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Inside Trump’s Push to Make the White House Ballroom as Big as Possible

 

Inside Trump’s Push to Make the White House Ballroom as Big as Possible

 

President Trump’s ever-growing vision has caused tension with contractors. His architect has taken a step back as the president personally manages the project.

 

Luke Broadwater

By Luke Broadwater

Luke Broadwater is a White House correspondent. He reported from Washington.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/us/politics/trump-white-house-ballroom.html?searchResultPosition=2

Published Nov. 29, 2025

Updated Nov. 30, 2025

 

As President Trump took a stroll on the White House roof in August, generating headlines and questions about what he was up to, the man walking beside him was little noticed.

 

Wearing his signature bow tie, James McCrery, a classical architect who runs a small Washington firm known for its work building Catholic churches, was discussing how to execute Mr. Trump’s vision for a ballroom on the White House grounds.

 

Mr. McCrery’s work has been embraced by conservatives who believe federal buildings should be designed with an eye toward the grandeur of ancient Greek and Roman structures. He often talks of how his design work is carried out in service of God and the church, according to people who have worked with him.

 

It might have seemed an odd pairing: a man who designs cathedrals working for a man who once built casinos, and is now president of the United States.

 

But McCrery Architects got to work on the initial drawings for the project, sketching out a design with high ceilings and arched windows reminiscent of Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors. It would have the latest security features, including bulletproof glass. Gold furniture, known to please the president, was added to the renderings.

 

It was flashy enough to impress a man of Mr. Trump’s tastes, while largely matching the style of the historic White House without overshadowing it.

 

That’s when things got tricky.

 

In offering up his initial design, Mr. McCrery could not have known that Mr. Trump’s vision for the project was growing. What started as a 500-seat ballroom connected to the East Wing grew to 650 seats. Next, he wanted a 999-seat ballroom, then room for 1,350. Even as Mr. Trump assured the public in July that the ballroom would not touch the existing structure, he already had approved plans to demolish the East Wing to make way for something that could hold several thousand people, according to three people familiar with the timeline.

 

The latest plan, which officials said was still preliminary, calls for a ballroom much larger than the West Wing and the Executive Mansion. Mr. Trump has said publicly that he would like a ballroom big enough to hold a crowd for a presidential inauguration.

 

The size of the project was not the only issue raising alarms. Mr. Trump also told people working on the ballroom that they did not need to follow permitting, zoning or code requirements because the structure is on White House grounds, according to three people familiar with his comments. (The firms involved have insisted on following industry standards.)

 

In recent weeks, Mr. McCrery has pulled back from day-to-day involvement in the project, two people familiar with the matter told The New York Times. They emphasized that Mr. McCrery was still involved as a consultant on the design and proud to be working for Mr. Trump.

 

A White House official acknowledged that there had been disagreements between Mr. Trump and Mr. McCrery, a dynamic first reported by the Washington Post.

 

Through a representative, Mr. McCrery declined requests for an interview.

 

This account of Mr. Trump’s personal drive to undertake one of the most significant renovations in the history of the White House is based on interviews with five people with knowledge of the project, most of whom asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations, along with the president’s own statements and planning documents released by the White House.

 

A Builder’s Dream

For Mr. Trump, who was a builder for years in New York City and who often brags about his talents in real estate and construction, the White House renovation is a dream project.

 

Mr. Trump has marveled that he does not need to follow the kind of permitting requirements that he faced back in New York. He doesn’t need approvals from anyone, he has told those around him, and can begin any project at the White House as quickly as he likes.

 

“‘You’re the president of the United States, you can do anything you want,’” Mr. Trump has said he’s been told.

 

Mr. Trump has wanted to build a ballroom at the White House for years. During the Obama administration, he pitched the idea of constructing a $100 million version of his Mar-a-Lago ballroom. But Obama associates never followed up on his offer, a slight that has stayed with Mr. Trump.

