallace as their 00:17:47.009 --> 00:17:50.130 queen. She was seen as an adventurer, an American, 00:17:50.450 --> 00:17:54.009 a woman with a past. They believed the monarchy's 00:17:54.009 --> 00:17:56.970 prestige would just collapse. But the third barrier, 00:17:57.170 --> 00:17:59.190 the dominions, that's the one that I think is 00:17:59.190 --> 00:18:01.369 the most interesting and maybe the least understood. 00:18:01.650 --> 00:18:03.349 This all goes back to the Statute of Westminster, 00:18:03.529 --> 00:18:06.039 right? This is the technical legal detail that 00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:09.180 really sealed his fate. In 1931, the Statute 00:18:09.180 --> 00:18:11.440 of Westminster was passed. And what it did was 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:15.160 it gave the Dominions Canada, Australia, New 00:18:15.160 --> 00:18:18.160 Zealand, South Africa, complete legislative independence. 00:18:18.640 --> 00:18:20.859 The British Parliament could no longer make laws 00:18:20.859 --> 00:18:23.299 for them. So what did that mean for the marriage, 00:18:23.559 --> 00:18:26.380 practically speaking? it meant that for wallace 00:18:26.380 --> 00:18:29.160 to become queen every single dominion parliament 00:18:29.160 --> 00:18:32.339 had to agree to the marriage if the uk said yes 00:18:32.339 --> 00:18:36.769 but say canada said no Then Edward would be king 00:18:36.769 --> 00:18:39.930 of the UK, but not king of Canada. And the monarchy 00:18:39.930 --> 00:18:42.230 would fracture. And the empire would begin to 00:18:42.230 --> 00:18:44.690 unravel. And the dominion leaders were not on 00:18:44.690 --> 00:18:47.289 board at all. Not even slightly. The prime minister 00:18:47.289 --> 00:18:50.569 of Australia, Joseph Lyons, was personally appalled. 00:18:50.690 --> 00:18:52.710 The prime minister of Canada, Mackenzie King, 00:18:52.990 --> 00:18:55.869 was a devout Presbyterian who found the whole 00:18:55.869 --> 00:18:59.119 idea morally repugnant. And the Prime Minister 00:18:59.119 --> 00:19:02.440 of New Zealand, Michael Joseph Savage. Well, 00:19:02.519 --> 00:19:04.680 the story goes that when he was first consulted, 00:19:04.759 --> 00:19:07.279 he had never even heard of Wallace Simpson. He 00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:09.079 was just catching up on the gossip in real time. 00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:12.039 He was completely baffled. But once he understood 00:19:12.039 --> 00:19:14.980 the situation, he was a hard no. And when Edward 00:19:14.980 --> 00:19:17.099 was told about the opposition in the Dominions, 00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:19.299 his reaction was so telling. What did he say? 00:19:19.710 --> 00:19:21.869 He just dismissed Australia completely. He told 00:19:21.869 --> 00:19:23.970 Baldwin that there were not many people in Australia 00:19:23.970 --> 00:19:26.269 and so their opinion didn't really matter. The 00:19:26.269 --> 00:19:28.789 arrogance is just breathtaking. He was their 00:19:28.789 --> 00:19:31.430 king and yet he treated them as if they were. 00:19:31.869 --> 00:19:34.150 completely irrelevant it just shows how little 00:19:34.150 --> 00:19:36.650 he understood the job he thought the crown was 00:19:36.650 --> 00:19:40.170 about him his popularity his desires he didn't 00:19:40.170 --> 00:19:43.210 get that he was the keystone in a massive global 00:19:43.210 --> 00:19:47.289 legal architecture so he tries to negotiate he 00:19:47.289 --> 00:19:51.170 proposes a morganatic marriage what does that 00:19:51.170 --> 00:19:53.680 actually mean A morganatic marriage is where 00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:56.400 the king marries someone, but the wife does not 00:19:56.400 --> 00:19:58.500 take the title of queen. She might become the 00:19:58.500 --> 00:20:00.759 Duchess of Cornwall or something similar, and 00:20:00.759 --> 00:20:02.819 any children they have do not inherit the throne. 