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Authors: Greg King

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Ultimately, desperation drove the Germans to make more direct overtures. Rivera directly confronted the Windsors:
When he [Rivera] gave the Duke advice not to go to the Bahamas, but to return to Spain, since the Duke was likely yet to be called upon to play an important role in English policy and possibly to ascend the English Throne, both the Duke and Duchess gave evidence of astonishment. Both appeared to be completely enmeshed in conventional ways of thinking, for they replied that according to the English constitution this would not be possible after the abdication.
When the confidential emissary then expressed his expectation that the course of the war might bring about changes even in the English constitution, the Duchess especially became very pensive.”
34
 
It is clear from this report that neither of the Windsors was aware of the German machinations until Rivera specifically informed them of the possibilities. Their surprise that they might somehow be given power in England alone proved that they were not conspiring against the government there. This was not the response Rivera and the Germans had been hoping for, and it propelled the plot into dangerous territory. “The Führer orders that an abduction is to be organized at once,” Ribbentrop cabled Schellenberg.
35
Using a second confidential emissary, this time a woman, Schellenberg outlined his plan for the Duke and Duchess: They would set out officially for a summer vacation in the mountains at a place providing the opportunity for hunting near the Spanish frontier. Schellenberg would send forces to guarantee safety on the Portuguese side, while Rivera would wait on the Spanish side. As soon as they arrived, both would be taken hostage.
36
David later admitted that he had had discussions with Nazi emissaries but added “At no time did I ever entertain any thought of complying with such suggestions, which I treated with the contempt they deserved.”
37
Unfortunately, his responses were too easily misinterpreted; he still had no taste for the war and made little secret of the fact, statements which the Germans seized upon as evidence of his willingness to cooperate. David never entered into serious negotiations with Rivera or any of Hitler’s agents, and the Germans were forced to resort to terrorist tactics and kidnap plots to win him over. If anything, the Duke of Windsor was guilty of bad judgment in speaking too freely. But there is no reliable evidence that he acted in any manner which could be termed traitorous.
While all of this was taking place, David’s attention was devoted to a new battle with the Foreign Office in London. He wished to make his own arrangements for him and Wallis to travel to the Bahamas, allowing for a short stop in America. This caused a considerable flap in the British Foreign Office and a flurry of messages between the prime minister and the British ambassador to the United States, Lord Lothian: “The more I think of it the more I am convinced that it is very undesirable that His Royal Highness should come to the United States at all en route to the Bahamas.... If he visits New York there will inevitably be a great deal of publicity, much of which will be of an icy character and which will have a most unfortunate effect at the present juncture.”
38
When the British government refused to grant the Duke his preferred transport, he cabled Churchill: “Have been messed about quite long enough and detect in Colonial Office attitude very much same hands at work as in my last job. Strongly urge you to support arrangements I have made as otherwise will have to reconsider my position.”
39
Officially, the British used the excuse that the Duke, as a British officer, could not travel on a neutral American ship for fear of violating America’s Neutrality Act. David was not pleased. “Regarding not landing in the United States at this juncture, I take it to mean that this only applies until after the events of November. May I therefore have confirmation that it is not to be the policy of His Majesty’s Government that I should not set foot on American soil during my term of office in the Bahamas? Otherwise I could not feel justified in representing the King in a British Colony so geographically close to the United States if I was to be prevented from ever going to that country.”
40
Churchill agreed that the Duke could visit America at any time with the proper notification.
Churchill sent Monckton to persuade the Duke and Duchess to leave at once. They, in turn, told him what Rivera had said about a possible kidnapping and murder by the British Secret Service. Monckton confronted Rivera and said that if he could produce evidence he would ask the Duke not to leave. Rivera said he would need at least ten days, but Monckton would not be put off. Several Scotland Yard detectives were dispatched, one to travel with them and one to meet them in Nassau. Finally, Monckton told the Duke and Duchess that Churchill had learned that there was indeed a kidnapping plot but that it was of German origin.