 

The ballroom Mr. Trump is planning now is more than four times as large as the 20,000-square-foot one at Mar-a-Lago.

 

Aware of potential resistance to the project, Mr. Trump has pushed to remove any obstacle that could slow down his vision.

 

He has installed his former personal lawyer as the chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, which is supposed to review plans for the project. That lawyer, Will Scharf, has said there was no need to review Mr. Trump’s plans before he ordered the demolition of the East Wing.

 

Mr. Trump has also fired the entire board of the Commission of Fine Arts, an independent federal agency that was established by Congress to advise the president on urban planning and historical preservation.

 

Mr. Trump’s unilateral approach has raised concerns from the Society of Architectural Historians, which urged that “such a significant change to a historic building of this import should follow a rigorous and deliberate design and review process.”

 

Mr. Trump is aware of the criticism that his ballroom plans are too large. He told a group of donors to the project last month that he didn’t want the new ballroom to “dwarf anything.” But at the same event, in discussing related plans to construct a Triumphal Arch, Mr. Trump showed small, medium and large options.

 

“I happen to think the large looks by far the best,” he said.

 

Deep in the Details

The contractors working on Mr. Trump’s ballroom — including McCrery Architects, Clark Construction and AECOM — did not go through the traditional government bidding process. Instead, Mr. Trump has been personally selecting each contractor and handling the details of the contracts, including how much the firm will be paid, people with knowledge of the situation said.

 

Mr. Trump selected Mr. McCrery after the architect made his presentation personally in the Oval Office, emphasizing a design that would be in keeping with the existing White House. (The building’s original designer, James Hoban, was also a church architect.)

 

The president has also said that the firm excavating the site initially told him the work would cost $3.2 million, but that he pressured the company to accept just $2 million.

 

The short timetable for the project, which the president has said he wants to be completed before 2029, has led to some embarrassing mistakes.

 

The various plans released so far, including a rushed model made by a contractor, have included windows that collide into each other and a staircase to nowhere.

 

Richard W. Longstreth, an architectural historian and a professor at George Washington University, noted that the public had yet to see a final design of the building. He said the ballroom project's success would depend a lot on its execution.

 

“I have nothing against the contemporary use of classical architecture, if it’s done well,” he said. “And there are people who can do it very well, and others who cannot.”

 

The president initially considered ways to preserve the East Wing, the traditional offices of the first lady and the entrance to the White House for millions of Americans on official tours.

 

McCrery Architects provided options to build the ballroom as an addition to the East Wing or construct the new facility over it. But Mr. Trump rejected those plans.

 

Under the latest designs, the offices of the first lady would be on the ground floor of the proposed ballroom, with a main visitor entrance from the East Portico.

 

“We started with a much smaller building, and then I realized, we have the land, let’s do it right,” Mr. Trump said recently to donors, during an event to raise money for the ballroom project. “And so we built a larger building that can really hold just about any function that we want.”

 

Many have embraced the idea of Mr. Trump’s new ballroom as a benefit to the complex, pointing out problems with hosting large events in tents on White House grounds.

 

Joseph Malchow, who is on the board of the National Civic Art Society with Mr. McCrery, said Mr. Trump was leading an effort to restore “classical American architecture.”

 

Mr. Trump has said taxpayers are not on the hook for the ballroom, whose costs have risen by 50 percent, from $200 million to $300 million. The president has said he already raised $350 million from donors, including from major tech and crypto companies, and that businesses pledged to donate all of the steel and air conditioning.

 

But that payment method means going around Congress to fund the project, cutting legislators out of having any say over its direction.

 

“The White House is one of the great buildings in this country. It’s the so-called people’s palace,” said Richard Guy Wilson, professor emeritus of architectural history at the University of Virginia. “This new ballroom that’s going up, it’s gigantic, and unfortunately, it’s going to sort of dominate.”