00:20:02.980 --> 00:20:05.380 It sounds like a reasonable compromise on the 00:20:05.380 --> 00:20:07.279 face of it. Winston Churchill actually supported 00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:09.549 this idea, didn't he? Churchill did. He was a 00:20:09.549 --> 00:20:11.569 romantic at heart and a friend of the king, and 00:20:11.569 --> 00:20:13.390 he wanted to keep him on the throne. But the 00:20:13.390 --> 00:20:16.069 cabinet and all of the dominions, they rejected 00:20:16.069 --> 00:20:18.670 it flat out. Why? They argued that the king's 00:20:18.670 --> 00:20:21.410 wife is the queen, by definition. You can't have 00:20:21.410 --> 00:20:23.950 a half queen. It would permanently downgrade 00:20:23.950 --> 00:20:26.289 the status of the monarchy. So Baldwin delivers 00:20:26.289 --> 00:20:28.690 the ultimatum, the three options. Option one, 00:20:28.849 --> 00:20:31.329 give up Wallace and remain king. Option two, 00:20:31.670 --> 00:20:34.750 marry her against the government's advice. Which 00:20:34.750 --> 00:20:36.869 would trigger what, exactly? The government would 00:20:36.869 --> 00:20:39.769 resign immediately. A general election would 00:20:39.769 --> 00:20:42.250 have to be called. The king would be dragging 00:20:42.250 --> 00:20:44.450 the monarchy into a partisan political fight 00:20:44.450 --> 00:20:47.210 against his own ministers. The neutrality of 00:20:47.210 --> 00:20:49.950 the crown would be destroyed forever. It would 00:20:49.950 --> 00:20:52.210 be a constitutional crisis of the highest order. 00:20:52.569 --> 00:20:55.210 And option three. Abdicate. And for him, there 00:20:55.210 --> 00:20:57.730 was no choice. He couldn't give her up. His psychological 00:20:57.730 --> 00:21:00.950 dependence on her was too absolute. He told Baldwin, 00:21:01.170 --> 00:21:05.250 I am prepared to go. So on December 10th, 1936, 00:21:05.410 --> 00:21:09.000 at Fort Belvedere, the deed is done. His three 00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:11.480 brothers, Bertie, the future king, Harry, and 00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:13.720 George, are all there as witnesses. It must have 00:21:13.720 --> 00:21:15.960 been a somber, devastating atmosphere. Edward 00:21:15.960 --> 00:21:17.920 signed the instrument of abdication. In that 00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:19.859 single moment, he ceased to be the most powerful 00:21:19.859 --> 00:21:21.980 monarch on earth. He became a private citizen. 00:21:22.279 --> 00:21:25.839 And then, the broadcast. December 11th, the speech 00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:28.200 that launched a thousand tea towels. I have found 00:21:28.200 --> 00:21:30.960 it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:34.480 and to discharge my duties as king as I would 00:21:34.480 --> 00:21:37.720 wish to do without the help and support of the 00:21:37.720 --> 00:21:39.819 woman I love. It's brilliant rhetoric, you have 00:21:39.819 --> 00:21:41.880 to admit. Oh, it is. It's a masterpiece of spin. 00:21:42.119 --> 00:21:44.880 It framed a complete dereliction of duty as a 00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:47.579 noble sacrifice for love. It spun the narrative 00:21:47.579 --> 00:21:50.599 instantly. The public wept. They saw it as this 00:21:50.599 --> 00:21:52.779 great tragedy. But the people inside the room, 00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:55.119 the government, the family, they just felt relief. 00:21:55.690 --> 00:21:57.869 The problem was gone. But the problem wasn't 00:21:57.869 --> 00:22:00.029 gone. And this is where we enter the second half 00:22:00.029 --> 00:22:02.049 of the story, the half that turns this from a 00:22:02.049 --> 00:22:05.630 royal drama into a geopolitical thriller. Edward 00:22:05.630 --> 00:22:07.829 leaves England. He's made the Duke of Windsor. 