Traitor King

The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor: AS FEATURED ON CHANNEL 4 TV DOCUMENTARY

By: Andrew Lownie

Narrated by: Andrew Lownie

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ENTITLED, 'THE MOST DEVASTATING ROYAL BIOGRAPHY EVER WRITTEN', DAILY MAIL
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

A Daily Mail Royal Book of the Year, 2021

'Darkly compelling...hundreds of eye-popping details...Gripping ... damning portrait of the Windsors' Daily Mail 'Book of the Week'

'Briskly written and compulsively readable...' - A.N. Wilson, TLS

'Meticulously researched' - Spectator

'Entertaining... convincing... timely. Urgent reading for royals' - Evening Standard


December 1936. The King of England, Edward VIII, has given up his Crown, foregoing his duty for the love of Wallis Simpson, an American divorcée. Their courtship has been dogged by controversy and scandal, but with Edward's abdication, they can live happily ever after. But do they?

In Traitor King, bestselling historian Andrew Lownie draws on hitherto unexplored archives to uncover the dramatic world of the Windsors post-abdication. Lownie reveals a couple obsessed with their status, financially exploiting their position and manipulating the media. Filled with treachery and betrayal, this is a story of an exiled Royal and the Nazi attempts to recruit him to their cause. And of why the Royal family never forgave the Duke for choosing love over duty.

Critic reviews

Lownie expertly captures the extravagance (they never travelled with fewer than 73 pieces of luggage), the sense of entitlement, the snobbery, the vanity, the selfpity, the bone-idle laziness, the fundamental uselessness of their lives as outcasts. 'I never saw a man so bored,' said one acquaintance. Should this be required reading in a certain household in Montecito, California?

Meticulously researched

Briskly written and compulsively readable...Does Andrew Lownie persuade me that it is worth telling the story again, and that he has made out the case for his unforgiving title? The answer is an unambiguous yes. (A.N. Wilson)

Entertaining... convincing... timely. Urgent reading for royals

Darkly compelling...hundreds of eye-popping details...Gripping though it is, this is an unrelentingly damning portrait of the Windsors

Compelling... a devastating portrait of the duke and duchess... a timely point of comparison when set against the ongoing trials and tribulations of the House of Windsor

Lownie reveals Edward not as a dupe of the Nazis, but an active and culpable collaborator...The list of individuals interviewed and archives consulted is formidable. The more impressive then, that this is a wonderfully readable and succinct story

Thoroughly researched and compelling narrative of one of the most controversial periods in royal history. (Andrew Morton)

Andrew Lownie has a remarkable ability to fashion a compelling narrative from raw archive text and personal reminiscence. His Traitor King (Blink, £25), about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and their questionable cohorts, is every bit as absorbing as his earlier history of the Mountbattens. (Andrew Lycett, Spectator Books of the Year)

'definitively answering some of the enduring mysteries ...Lownie fearlessly yet fairly provides the answers. Lownie appears to have red every book ever written about the Windsors and drilled deep into unpublished archives as well...Lownie has dug into the couple's complex love lives just as deeply...The full ghastly truth about them has remained obscure until now, partly thanks to a judicious cover-up by the British Establishment...' (History Today)

Meticulously researched and with so much new material on one of the most controversial Royals of the 20th century. Lownie reveals shocking new aspects to the life of Edward, Duke of Windsor, and firmly placed the Duke as a traitor to his country. (Aspects of History)

this "explosive new royal biography" (front-cover blurb) by the highly regarded author of books about Guy Burgess and the Mountbattens,.. a biographer as serious and scholarly as Andrew Lownie ...Lownie gives heft to George Orwell's famous observation that the England of that time was a family, but one "with the wrong members in control"

"Andrew Lownie's compelling volume... an unflattering portrait of this entitled couple."

"There is no room for two kings in England."

The story of the king who have up his crown for love is well known: how less than a year after his accession to the throne, in 1936, Edward VIII abdicated in favour of his younger brother George so that he could marry twice divorced Mrs.Simpson. But was it really such a fairy tale romance? And what really happened after the marriage, a virtual life long exile for the 'happy couple', as war with Germany consumed the world? It is this post marital period which is covered in detail, utilising both British and German official documentation as well as recollected anecdotes of contemporaries, building a picture of both the ex king and his wife, emotional, political, financial and social.

It is not an attractive picture but one of self obsession, with personal unkindnesses and ruthlessness towards friends and servants who had given so much to the Windsors. And their hope and expectation that Simpson would still one day be queen. The author, Andrew Lownie who also narrates, lays out all of the facts and allows the reader to decide their characters and the nature of their treachery. It is truly fascinating story, which rivals any fictional work.

There is a final summary chapter (25: Traitor King) which summarises, and lists a number of sources but the work as an historical biography would have been enhance by a full bibliography for further reading. But overall, this is an excellent, well researched and enjoyable account of a fascinating, if frivolous, sad and greedy couple in a tumultuous time.

My thanks to Audible UK's Premium Plus, which allows members to read this book for free

A bit of a surprise

I knew that Edward and Wallis were Nazi sympathisers. But, I had no idea that they were actually traitors and my goodness they really were. The research into this book is great and the conclusions drawn were obvious to anyone. I came to the conclusion that these two people were a couple of dullards and ne'er do wells who were anti-Semites and callous people who had no idea of what was going on around them. A damning portrait indeed.

The author narrated this book and usually that is a mistake. But with this one the author did a reasonable albeit not great job.

Worth a listen if you are interested in this period of history.