 

‘An Important Designer’

The ballroom project is Mr. Trump’s latest push to remake the White House in his own image.

 

He has added gold moldings and gold decorations throughout the Oval Office, and gold ornaments to the Cabinet Room.

 

He removed a photo of Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and secretary of state, and replaced it with an image of his own face colored with the American flag. He added marble floors and a chandelier to the Palm Room.

 

He paved over the Rose Garden grass to add a patio. Along the West Wing colonnade, he added gold-framed photos of every American president except his predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., whom he depicted as an autopen.

 

Mr. Longstreth noted that many of Mr. Trump’s changes could be undone by future presidents. “A lot of that is reversible,” he said. “And presidents have often come in and changed the decoration to a considerable degree.”

 

Still, Mr. Trump is showing no signs of stopping. He recently gutted the bathroom in the Lincoln Bedroom, posting two dozen photos on social media of the renovation. And he has informally discussed undertaking more projects at the White House, including more work on the West Wing.

 

A White House official said that a large-scale renovation of the West Wing was not currently under consideration, but that Mr. Trump would be making more changes.

 

Speaking of the design plans for the new ballroom, Mr. Trump has said that he likes to see different proposals, but that he ultimately has the final say.

 

“I consider myself an important designer,” Mr. Trump has said.

 

A correction was made on Nov. 29, 2025: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the federal agency whose board members were fired by President Trump. It was the Commission of Fine Arts, not the Fine Arts Council.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

 

Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.

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Secrets of the Manor House - Part 1/4

Secrets of the Manor House: Recap and Review

January 22, 2012 by Vic

https://janeaustensworld.com/2012/01/22/secrets-of-the-manor-house-recap-and-review/

 

This Sunday, PBS will air on most stations an hour presentation of  Secrets of the Manor House, a documentary narrated by Samuel West, that explains how society was transformed in the years leading up to World War One. Expert historians, such as Lawrence James and Dr. Elisabeth Kehoe, discuss what life was like in these houses, explain the hierarchy of the British establishment, and provide historical and social context for viewers. For American viewers of Downton Abbey, this special couldn’t have come at a better time.

 

The British manor house represented a world of privilege, grace, dignity and power.

 

For their services for the King in war, soldiers were awarded lands and titles. The aristocracy rose from a warrior class.

 

This world was inhabited by an elite class of people who were descended from a line of professional fighting men, whose titles and land were bestowed on them by a grateful king.

 

Manderston House, Berwickshire.

For over a thousand years, aristocrats viewed themselves as a race apart, their power and wealth predicated on titles, landed wealth, and political standing.

 

Vast landed estates were their domain, where a strict hierarchy of class was followed above stairs as well as below it. In 1912, 1 ½ million servants tended to the needs of their masters. As many as 100 would be employed as butler, housekeeper, house maids, kitchen maids, footmen, valets, cooks, grooms, chauffeurs, forestry men, and agricultural workers. Tradition kept everyone in line, and deference and obedience to your betters were expected (and given).

 

 

22 staff were required to run Manderston House, which employed 100 servants, many of whom worked in the gardens, fields, and forests.

 

As a new century began, the divide between rich and poor was tremendous. While the rich threw more extravagant parties and lived lavish lives, the poor were doomed to live lives of servitude and hard work.

 

Manderston House in Berwickshire represents the excesses of its time. The great house consists of 109 rooms, and employed 98 servants just before the outbreak of World War One. Twenty two servants worked inside the house to tend to Lord Palmer and his family. Every room inside the house interconnected.

 

The curtains and drapes, woven with gold and silver thread, were made in Paris in 1904 and cost the equivalent of 1.5 million dollars. Manderston House itself was renovated at the turn of the century for 20 million dollars in today’s money. This was during an era when scullery maids earned the equivalent of $50 per year.

 

The servant hall boasted 56 bells, each of a different size that produced a unique ring tone. Servants were expected to memorize the sound for the areas that were under their responsibility.

