Deborah Cadbury - Princes at War - The Bitter Battle Inside Britain’s Royal Family in the Darkest Days of WWII

Princes at War

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Princes at War

The Bitter Battle Inside Britains Royal Family
in the Darkest Days of WWII

Deborah Cadbury

PublicAffairs

New York

Copyright Deborah Cadbury 2015

Published in the United States by PublicAffairs, a Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

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First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

ISBN: 978-1-4-088-4524-0 (UK hardback)

Designed by Jack Lenzo

Text set in Garamond

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014957933

ISBN: 978-1-61039-404-8 (e-book)

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Julia, Pete and Jo,

with love

Contents

: December 1936September 1939

Circumstances Without Parallel

A Very Full Heart

Enmity and Fear

: September 1939August 1940

In this Grave Hour

Into the Unknown

The Decisive Struggle

Treachery

: August 1940December 1942

There Will Always Be an England

Ever Widening Conflict

Its My Brother

: January 1943January 1952

Tested as Never Before in Our History

Something More than Courage

For Valour

The leading royal princes and their wives have several titles and for ease of reference these are set out below.

House of Windsor

George VI (r. 1936)

Known as HRH The Duke of York 1920

Born as Prince Albert (1895)

Married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

who became Queen Elizabeth (1936)

HRH The Duke of Windsor (1936)

who was Edward VIII (JanuaryDecember 1936)

Born as Prince Edward (1894)

known as David or D by his family

Married Wallis Simpson,

known as the Duchess of Windsor (1937)

HRH The Duke of Gloucester (1928)

Born as Prince Henry (1900)

Married Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott,

known as HRH the Duchess of Gloucester (1935 2004 )

HRH The Duke of Kent (1934)

Born as Prince George (1902)

Married Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark,

known as HRH the Duchess of Kent (1934)

Notable German descendants of Queen Victoria during the Second World War

House of Hesse

Prince Philipp of Hesse (1896 1980 ), great-grandson of Queen Victoria

Married Princess Mafalda , daughter of King Victor Emanuel of Italy

Prince Christoph of Hesse (1901), great-grandson of Queen Victoria

Married Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark

House of Saxe-Coburg

Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha (1884 1954 )

Grandson of Queen Victoria

Additional characters: friends or associates of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor

Betty Lawson-Johnston

American high-society friend of the Dukes of Kent and Windsor, married to British businessman and philanthropist, Ormond Lawson-Johnston

Charles and Fern Bedaux

Charles Bedaux: American citizen, millionaire entrepreneur, associate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor

Axel Wenner-Gren

Swedish citizen, millionaire creator of the Electrolux Company, owner of the worlds largest yacht and friend of the Duke of Windsor

Ricardo Esprito Santo Silva

Portuguese host to the Duke of Windsor, banker and, according to British intelligence, suspected of laundering German funds looted from captive countries

Friends or advisers to George VI

Sir John The Snake Simon

Home Secretary 1935

Chancellor 1937

Lord High Chancellor 1940

The Viscount Halifax, The Holy Fox

Foreign Secretary 1938

British Ambassador to the United States 1940

Neville Chamberlain, The Old Umbrella

Prime Minister 1937

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt

President and First Lady of the United States 1933

And finally

Winston Churchill

Prime Minister 1940, 1951

0 May 1910. The streets below Windsor Castle were filled with crowds waiting for a sight of the gun carriage. Every window, roof top and ledge was commandeered to watch King Edward VIIs coffin complete the final stage of its journey. The late king, a once wayward youth, had become a popular monarch, the Uncle of Europe whose contribution, especially in foreign diplomacy was respected. Thousands had passed silently by the kings body when it lay in state in Westminster Hall. Even larger crowds watched the magnificent royal procession along the funeral route in London. The streets of Windsor offered a last chance for a glimpse of the great monarch who was to be buried as he had lived, in unimaginable splendour, accompanied on his way by many of the crowned heads of Europe. The solemn and carefully stage-managed event would unite royal relatives from across Europe in a unique pageant.

Nine years had elapsed since the death of Queen Victoria and yet her all-pervasive influence had continued with a momentum of its own through her descendants. In her later years the great matriarch had tried to maintain royal power through the dynastic marriages of her forty-two grandchildren. Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren from her marriage to her beloved Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg formed a galaxy of Emperors, Kings, Princes, Grand Dukes and Dukes. By 1910, this dazzling constellation counted among their number the heirs to the British throne as well as the German Emperor, the Tzar of all the Russias, and cousins, uncles and aunts married into the royal houses of Norway, Greece, Spain, Denmark, Romania, Belgium, Portugal, Bulgaria and a myriad of princely dynasties. To the people in the streets they were the celebrities of their day. Photographs of royalty were included in family albums as a talking point, royal visitors to England were followed in newspaper reports, and on 20 May many of these commanding figures would be in the streets of Windsor.

The royal train steamed into Windsor station from London. Edward VIIs coffin was lifted onto a gun carriage and slowly the cortege, almost hidden from view by the accompanying Blue Coats, carried the King through the thronging streets to St Georges Chapel. Behind the procession of Blue Coats came nine of Europes monarchs, mounted on horseback, resplendent in military or ceremonial dress. To onlookers this appeared to be where absolute power resided, among the glittering plumed heads of Europe, difficult to distinguish among all the feathers and finery of their elaborate costumes. The new British king, George V, led the monarchs, followed closely by his cousin, the Emperor of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, on a white horse. Behind came seven other sovereigns and their entourages: the late kings son-in-law, King Haakon VII of Norway, his brothers-in-law, George I of Greece and Frederick VIII of Denmark, his nephew-in-law, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, and more distant cousins, King Albert I of Belgium, King Manuel II of Portugal and Tzar Ferdinand of Bulgaria. The kings were followed at a measured distance by thirty of Europes princes, many of them relatives, such as the late kings nephew, Prince Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg. Among them was the doomed heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne whose name was yet to make its mark in history: Archduke Franz Ferdinand.