00:22:07.990 --> 00:22:11.750 He marries Wallace in France in June 1937. And 00:22:11.750 --> 00:22:13.490 this is where the bitterness really sets in. 00:22:13.750 --> 00:22:16.430 Deeply. His brother, the new King George VI, 00:22:16.710 --> 00:22:19.569 forbade any member of the royal family from attending 00:22:19.569 --> 00:22:22.450 the wedding. That hurt Edward. But the real blow, 00:22:22.609 --> 00:22:25.079 the one that festered, was the title. The letters 00:22:25.079 --> 00:22:28.640 patent. Exactly. The king issued a legal decree, 00:22:28.839 --> 00:22:31.640 a letters patent, stating that while Edward would 00:22:31.640 --> 00:22:34.990 be styled his royal highness. Wallace would not. 00:22:35.150 --> 00:22:38.210 She was to be just the Duchess of Windsor. She 00:22:38.210 --> 00:22:41.130 was explicitly denied the HRH style. And this 00:22:41.130 --> 00:22:43.690 drove Edward absolutely crazy for the rest of 00:22:43.690 --> 00:22:46.329 his life. He was obsessed with it. He viewed 00:22:46.329 --> 00:22:49.269 it as a deliberate public humiliation of his 00:22:49.269 --> 00:22:52.470 wife. He refused to go anywhere where she wasn't 00:22:52.470 --> 00:22:55.890 treated with full royal protocol. And this grievance, 00:22:55.890 --> 00:22:58.309 this intense anger at his family and at the British 00:22:58.309 --> 00:23:00.839 government, it made him vulnerable. And there 00:23:00.839 --> 00:23:02.940 was one government in particular that was more 00:23:02.940 --> 00:23:05.619 than happy to give Wallace the royal treatment 00:23:05.619 --> 00:23:08.019 she was denied at home. Nazi Germany. Right. 00:23:08.119 --> 00:23:11.279 In October 1937, just months after the wedding, 00:23:11.460 --> 00:23:14.059 the Windsors decided to tour Nazi Germany. The 00:23:14.059 --> 00:23:15.740 British government advised against this, didn't 00:23:15.740 --> 00:23:18.000 they? They begged him not to go. Strongly. They 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:20.539 dugged him. But he went anyway. He claimed it 00:23:20.539 --> 00:23:22.400 was to study housing conditions for the working 00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:25.019 class, which was just a flimsy pretext. It was 00:23:25.019 --> 00:23:27.599 a massive propaganda coup for Hitler. The visuals 00:23:27.599 --> 00:23:30.619 from this trip are just chilling. They are. You 00:23:30.619 --> 00:23:32.400 see the Duke and Duchess being driven around 00:23:32.400 --> 00:23:35.420 in open -top Mercedes convertibles by SS officers. 00:23:35.660 --> 00:23:38.420 You see crowds of people cheering them. And the 00:23:38.420 --> 00:23:40.859 Nazis were smart. They curated the trip perfectly. 00:23:41.079 --> 00:23:43.380 They bowed to Wallace. They called her Your Royal 00:23:43.380 --> 00:23:45.920 Highness. They gave Edward the respect he felt 00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:48.279 he was being denied at home. And the salute. 00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:51.319 We have to talk about the salute. Yes. There 00:23:51.319 --> 00:23:54.319 are photographs and newsreel footage of Edward 00:23:54.319 --> 00:23:57.779 giving a full Nazi salute. Not a casual wave. 00:23:58.200 --> 00:24:01.140 A stiff -armed formal salute. Some apologists 00:24:01.140 --> 00:24:03.059 still try to say, oh, he was just being polite, 00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:05.279 you know, following local custom. That just doesn't 00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:07.720 wash. He was a trained diplomat and a former 00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:09.859 king of England. He knew exactly what that symbol 00:24:09.859 --> 00:24:13.099 meant. It was an endorsement. And the tour culminated 00:24:13.099 --> 00:24:15.119 in a personal meeting with Hitler at the Berkhof, 00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:17.680 his mountain retreat. They had tea with Hitler. 