 

Scullery maids were placed at the bottom of the servant hierarchy. They rose before dawn to start the kitchen fires and put water on to boil. Their job was to scrub the pots, pans and dishes, and floors, and even wait on other servants.

 

Life was not a bed of roses for the working class and the gulf between the rich and poor could not have been wider than during the turn of the 21st century.

 

Thoroughbred horses lived better than the working classes.

 

While the servants slept in the attic or basement, thoroughbred horses were housed in expensively designed stable blocks. As many as 16 grooms worked in the stables, for no expense was spared in tending to their needs.

 

The stables at Manderston House required 16 grooms to feed, care for, and exercise the horses.

 

As men and women worked long hours, as much as 17-18 hours per day, the rich during the Edwardian era lived extravagant, indulgent lives of relaxation and pleasure, attending endless rounds of balls, shooting parties, race meetings, and dinner parties.

 

Up to the moment that war was declared, the upper classes lived as if their privileged lives would never change.

 

The Edwardian era marked the last great gasp of manor house living with its opportunities of providing endless pleasure. For the working class and poor, the inequities within the system became more and more apparent. The landed rich possessed over one half of the land. Their power was rooted in owning land, for people who lived on the land paid rent. The landed gentry also received income from investments,  rich mineral deposits on their land, timber, vegetables grown in their fields, and animals shipped to market.

 

The lord of the manor and his steward can be seen walking among the farm laborers, many of whom were women.

 

The need to keep country estates intact and perpetuate a family’s power was so important that the eldest son inherited everything – the estate, title, all the houses, jewels, furnishings, and art. The laws of primogeniture ensured that country estates would not be whittled away over succeeding generations. In order to consolidate power, everything (or as much as possible) was preserved. Entailment, a law that went back to the 13th century, ensured that portions of an estate could not be sold off.

 

The system was rigged to favor the rich. Only men who owned land could vote, and hereditary peers were automatically given a seat in the House of Lords. By inviting powerful guests to their country estates, they could lobby for their special interests across a dinner table, at a shoot, or at a men’s club.

 

Thoroughbred horses were valued for their breeding and valor, traits that aristocrats identified with.

 

The Industrial Revolution brought about changes in agricultural practices and inventions that presaged the decline of aristocratic wealth. Agricultural revenues, the basis on which landed wealth in the UK was founded, were in decline. Due to better transportation and refrigeration, grain transported from Australia and the U.S. became cheaper to purchase. Individuals were able to build wealth in other ways – as bankers and financiers. While the landed gentry could still tap resources from their lands and expand into the colonies, the empire too began to crumble with the rise of nationalism and nation states.

 

The servant hierarchy echoed the distinctions of class upstairs. The chef worked at the end of the table on the left, while the lowest ranking kitchen maids chopped vegetables at the far right. The kitchen staff worked 17 hours a day and rarely left the kitchen.

 

Contrasted with the opulent life above stairs was an endless life of drudgery below stairs. On a large estate that entertained visitors, over 100 meals were prepared daily. Servants rose at dawn and had to stay up until the last guest went to bed. Kitchen maids, who made the equivalent of 28 dollars per year, rarely strayed outside the kitchen.

 

 Steep back stairs that servants used. Out of sight/out of mind.

 

One bath required 45 gallons of water, which had to be hauled by hand up steep, narrow stairs. At times, a dozen guests might take baths on the same day. House maids worked quietly and unseen all over the manor house. The were expected to move from room to room using their own staircases and corridors. Underground tunnels allowed servants to move unseen crossing courtyards.

 

Maids and footmen lived in their own quarters in the attic or basement. Men were separated from the women and were expected to use different stairs. Discipline was strict. Servants could be dismissed without notice for the most minor infraction.

 

Footmen tended to be young, tall, and good looking.

 

Footmen, whose livery cost more than their yearly salary, were status symbols. Chosen for their height and looks, they were the only servants allowed to assist the butler at dinner table. These men were the only servants allowed upstairs.

