The Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s secret plot

King George VI led the nation through the Second World War with his winsome wife, Queen Elizabeth, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. But as the war drew to a close, the king’s health began to fail. The formerly uninterested Duke of Windsor decided that he and his wife, Wallis, would take advantage of his brother’s illness and return to Britain to reign in his stead.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Christopher Wilson, an acknowledged expert on the Royal family, has studied copies of the 1946 correspondence between Windsor friend Kenneth de Courcy and the Duke and Duchess. The plan formulated by de Courcy amounted to treason – the Duke would return from exile to reign in King George’s place, even though the Duke had already officially abdicated kingship a decade earlier. He would supplant the king’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth, the rightful heir.

To de Courcy, the ill George VI was similar to King George III during his years of madness – still technically king in name, but increasingly unable to reign. Shunting Princess Elizabeth aside could be explained away as merely keeping Lord Mountbatten from the throne. One letter explained it thus:

“I do not think it too much to say that if the Regency should be one primarily influenced by the Mountbattens [ie Lord Mountbatten and Prince Philip], the consequences for the [Windsor] Dynasty might be fatal… the Mountbattens, thoroughly well-informed of the situation, will do everything in their power to increase their influence…”

It was a plan for the Duke to become King Edward VIII once again, only this time it would be on his terms. Thankfully, such a scenario never occurred. Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II upon the death of George VI on February 6, 1952. The Queen will celebrate 60 years on the throne in 2012.

I’ve been thinking about how to approach this subject for some time. Thanks to Mary Kenny, the Irish republican who admires the Queen, I think it’s time to talk about Anglo-Irish relations.

Kenny, born in Dublin, is an author, broadcaster, playwright and journalist. She was most famous for her role as a founding member of the Irish feminist movement.

Mary Kenny has written for a large number of UK and Irish broadsheet newspapers in her role as a journalist, the most recent being The Times. In her article “The monarchy is safe from this republican”, Kenny decries the sneering attitude of British republicans towards the Royals. Kenny firmly stands behind the Queen, as well as Georges V and VI.

She gently reminds us that both Kings – even Edward VIII was sympathetic – were on the side of the Irish and wished to bring both the North and the Republic together.

It’s been a long and complicated history, but one which I would like to talk about. I am English and Irish – my maternal grandmother’s side fully English and my maternal grandfather’s family being Irish living in England. With this heritage, I would like to understand the relationship between Ireland and England more, and thanks to Mary Kenny’s article, I am inspired to do just that.

Mary Kenny’s article at The Times.

Mary Kenny’s ‘Crown and Shamrock: ­Love and Hate between Ireland and the British Monarchy’ will be published this spring.

Did anyone see “Wallis & Edward” on BBCAmerica? I thought the actors were great, although I felt that Wallis was portrayed as being more emotional than she really was. From what I have read, Wallis was emotionally detatched and quite calculating. This movie romanticized her, in my opinion.

Any comments? :)