Duke and duchess of Windsor - Pictures

[vivee]

I always see lots of criticism based on the fact that the Duke of Windsor was a Nazi sympathizer, but I barely ever see anyone talking about how he helped cover up a murder!

While he was the governor general of the Bahamas, the richest man in the British "Empire", Sir Harry Oakes, was brutally murdered. The Duke of Windsor, though he was friends with Oakes, tried to keep the press from reporting on the murder and didn't let any local police investigate the crime. He instead called in two detectives from Miami, who framed Oakes' son-in-law using falsified evidence. The evidence was planted right after the Duke met with the detectives. Everything came to light during the son-in-law's trial, and he was exonerated. The Duke of Windsor still banished him from the Bahamas, though. The investigation into Oakes' murder was dropped and no one knows what really happened.

No one agrees on the level of involvement that the Duke of Windsor had in the murder. Was he covering up for a friend? Was he just trying to cover up the crime to make himself look like he had things under control? Or... did he know about the murder before it occurred?

It's a fascinating case that leads you down quite a rabbit hole. Personally, I think the Duke of Windsor knew who had ordered the murder, and wanted to protect him. Interestingly, the man who most people think ordered the murder, Harold Christie, was later knighted by the Queen.

I just thought I'd mention it in this thread since not many people talk about it! One author referred to this as the Duke's "biggest blunder".

[rosella]

Yes, totally disgusting. The Oakes murder is fascinating. I don't know about Christie as murderer (though I don't think Oakes's playboy son in law did it either, though everyone was eager to have him charged.) The Duke of Windsor couldn't wait to bypass the local police or get Scotland Yard out (which admittedly would have been difficult in wartime.) He decided on the Miami detectives because he'd met them before. It's on a par with all their behaviour in the Bahamas though. He and Wallis regarded it as the equivalent of Siberian exile and couldn't get out of there quick enough at the end of the war.

[fairy]

Yes, I don't think the Royal family's lawyers were worried about Wallis producing a family. There'd been two marriages and several affairs (including the one with the car salesman at the same time as the one with King Edward) and no sign of any babies. And she was already in her forties.

I think the great worry was if this marriage didn't last (and she had already had two divorces, of course) Edward might in his loneliness marry again (perhaps to another 'adventuress') and produce a child or two. That could well lead to an unholy mess when the elder reached twenty one. If that clause about heirs hadn't been put in that person could have challenged King George's right to the throne through the courts and the House of Lords. It would have been catastrophic, and that's what I always think of when people suggest William could do the same with his children.

And here again, I think nobody worried, I think it was pretty clear that Edward was infertile just as much as his wife. In those days, there was not that much you could do in terms of contraception and there was never even talk about a mistress falling pregnant. Mind you all his mistresses (or most of them) were married, so that any pregnancy would be veiled as a legitimate one. But there was nothing.

[CyrilSebastian]

Richard Nixon with Edward and Wallis   
http://www.gettyimages.com/license/615321228

[CyrilSebastian]

Duke and Duchess of Windsor entered the government building in Nassau on August 18, 1940.     
http://www.alamy.com/stoc...g-in-nassau-50017659.html

[CyrilSebastian]

Wallis and Edward outside the Government House in Nassau, the Bahamas circa 1942     
http://www.gettyimages.com/license/113917731

[anastasia beaverhausen]

Wallis and Edward outside the Government House in Nassau, the Bahamas circa 1942     
http://www.gettyimages.com/license/113917731

Yikes that is a huge brooch!