00:24:17.980 --> 00:24:20.319 They did. And by all accounts, they got along 00:24:20.319 --> 00:24:23.920 famously. Hitler later told his aides that Wallace 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:26.000 would have made a good queen. Of course he thought 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:29.509 that. Right. Hitler saw Edward as a potential 00:24:29.509 --> 00:24:32.390 ally. He believed that if Edward had stayed on 00:24:32.390 --> 00:24:34.329 the throne, Britain would have been friendly 00:24:34.329 --> 00:24:36.990 to Germany. He actually called the abdication 00:24:36.990 --> 00:24:40.329 a severe loss for us. But this goes beyond just 00:24:40.329 --> 00:24:43.309 a pre -war flirtation. War breaks out in 1939. 00:24:43.890 --> 00:24:46.549 Edward is brought back to the UK. He's made a 00:24:46.549 --> 00:24:48.529 major general attached to the British military 00:24:48.529 --> 00:24:51.450 mission in France. But he's not acting like a 00:24:51.450 --> 00:24:54.410 British general. No, he's acting like a defeatist. 00:24:54.940 --> 00:24:58.099 In 1939, from Verdun, he recorded a broadcast 00:24:58.099 --> 00:25:01.579 calling for peace. It was essentially an appeasement 00:25:01.579 --> 00:25:04.170 speech. The BBC actually refused to air it, but 00:25:04.170 --> 00:25:06.690 it was broadcast internationally. He was undermining 00:25:06.690 --> 00:25:08.769 the war effort from the very start. And then 00:25:08.769 --> 00:25:10.869 come the treason allegations, the defense of 00:25:10.869 --> 00:25:13.210 Belgium. This is perhaps the most damning piece 00:25:13.210 --> 00:25:15.910 of evidence. The German ambassador in The Hague, 00:25:15.950 --> 00:25:18.430 a man named Count von Zuckerberg's Rota, reported 00:25:18.430 --> 00:25:20.569 back to Berlin that the Duke of Windsor had leaked 00:25:20.569 --> 00:25:23.450 details about the Allied war plans, specifically 00:25:23.450 --> 00:25:25.890 that the defensive lines in Belgium were weak. 00:25:26.190 --> 00:25:28.750 If that is true, that is direct treason. He gave 00:25:28.750 --> 00:25:30.849 information to the enemy that could, and almost 00:25:30.849 --> 00:25:33.130 certainly did, help them conquer France in 1940. 00:25:33.569 --> 00:25:36.170 Edward always denied it, of course. But the Germans 00:25:36.170 --> 00:25:38.450 certainly believed he was on their side. They 00:25:38.450 --> 00:25:40.369 felt they had a friend in the high command. Then 00:25:40.369 --> 00:25:43.849 comes the collapse. May 1940. France falls to 00:25:43.849 --> 00:25:46.650 the Nazis. The Windsors flee south. They end 00:25:46.650 --> 00:25:49.750 up in neutral Spain and then Portugal. And this 00:25:49.750 --> 00:25:52.710 is where the Nazis launch Operation Willie. Operation 00:25:52.710 --> 00:25:54.710 Willie. It sounds like something out of a spy 00:25:54.710 --> 00:25:57.029 novel. But it's all there in the archives. It 00:25:57.029 --> 00:25:59.630 is. This was a plan authorized by Jochen von 00:25:59.630 --> 00:26:02.529 Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister. The 00:26:02.529 --> 00:26:05.470 goal was to kidnap the Duke of Windsor. Kidnap 00:26:05.470 --> 00:26:08.250 him. Or at least convince him to stay. The Nazis 00:26:08.250 --> 00:26:10.589 wanted to keep the Windsors in a neutral country, 00:26:10.730 --> 00:26:13.170 like Spain, rather than letting them escape to 00:26:13.170 --> 00:26:15.650 British territory like the Bahamas. The plan 00:26:15.650 --> 00:26:18.230 was to use Edward as a political weapon. How 00:26:18.230 --> 00:26:20.950 so? Hitler envisioned a scenario where Germany 00:26:20.950 --> 00:26:24.250 successfully invades Britain operation, sea line 00:26:24.250 --> 00:26:26.750 overthrown, rose the government and reinstates 00:26:26.750 --> 00:26:29.769 Edward VIII as a puppet king. A fascist Britain 00:26:29.769 --> 00:26:33.309 with Edward on the throne. Exactly. A king who 00:26:33.309 --> 00:26:36.589 would do whatever Berlin wanted. And the terrifying 00:26:36.589 --> 00:26:39.130 part is that Edward was actively communicating 00:26:39.130 --> 00:26:41.369 with German agents during this time in Portugal. 