Edward while Prince of Wales, 1922 (Image Wikipedia, public domain)
This article looks at the shared beliefs of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Edward VIII, the King who was forced to abdicate in 1936 because of his intention to marry twice-divorced Wallis Simpson.
Six years older than the Queen Mother, he was her first love.
King Edward VIII Profile
King Edward VIII was King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Defender of the Faith, and Emperor of India from 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December that same year. After his abdication he took on the title Duke of Windsor.
Most of us are aware that until 1917 the family name of the royals was the very German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. During World War I, such a name was clearly unsuitable and the name was changed to Windsor.
Edward was born in 1894 and, when he was growing up, he recalled how older members of his family would often lapse into German. Edward himself was so fluent in the language that he regarded it as his mother tongue.
Edward VIII’s mother, Queen Mary, was almost entirely German and his father, George V, partly German. Edward once told his friend Diana Mosley, the wife of fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, that "every drop of blood in my veins is German."
Edward was immensely popular with the British people almost like a rock star. His visit to Wales’ depressed mining villages in November 1936, turned the spotlight on the appalling living conditions of the Welsh people. He caused unease in government circles when he said “something must be done” about their working conditions and the state of the mines. Then-Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin saw his remarks as political interference and took offence at the King having a social conscience.
King Edward VIII in South Wales, 1936
Recently released cabinet files have revealed that the King’s marriage to twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson was not the main reason for Edward’s forced abdication.
Because he opposed war with Germany and was hugely popular with the British people, Professor Richard Aldrich of the University of Warwick, who analysed the released cabinet files, said the politicians of the day feared the King might dismiss the government – as per his constitutional right to do so – and invite politicians friendlier to Germany to form a new government.
His intended marriage to Wallis Simpson was a convenient excuse for the British government to remove him as Monarch.
Special Branch files record a meeting between Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and Edward VIII, who was then Prince of Wales, in early 1935 suggesting he was also a supporter of Mosley's Blackshirts. They met at the London home of the society hostess Lady Cunard who was an influential friend of Wallis Simpson.
The file states: ”Prince of Wales questioned Mosley regarding strength and policy of British Union of Fascists. "These were explained at length by Mosley."
When the abdication crisis came in 1936, Mosley's B.U.F. newspapers Action and The Blackshirt rallied support for the King. Action newspaper Dec. 12 1936 defended Edward under the headline: "Stand By The King."
The day after Edward’s abdication, Mosley told a meeting in east London: “I regret that the King did not see fit to stay and fight his battle, which is the battle of the people, because I knew the battle could have been won.”
After the abdication, Blackshirt, Dec. 12 1936, accused the politicians of betrayal for forcing Edward out without consulting the people.
Blackshirt, Dec. 12 1936, page 1
Given the title Duke of Windsor after his abdication, the Duke married Simpson in a private ceremony on 3 June 1937, at Château de Candé, near Tours, France.
In October 1937, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor visited Nazi Germany. The visit was much publicised by the German media.
The couple were chaperoned in Germany by Robert Ley, head of the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD), the Reich Labour service. They reviewed ranks of SS troops and visited many factories where they were greeted by the British national anthem and Nazi salutes, which were often returned by the Duke. They also dined regularly with high-ranking Nazis.
In Berlin, Joachim von Ribbentrop dined them at Horcher's—then the finest gourmet restaurant in the city—where they met Albert Speer (with whom they discussed classical music), and Magda and Joseph Goebbels: the former, at the time, was arguably de facto First Lady of the Reich and the latter was Reich Minister of Propaganda.
The highlight of their tour was a meeting with Hitler in Berchtesgaden. There, Hitler and the Duke had an hour long discussion in private. The Duke was fluent in German, although an interpreter was present.
In October 1937, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor visited Nazi Germany. The visit was much publicised by the German media.
Duke and Duchess of Windsor meet Adolf Hitler, 1937 (Image Wikipedia)
The couple were chaperoned in Germany by Robert Ley, head of the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD), the Reich Labour service. They reviewed ranks of SS troops and visited many factories where they were greeted by the British national anthem and Nazi salutes, which were often returned by the Duke. They also dined regularly with high-ranking Nazis.
In Berlin, Joachim von Ribbentrop dined them at Horcher's—then the finest gourmet restaurant in the city—where they met Albert Speer (with whom they discussed classical music), and Magda and Joseph Goebbels: the former, at the time, was arguably de facto First Lady of the Reich and the latter was Reich Minister of Propaganda.
The highlight of their tour was a meeting with Hitler in Berchtesgaden. There, Hitler and the Duke had an hour long discussion in private. The Duke was fluent in German, although an interpreter was present.
The Duke and Duchess at Hitler's mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps, 1937 (Image public domain)
Throughout the 1930s the Duke saw himself as a peacemaker between Germany and England. He was convinced that Britain should never go to war with Germany again after he saw the horror of World War I.
During the first world war, Edward had experienced trench warfare, seen his comrades fight and die, and did not want this for another generation of Englishmen.