On August 1 the Duke and Duchess boarded the American Export Lines ship the
Excalibur
bound for Bermuda, where they could switch ships and travel on to the Bahamas. Carefully packed into the holds were fifty-two pieces of their luggage, a portable sewing machine, a set of golf clubs for the Duke, four baskets of old Madeira and port wine, and a 1940 limousine with a trailer. Wallis, attired in a light blue linen dress and dark sunglasses, stood on deck next to David, who wore a gray pin-striped suit and light straw hat. Between them, yapping with excitement, were their three cairn terriers. Amid a flash of press lightbulbs and the blare of the ship’s horn, the Windsors, smiling and waving to the crowd that had gathered alongside the dock, left Portugal for the unknown of their wartime home in the Bahamas.
41
33
 
The Bahamas
 
T
HE VOYAGE TO BERMUDA
took a week. Along with the Duke and Duchess, the
Excalibur’s
passengers included Maj. Gray Phillips; George and Rosa Wood; and Marguerite Moulichon, the Duchess’s lady’s maid. Wallis and David shared an ordinary cabin, nine-by-sixteen feet, with twin beds, a desk, and two chairs. As a concession to their special status, however, they were given a small, private deck on which they ordinarily took their meals. They ate very little; neither Wallis nor David took breakfast, and the Duke boiled his own water to make tea on a hot plate which had been brought in for his use. Aurelio Gonzalaz, one of the
Excalibur’s
stewards, recalled that the Windsors constantly referred to each other as “darling”; they spent their evenings strolling about the decks arm in arm.
1
At half-past two on the afternoon of August 8, the
Excalibur
anchored in the harbor off Hamilton, Bermuda; a tender pulled alongside, and the Duke and Duchess slowly descended the ladder and boarded the small vessel. Swiftly, it brought them to the dock of the Royal Yacht Club, where some thirty-five hundred people waited. As the Windsors stepped ashore, they were greeted with a military salute from a guard of honor and the cheers of the gathered crowd. Wallis wore a crepe dress, a matching coat in royal blue with accents of pink, elbow-length white gloves, and white shoes. Atop her head was a small cap composed of cascades of white beads. The governor-general, Sir Denis Bernard, greeted them warmly; however, as they made their way down the receiving line, none of the women present curtsied to the Duchess.
2
The Windsors were forced to wait a week in Hamilton before they could transfer to another ship. They spent their time shopping, swimming, and touring several of the local hospitals. In Hamilton, the Windsors gave their first joint press conference. The Duchess, asked about the war, declared, “When you live in this war, you get used to anything. You never know anything, and it’s not knowing that’s the worst. When you’re told to move, you move and move very quickly.”
3
On Sunday morning, they attended services at the Anglican Cathedral. The
New York Times
noted: “The couple went by carriage through the crowded street. The Duke, hatless, responded by smiling and waving to the throng, but the Duchess in the carriage behind, for the first time unquestionably stole the show. She looked and smiled her best and was the object of another of those unpredictable but plainly sincere bursts of applause to which Bermudians have rarely given way.”
4
Frank Giles, one of Bernard’s aides-de-camp, had been prepared to discount the Duchess of Windsor. Instead, he was impressed, as he later recalled:
She is a very clever woman &, like all clever women, contrives to hide her real feelings behind what is in her case a highly polished exterior. I have never known a woman to have so much of what the French would call ‘le style.’ She is not extrinsically beautiful or handsome, but she has a good complexion, regular features & a beautiful figure, for him who likes very small waists. To her, herself, though, & not to nature, goes the palm for her appearance, for it is an article whose beauty has been fashioned by human and not divine hands which confronts us. She is, of course, beautifully dressed—and this does not mean just extravagantly dressed—with a canny sense of fitness, with knowledge of how to avoid the bizarre but strike the original. The coiffure is superb and judging from the number of times she summoned the hairdresser to the house, must—and quite rightly so—be her chief pride.... She has good legs and ankles and she moves well—not self-consciously, but with obvious attention to appearance. More than all the charm of her physical appearance, though, is her manner: she has, to an infinite degree, that great gift of making you feel that you are the very person whom she has been waiting all her life to meet. With old & young & clever & stupid alike she exercises this charm, and during the week she was here, I never saw anyone who could resist the spell—they were all delighted and intrigued . . . . She does not talk much unless she sees you want to talk & she is always quiet and dignified & composed. . . . She is never anything but stately, & when she had to wave to the crowds on her arrival & subsequently whenever we drove through the town, she did it with an ease and charm and grace which suggested she had been at it all her life.