00:26:41.609 --> 00:26:43.829 He was expressing his frustration with the British 00:26:43.829 --> 00:26:46.089 government. He was telling people that the war 00:26:46.089 --> 00:26:48.450 was a mistake, that Britain couldn't possibly 00:26:48.450 --> 00:26:50.710 win. There's a telegram where he essentially 00:26:50.710 --> 00:26:54.059 suggests that. If Germany just bombed Britain 00:26:54.059 --> 00:26:56.680 a bit more effectively, it might bring peace 00:26:56.680 --> 00:27:00.200 faster. It's grotesque. He was prioritizing his 00:27:00.200 --> 00:27:03.759 own ego and his strange desire for peace or perhaps 00:27:03.759 --> 00:27:06.519 his desire to get back into power over the very 00:27:06.519 --> 00:27:08.700 survival of his own country. And Churchill was 00:27:08.700 --> 00:27:10.599 watching all of this from London. He was reading 00:27:10.599 --> 00:27:13.420 the intercepts. And Churchill, who had been Edward's 00:27:13.420 --> 00:27:15.839 great defender during the abdication, finally 00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:18.529 lost his patience. Completely. Churchill realized 00:27:18.529 --> 00:27:21.069 the Duke was an active liability and a security 00:27:21.069 --> 00:27:23.789 risk. He sent a telegram effectively threatening 00:27:23.789 --> 00:27:26.329 Edward with a court -martial if he did not immediately 00:27:26.329 --> 00:27:28.369 board a ship for the Bahamas. Get on the boat 00:27:28.369 --> 00:27:31.109 or we will arrest you. That was the clear, unspoken 00:27:31.109 --> 00:27:33.829 message. So Edward and Wallace were basically 00:27:33.829 --> 00:27:36.450 bundled onto a ship and sent off to the Bahamas 00:27:36.450 --> 00:27:38.849 where Churchill appointed him governor. Which 00:27:38.849 --> 00:27:40.710 might sound like a nice Caribbean holiday, but 00:27:40.710 --> 00:27:43.390 for Edward, it was exile. He hated it. He called 00:27:43.390 --> 00:27:46.250 it a third -class British colony. He felt it 00:27:46.250 --> 00:27:49.069 was beneath him. And his performance as governor 00:27:49.069 --> 00:27:53.250 was mixed at best. His racism resurfaced there 00:27:53.250 --> 00:27:56.299 too, didn't it? Violently. He despised the local 00:27:56.299 --> 00:27:59.220 Bahamian population. He had a running feud with 00:27:59.220 --> 00:28:01.839 Etienne Dupouch, the editor of the Nassau Tribune, 00:28:01.859 --> 00:28:04.420 who was a man of mixed race. When riots broke 00:28:04.420 --> 00:28:08.099 out in 1942 over low wages, Edward refused to 00:28:08.099 --> 00:28:11.039 see it as an economic issue. He blamed communists 00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:13.480 and Jews for stirring up trouble. He was incapable 00:28:13.480 --> 00:28:16.000 of understanding the legitimate grievances of 00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:17.759 the people he was supposed to be governing. And 00:28:17.759 --> 00:28:19.839 even in the Bahamas, the Americans were watching 00:28:19.839 --> 00:28:21.640 him. Right. President Roosevelt didn't trust 00:28:21.640 --> 00:28:24.420 him either. The FBI was ordered to surveil the 00:28:24.420 --> 00:28:26.079 Duke and Duchess whenever they visited Florida. 00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:29.079 There were genuine fears that Wallace in particular 00:28:29.079 --> 00:28:31.640 was passing information to her old contacts in 00:28:31.640 --> 00:28:33.920 Europe, like Ribbentrop. It's just staggering 00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:36.400 when you think about it. The former King of England 00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:40.440 being tailed by the FBI as a suspected Nazi sympathizer. 00:28:40.539 --> 00:28:43.039 It just shows how completely he had burned every 00:28:43.039 --> 00:28:46.339 single bridge. The war ends. The Nazis are defeated. 