In an NBC radio broadcast in May 1939 he said:
“I am deeply conscious of the presence of the great company of the dead, and I am convinced that could they make their voices heard they would be with me in what I am about to say. I speak simply as a soldier of the Last War whose most earnest prayer it is that such cruel and destructive madness shall never again overtake mankind. There is no land whose people want war.”Widely travelled, Edward was racially prejudiced against foreigners and many of the Empire's subjects, believing that whites were inherently superior. (Philip Ziegler, 1991. King Edward VIII: The official biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf)
In 1920, on a visit to Australia, he wrote of Indigenous Australians (Aborigines): "they are the most revolting form of living creatures I've ever seen!! They are the lowest known form of human beings & are the nearest thing to monkeys." (Rupert Godfrey, 1998, "11 July 1920", Letters From a Prince: Edward to Mrs. Freda Dudley Ward 1918–1921, Little, Brown & Co)
At the end of the war, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor moved to a 14-room villa in the Parisian park Bois du Boulogne. Sir Oswald Mosley and his wife Lady Diana, who were long-term neighbours, were frequent visitors.
Edward's views on the superiority of the white race and his opposition to war with Germany were shared by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
A Perfect Match
In the days before Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother or Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, as she was then called, married Edward's younger brother Prince Albert, it's known that she first set her sights on Edward himself. Unfortunately Edward was not interested in her.
Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother (Image youtube)
While Edward believed in the superiority of the white race, and regarded Aborigines as the nearest thing to monkeys, in his book:The Queen Mother: The Official Biography, William Shawcross relates that the Queen Mother was obsessed with preserving "bloodlines" which she believed determined a person’s worth.
At first, she was appalled by the idea of her eldest daughter, Queen Elizabeth, marrying Philip Mountbatten, because his “bloodlines” weren’t good enough: his family had fallen from power, so they weren’t “really” royal.
Unlike our present Queen, the Queen Mother would never have approved of Prince Harry marrying Meghan Markle, a third-rate black American soft-porn actress whose family has a history of race mixing going back at least as far as 1920. For example, in the 1920 census, her great great grandfather, Jeremiah Ragland is described as mulatto, a mixture of black and white (see the Daily Mail, 4 November, 2016).
In modern day Britain, where racial awareness is deliberately being eroded, there is no doubt at all that the Queen Mother if she were still alive, would be branded a racist bigot.
Not only was the Queen Mother a "racist," she did not believe in equality either. For example, it's known that she backed white minority rule in Rhodesia, referred to black people as "blackamoors" and thought black Africans incapable of running their own countries.
Events in Rhodesia have proved she was right. Rhodesia, once the bread basket of Africa under white rule, became a basket case under black rule. Renamed Zimbabwe after independence and ruled by Robert Mugabe, the country suffered hyperinflation causing widespread poverty and violence. Prosperous agriculture sectors collapsed and the country was driven to the brink of starvation due to the seizure of white-owned farms. Election tampering, widespread corruption and 70% unemployment turned Zimbabwe into a basket case.
A dislike of Jews was also something the Queen Mother and Edward VIII had in common.
The Queen Mother criticised Lord Mountbatten, Viceroy of India, "for giving away the Empire" and his wife because "her mother was half-Jewish." Edward VIII blamed the Jews for World War II and said things like "put Jews against the wall, they are responsible for everything."
Before the start of the second world war, both the Queen Mother and Edward VIII supported making peace with Hitler and the Nazis. She once sent a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf to a friend, saying, 'Even a skip through gives you a good idea of his obvious sincerity.'
In the perverted world in which we now live, anybody who had tried to make peace with Hitler to prevent World War II and save the lives of millions of innocent people, is now ridiculed and despised when they should be commended.
It's a pity that Edward didn't fall for the young Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon instead of Wallis Simpson because then the politicians could not have hounded him off the throne.
Instead of Britain being dragged into World War II by that warmonger Churchill, Edward would have been in a position to dismiss the government and invite politicians friendlier to Germany, such as Sir Oswald Mosley, to form a new government. There was a massive peace movement in Britain at the time.
The second world war bankrupted Britain, cost Britain its Empire and claimed the lives of 500,000 British people.
The SUN newspaper (Image - youtube)
Edward, the Queen Mother, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret practice the Nazi salute
References:
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: The Official Biography, William Shawcross, Macmillan, September 2009
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: The Official Biography, William Shawcross, Macmillan, September 2009
King Edward VIII: The Official Biography, Philip Ziegler, Harper Collins Publishers Ltd; 1st edition (27 Sept. 1990)
Letters From a Prince: Edward to Mrs. Freda Dudley Ward 1918–1921, Rupert Godfrey, 1998, Little, Brown & Co
Go-Betweens for Hitler: Karina Urbach, OUP Oxford, July 2015
Action, Dec. 12 1936
Blackshirt, Dec. 12 1936
Further reading: Edward VIII: The King who cared, Defend Europa
See also "Was the Queen's Uncle a Nazi?" Daily Mail