5
 
Finally, after taking a zigzag route to avoid any lurking German U-boats, the liner
Lady Somers
, carrying the Windsors, arrived in Nassau on the morning of August 17. The Bahamas, encompassing some twenty-nine islands and hundreds of coral reefs and cays, was home to a population of just over seventy thousand. Of this number, 80 percent were black or of mixed race. For the most part, they were poorly educated, often deliberately kept economically dependent on the handful of wealthy white merchants known as the Bay Street Boys. Their stranglehold on the economic and social life of the country had been tacitly endorsed by every previous governor-general, and no attempt had been made to break their agricultural and commercial monopolies. The problems of trade, social improvement, and race relations all contributed to make the Bahamas one of the most difficult and political of all colonial governorships in the empire. “It was regarded as a kind of punishment station in the Colonial Service,” writes Michael Bloch, “combining a minimum of importance with a maximum of frustration.”
6
The frustrations the Windsors were to face had already been increased even before their arrival. On George VI’s orders, the lord chamberlain had issued a telegram to all Bahamas officials: “You are no doubt aware that a lady when presented to HRH The Duke of Windsor should make a half-curtsey. The Duchess of Windsor is not entitled to this. The Duke should be addressed as ‘Your Royal Highness’ and the Duchess as ‘Your Grace.’ “
7
For the Duke and Duchess, it would become just another incident in the constant battle waged against them by Buckingham Palace. “Such were the concerns of certain officials during what Winston Churchill called ‘their finest hour,’ “ comments respected historian Kenneth Rose.
8
In the brilliant sunshine of that August morning, Wallis and David stood on the bridge of the
Lady Somers
, watching as the island of New Providence and its main city and Bahama’s capital, Nassau, came into view. Wallis wore a pink-and-blue print dress, a navy blue silk coat, and a white cap stitched with pearls; at her side, the Duke was already beginning to sweat in his major general’s heavy khaki uniform. The sky above them was cloudless; by nine A.M., the temperature already stood at just under a hundred degrees, and the intense humidity was something on which neither of the Windsors had counted.
9
Sixteen thousand of New Providence’s twenty thousand inhabitants had turned out to greet the Windsors.
10
Prince George Wharf, where they alighted, was decked with bunting and hundreds of Union Jacks as well as American flags in honor of the Duchess. Waiting to greet them were a guard of honor and the Bahamian Executive Council, their wives, and members of their staffs.
The Duke and Duchess were escorted on foot across Rawson Square, past the bright, whitewashed, and pastel-painted buildings hung with flags, to the Legislative Building, where they were met by the president of the Legislative Council and the speaker of the House of Assembly. Here David, suffering from the heat and sweating despite his tropical uniform, was to take the oath of office.
11
The Duke sat on a throne beneath a crimson velvet canopy embroidered with a golden crown. Wallis sat in her own chair, on a special platform one step below David; the wife of an ordinary governor-general would normally have sat in the audience, and the local authorities had spent a great deal of time trying to find a compromise for this woman who, though married to the former king and a Royal Duke, was not, on orders of the Foreign Office, to be regarded as royal herself. It is not known what, if any comment, this last measure aroused among the Foreign Office or from Buckingham Palace.
Lt. Col. R. A. Erskine-Lindop, commissioner of police of the Bahamas, read the commission of office; then the chief justice, Sir Oscar Daly, administered the sacred oath, during which the Duke of Windsor swore allegiance to his brother. In his speech, David declared, “How delighted I am that the Duchess is with me to share the pleasure of my first visit to these islands.”
12
Afterward, Wallis and David stood patiently in the intense, suffocating heat, shaking hands with all of those present. They then walked to the balcony overlooking Rawson Square, where they were loudly cheered by the gathered crowd as the national anthem was played.