00:28:47.150 --> 00:28:50.150 And the Marburg files, the captured German documents 00:28:50.150 --> 00:28:52.170 that detailed all of this Nazi communication, 00:28:52.549 --> 00:28:54.950 they're discovered. And the British government 00:28:54.950 --> 00:28:57.470 panics. They realize that if these files were 00:28:57.470 --> 00:29:00.089 published, the reputation of the monarchy and 00:29:00.089 --> 00:29:02.529 of a member of the royal family would be destroyed. 00:29:02.549 --> 00:29:05.589 So they suppress them. For years, they tried 00:29:05.589 --> 00:29:08.069 to bury the evidence of Edward's collusion. So 00:29:08.069 --> 00:29:10.750 Edward and Wallace just drift into their post 00:29:10.750 --> 00:29:13.890 -war life. They move back to France. They become 00:29:13.890 --> 00:29:17.049 the faces of what was called Café Society. What 00:29:17.049 --> 00:29:19.130 was their life actually like in those final decades? 00:29:19.450 --> 00:29:21.789 It seems so empty. There's a great quote from 00:29:21.789 --> 00:29:23.910 the writer Gore Vidal who met them socially. 00:29:24.170 --> 00:29:26.829 He described the vacuity of the Duke's conversation. 00:29:27.369 --> 00:29:29.950 They had no purpose. They spent their days planning 00:29:29.950 --> 00:29:32.829 dinner parties, buying clothes, and doting on 00:29:32.829 --> 00:29:35.289 their collection of pug dogs. The pugs? They 00:29:35.289 --> 00:29:37.289 treated the dogs like their children. They had 00:29:37.289 --> 00:29:39.890 needlepoint pillows with silly slogans. It was 00:29:39.890 --> 00:29:42.509 just a life of incredibly shallow luxury. And 00:29:42.509 --> 00:29:45.359 he was constantly asking for money. Always. He 00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:47.839 was a very wealthy man. He had saved a fortune 00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:49.799 from the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall when 00:29:49.799 --> 00:29:52.480 he was Prince of Wales. And he sold Balmoral 00:29:52.480 --> 00:29:54.500 and Sandringham to his brother for a massive 00:29:54.500 --> 00:29:57.599 sum. Yet he constantly pleaded poverty to the 00:29:57.599 --> 00:30:00.480 French government to get tax breaks. And he pestered 00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:02.779 his brother and later his niece, Queen Elizabeth 00:30:02.779 --> 00:30:05.460 II, for an increased allowance from the crown. 00:30:05.779 --> 00:30:08.779 It's such a sad image. the man who was once the 00:30:08.779 --> 00:30:11.640 emperor of India, reduced to haggling over money 00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:13.700 and just drifting through parties in Paris. It 00:30:13.700 --> 00:30:16.519 was a long, slow decline into irrelevance. He 00:30:16.519 --> 00:30:18.900 was a very heavy smoker his whole life. In the 00:30:18.900 --> 00:30:21.559 late 1960s, his health began to fail. He developed 00:30:21.559 --> 00:30:23.759 throat cancer. There is one final moment of, 00:30:23.799 --> 00:30:25.359 I'm not sure if you'd call it reconciliation, 00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:30.099 but maybe closure, 1972. Queen Elizabeth II visits 00:30:30.099 --> 00:30:33.359 him in Paris. He was on his deathbed. It was 00:30:33.359 --> 00:30:37.019 just 10 days before he died. The queen came to 00:30:37.019 --> 00:30:39.700 their house in Paris, and Edward insisted on 00:30:39.700 --> 00:30:41.940 getting out of bed, putting on a suit to receive 00:30:41.940 --> 00:30:44.920 her properly. He wanted to bow to his sovereign. 00:30:45.180 --> 00:30:46.859 The respect for the crown was still there then, 00:30:46.940 --> 00:30:50.619 buried under all that bitterness. It was, but 00:30:50.619 --> 00:30:53.339 the tragedy continued. Wallace was there, but 00:30:53.339 --> 00:30:55.759 by this point she was reportedly very confused, 00:30:55.859 --> 00:30:57.980 perhaps suffering from the onset of dementia. 