Edward VIII Abdication Crisis - Duke and Duchess of Windsor

Duke and Duchess of Windsor

George VI gave his elder brother the title of Duke of Windsor with the style His Royal Highness on 12 December 1936. On 3 May the following year, the Simpsons' divorce was made final. The case was handled quietly, and it barely featured in some newspapers. The Times was especially disingenuous, printing a single sentence below a seemingly unconnected report announcing the Duke's departure from Austria. When the Duke married Wallis in France on 3 June 1937, she became the Duchess of Windsor, but, much to Edward's disgust, his brother issued letters patent the week before that denied her the style of Her Royal Highness.

The Duke of Windsor lived in retirement in France for most of the rest of his life. His brother gave him a tax-free allowance, which the Duke supplemented by writing his memoirs and by illegal currency trading. He also profited from the sale of Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House to George VI. Both estates are private property and not part of the Royal Estate, and were therefore inherited and owned by Edward, regardless of the abdication.

During World War II, Edward served as Governor of the Bahamas, where he was plagued by rumours and accusations that he was pro-Nazi. He reportedly told an acquaintance: "After the war is over and Hitler will crush the Americans ... we'll take over ... They don't want me as their king, but I'll soon be back as their leader." He also told a journalist that "it would be a tragic thing for the world if Hitler was overthrown". Comments like these reinforced the belief that the Duke and Duchess held Nazi sympathies and the effect of the abdication crisis of 1936 was to force off the throne a man with extreme political views. The Duke explained his views in the New York Daily News of 13 December 1966: "... it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ... I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out." However, claims that Edward would have been a threat or that he was removed by a political conspiracy to dethrone him remain speculative, and "persist largely because since 1936 the contemporary public considerations have lost most of their force and so seem, wrongly, to provide insufficient explanation for the King's departure".