After the official welcome, they were driven to their new home, Government House, high on the hill above Nassau. Tall hedges of purple bougainvillea and low stone walls enclosed the ten-acre garden, shaded by enormous palm trees. From the terrace, where a swimming pool offered welcome relief from the humid heat, the view stretched over downtown Nassau and on to the Caribbean. The house itself, a large, plantation-style building dominated by a tall, columned portico and surrounded by wide verandas, had been built in 1801. There were seven bedrooms, six bathrooms, and twenty-four other rooms, including a grand ballroom. Tall French windows and jalousied doors opened to the gardens and terraces.
13
As the Duke and Duchess looked more closely, however, their initially favorable impression was replaced by shock. The swimming pool was cracked and filled with debris; the stones in the garden walks were loose and uneven. Within the house, the situation was even worse. Wives of various Nassau officials had filled its rooms with their cast-off antiques—huge, battered mahogany dressers and sagging sofas and chairs from the turn of the century. At one time, all of the interior rooms had been painted with industrial blue enamel; although the rooms were filled with fresh flowers, nothing could disguise the threadbare carpets, peeling paint, smell of mold, or falling plaster. In the kitchen, even in the hundred-plus-degree days of summer, all cooking was done on an old woodstove. There was no laundry room; all washing was carried to a small stream which ran through the garden and was beaten on rocks.
Wallis and David stayed barely a week. One morning, while Wallis was working at her desk, a piece of the ceiling broke and crashed down next to her chair.
14
Immediately, the Duke called in the Bahamian director of public works and ordered a full inspection. The results came as no great surprise: Government House was riddled with termites and unstable and was, in the opinion of the surveyors, unsafe for habitation.
15
It would have to be completely renovated.
David cabled Lord Lloyd, the colonial secretary, proposing that he and the Duchess leave for his ranch in Canada for several months until Government House could be redone. The secretary replied that “it would not only inevitably create a sense of disappointment but also possibly some misgiving and anxiety among the public as well” if the Duke left so soon after arriving. He suggested he postpone his departure for at least several months. He added: “There is of course no reason why, if the Duchess feels the heat, she should not go away for a few weeks.”
16
This rather heavy-handed hint that the Duchess was welcome to leave was, however, ignored; if the Duke remained, so would the Duchess, and the matter was dropped.
While the renovations were under way, the Duke and Duchess stayed with Frederick Sigrist and his wife and, later, with Sir Harry and Lady Oakes at their house in Westbourne. From here, Wallis supervised the work at Government House. To assist in the decorative changes, she hired her Baltimore friend Mrs. Winthrop Bradley and American architect Sidney Neil. The Bahamian legislature voted five thousand dollars for structural repairs, rewiring, and new plumbing; this was less than half the cost of the eventual renovation, however, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor themselves paid the difference out of their own income.
17
The exterior of Government House was repainted a pale pink. The water damage and flaking plaster inside were repaired, and the old wicker furniture was taken away. The drawing room was filled with bright chintz-covered sofas and chairs; over the fireplace hung Gerald Brockhurst’s famous portrait of the Duchess. The library was lightened through use of an imported French wallpaper and more chintz; soft green wall-to-wall carpet replaced the dark colors of the Oriental rug in the dining room. The Duke and Duchess had adjoining suites on the second floor overlooking the Caribbean. Wallis had four rooms: a bedroom, a dressing room, a bathroom, and a study-sitting room built into one of the porches. Again, as in her house in Paris, the rooms were decorated in her favorite shade of blue, with white accents. Across the hall were the Duke’s rooms, with lime-colored walls, rattan and bamboo furniture, and bold English chintz fabrics.
The Windsors eventually settled into Government House. They had brought with them a number of members of their household, including Maj. Gray Phillips, who served as comptroller and doubled as the Duke’s private secretary; George Wood, who served as aide-de-camp, and his wife, Rosa; and Capt. Vyvian Drury, Maj. Gen. Howard-Vyse’s brother-in-law, who acted as equerry. Contrary to the orders which had gone out from the Foreign Office, this trusted staff always addressed both the Duke and Duchess in exactly the same manner, as “Your Royal Highness,” and extended bows and curtsies. The native Bahamian staff at Government House was soon told that they, too, should follow suit; any deviation from the expected pattern was cause for a severe reprimand.

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