Duke of Windsor Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Troublesome Toffs: The Duke of Windsor and Bendor Westminster

20 November 2021 Comments 1 Comment

“A fully equipped Duke costs as much to keep as two Dreadnoughts; and Dukes are just as great a terror and they last longer.”

The wisecrack, wrongly attributed to Churchill, was actually uttered by his Liberal ally, David Lloyd George. (Allegedly LG said it in 1909, during their battle to reform the House of Lords,) It didn’t make Churchill more welcome at Blenheim Palace, where his cousin the Duke of Marlborough forbade the name of LG in conversation.

The Duke of Windsor (formerly King Edward VIII) and the 2nd Duke of Westminster are occasionally attacked for their “near-treasonous activity in support of the Third Reich.”…

HM’s Nazi Salute: Relevant to What?

18 July 2015 Comments 0 Comments

Stiff-Arm Salute: Must We Know Everything?

Claiming it is “historically relevant,” the Sun defended publication of a six-year-old Princess Elizabeth, coached by her mother the future Queen Elizabeth and her uncle the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII, still later the Duke of Windsor) raising her arm in the stiff salute now identified with the Nazi party. It’s “in the public interest,” wails the Sun.

It’s in the interest of selling newspapers. Buckingham Palace responded:

“Most people will see these pictures in their proper context and time. This is a family playing and momentarily referencing a gesture many would have seen from contemporary news reels. No…