The Duke of Windsor Conspiracy

To students of British contemporary history, 1936 is known as The Year of the Three Kings.. In January, the reigning monarch, George V, died, to be succeeded by his eldest son, Edward. In December of that year, Edward abdicated in favor of his younger brother, who became George VI. On  relinquishing the crown, Edward was given the title, The Duke of Windsor.

Before he acceded to the throne, Edward was known as The Playboy Prince, and liked nothing more than holidaying in foreign resorts, being seen at all the best places, and was generally known as 'A Man About Town'.  He was well liked and often acted as an unofficial ambassador, promoting Britain's interests abroad. He was particularly welcomed in the United States, perhaps due to his easy charm and flamboyant lifestyle.

Edward, however, had a darker side. He was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler, and Nazism, and an anti-Semite, often blaming all the world's problems on Jews. His experiences, albeit limited, of trench warfare in the First World War, made him a lifelong pacifist, and dedicated to preventing another conflict on such a massive scale. When Hitler came to power, and all the way through the 1930s, Edward preached a constant cry of appeasement, and was often at odds with many in his own government, especially his friend, Winston Churchill.

Because of his closeness to Hitler and the Nazis,  Churchill's wartime government sent  Edward and his wife Wallis Simpson to the Bahamas where he was to  become governor of the island. It was hoped that this move would keep him out of harm's way, and away from the influence of malign and sinister forces.

As the Second World War drew to an end, and Allied forces closed in on Berlin, a cache of documents was discovered in a town called Marburg in Germany. Some of these papers purport to contain correspondence between Edward and Hitler, in which the dictator promises that he will depose the reigning monarch and re-install the Duke of Windsor as sovereign of the United Kingdom once he has conquered the country. As these files were suppressed, and have never been released, no one can say for certain what damning indictments they may contain.

Would the Duke of Windsor really have allowed himself to be used by Hitler as a willing pawn to service his own selfish ends? This alternate timeline novel explores what might have happened in a different reality - one where Germany does conquer the United Kingdom, and an embittered Edward seeks to regain his throne, despite the devastation wreaked on his own country by the Nazis.

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