Andrew Lownie

The Duke of Windsor had much to be thankful for

Defending the ‘maligned’ Duke, Jane Marguerite Tippett fails to mention how hard officials worked to suppress evidence of his treachery and prevent a court martial in 1940

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor in the grounds of Government House, Nassau, c.1942. [Getty Images] 
issue 25 November 2023

Once a King is trumpeted as ‘game-changing’, a ‘trove of never-before-seen papers which shed fresh light on the maligned Duke of Windsor’ and will ‘turn on its head long-accepted stereotypes’ about him. These are bold claims, but do they stack up?

‘The lost memoir of Edward Vlll’ actually consists of an early draft of the Duke of Windsor’s self-serving memoir, A King’s Story (1951), which Jane Marguerite Tippett found in the papers of the former king’s ghostwriter Charles Murphy in the Boston University archives.

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