00:30:58.500 --> 00:31:01.440 She appeared for the official photo, but Edward 00:31:01.440 --> 00:31:04.200 was too weak to be in it. He died shortly after 00:31:04.200 --> 00:31:06.380 that visit. And his body was brought back to 00:31:06.380 --> 00:31:08.640 Windsor for burial? He was buried at Frogmore, 00:31:08.779 --> 00:31:11.099 which is the royal burial ground. Wallace lived 00:31:11.099 --> 00:31:13.740 for another 14 years, largely as a recluse, losing 00:31:13.740 --> 00:31:15.900 her mind before she was eventually buried next 00:31:15.900 --> 00:31:18.019 to him. So we circle all the way back to the 00:31:18.019 --> 00:31:20.539 mission of this deep dive. Tragedy or escape? 00:31:20.759 --> 00:31:22.900 When you lay it all out like this, the childhood 00:31:22.900 --> 00:31:26.119 damage, the intellectual laziness, this susceptibility 00:31:26.119 --> 00:31:29.380 to domination, the vanity, and finally the willingness 00:31:29.380 --> 00:31:31.920 to collaborate with the Nazis, I think the verdict 00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:34.089 is pretty clear. It feels like an escape. The 00:31:34.089 --> 00:31:36.170 abdication was the greatest stroke of luck the 00:31:36.170 --> 00:31:39.009 British monarchy ever had. If Edward had been 00:31:39.009 --> 00:31:42.490 king in 1940, Britain might very well have sued 00:31:42.490 --> 00:31:45.210 for peace with Hitler. The symbol of resistance, 00:31:45.609 --> 00:31:47.869 the king and queen who stayed in London during 00:31:47.869 --> 00:31:50.809 the Blitz, that would never have existed. He 00:31:50.809 --> 00:31:52.509 would have a king who admired Hitler. Instead, 00:31:52.710 --> 00:31:56.680 they got George VI. the stammering, shy, dutiful 00:31:56.680 --> 00:31:59.740 brother who hated the job but did it anyway because 00:31:59.740 --> 00:32:01.980 it was his duty. And his wife, Elizabeth, the 00:32:01.980 --> 00:32:04.480 future queen mother. And they completely reinvented 00:32:04.480 --> 00:32:06.880 the monarchy. They shifted it away from being 00:32:06.880 --> 00:32:09.559 about celebrity and glamour and made it about 00:32:09.559 --> 00:32:12.339 duty, family, and service. They saved the institution 00:32:12.339 --> 00:32:15.380 by being, well... boring and reliable. And here's 00:32:15.380 --> 00:32:17.559 the what if, the provocative thought to leave 00:32:17.559 --> 00:32:19.559 you with. Let's hear it. Think about the butterfly 00:32:19.559 --> 00:32:22.359 effect of this. If Wallis Simpson hadn't divorced 00:32:22.359 --> 00:32:24.720 her first husband, or if she hadn't walked into 00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:27.019 that party where she met Edward, he likely remains 00:32:27.019 --> 00:32:29.259 king. He appoints pro -appeasement ministers. 00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:33.339 He perhaps refuses to declare war in 1939. The 00:32:33.339 --> 00:32:35.819 Nazis conquer Europe. The Holocaust continues 00:32:35.819 --> 00:32:38.940 unchecked. The Soviet Union perhaps expands further 00:32:38.940 --> 00:32:42.349 west. It's a terrifying thought. The entire moral 00:32:42.349 --> 00:32:45.650 and geopolitical map of the 20th century hinged 00:32:45.650 --> 00:32:48.589 on the fact that one unstable man fell in love 00:32:48.589 --> 00:32:51.009 with a woman the establishment wouldn't let him 00:32:51.009 --> 00:32:54.269 marry. Our world exists because of that romance. 00:32:54.390 --> 00:32:57.750 A romance that was less of a fairy tale and more 00:32:57.750 --> 00:33:00.829 of a lucky break for democracy. Absolutely. That 00:33:00.829 --> 00:33:03.150 is a wrap for this deep dive on Edward VIII. 00:33:03.349 --> 00:33:05.769 It's a heavy one, but a really important one. 00:33:05.890 --> 00:33:08.490 We hope you never look at a coin or a royal wedding 00:33:08.490 --> 00:33:11.220 the same way again. indeed thanks for listening 00:33:11.220 --> 00:33:12.599 we'll catch you on the next deep dive