 

Green baize doors separated the servants quarters from the master's domain.

 

Green baize doors were special doors that marked the end of the servants quarters and hid the smells of cooking and noises of the servants from the family.

 

The Jerome sisters were (l to r) Jennie, Clara, and Leonie

 

As revenues from agriculture dwindled, the upper classes searched for a new infusion of capital.This they found in the American heiress, whose fathers had built up their wealth from trade and transportation. Free from the laws of primogeniture, these wealthy capitalists distributed their wealth among their children, sharing it equally among sons and daughters. The ‘Buccaneers,’ as early American heiresses were called, infused the British estates with wealth. ‘Cash for titles’ brought 60 million dollars into the British upper class system via 100 transatlantic marriages.

 

Transatlantic passages worked both ways, even as American heiresses crossed over to the U.K.,  millions of British workers emigrated to America looking for a better life. The sinking of the Titanic, just two years before the outbreak of World War One, underscored the pervasive issue of class.

 

Most likely this lifeboat from the Titanic was filled with upper class women and children. Only 1 in 3 people survived.

 

The different social strata were housed according to rank, and it was hard to ignore that a large percentage of first class women and children survived, while the majority of third and second class passengers died.

 

Labor strikes became common all over the world, including the U.K.

 

Society changed as the working class became more assertive and went on strikes. The Suffragette movement gained momentum. Prime Minister David Lloyd George was a proponent of reform, even as the aristocracy tried to carry on as before.

 

Lloyd George campaigned for progressive causes.

 

Inventions revolutionized the work place. Electricity, telephones, the type writer, and other labor-saving devices threatened jobs in service. A big house could be run with fewer staff, and by the 1920s a manor house that required 100 servants needed only 30-40.

 

Change is ever present. The last typewriter factory shut its doors in April, 2011.

 

Women who would otherwise have gone into service were lured into secretarial jobs, which had been revolutionized by the telephone and typewriter.

 

The manor house set enjoyed one last season in the summer of 1914, just before war began. Many of the young men who attended those parties would not return from France. Few expected that this war would last for six months, much less four years. Officers lost their lives by a greater percentage than ordinary soldiers, and the casualty lists were filled with the names of aristocratic men and the upper class.

 

Over 35 million soldiers and civilians died in World War 1

 

Common soldiers who had died by the millions had been unable to vote. Such inequities did not go unnoticed. Social discontent, noticeable before the war, resulted in reform – the many changes ushered in modern Britain.

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The Prince and the Killer Courtesan - The Story of Marguerite Alibert

Marguerite Marie Alibert (9 December 1890 – 2 January 1971, also known as Maggie Meller, Marguerite Laurent, and Princess Fahmy, was a French socialite. She started her career as a prostitute and later courtesan in Paris, and from 1917 to 1918, she had an affair with the prince of Wales (later Edward VIII). After her marriage to Egyptian aristocrat Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey, she was frequently called princess by the media of the time. In 1923, she killed her husband at the Savoy Hotel in London. She was eventually acquitted of the murder charge after a trial at the Old Bailey.

 

Life

Marguerite Marie Alibert was born on 9 December 1890[1] in Paris to Firmin Alibert, a coachman, and Marie Aurand, a housekeeper. At age 16, she gave birth to a daughter, Raymonde. In the following eight to ten years, Alibert led a nomadic life until she met Mme Denant, who ran a Maison de Rendezvous, a brothel catering to a high society clientele. Under the tutelage of Denant, Alibert became a high-class sex worker.[1][5] Subsequently, Alibert had a number of notable clients, particularly Edward, Prince of Wales.

 

She and Edward first met in April 1917 at the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris. At the time, he was in France as an officer of the Grenadier Guards in the Western Front during World War I. Edward became infatuated with her, and during their relationship, he wrote many candid letters to her. Although the affair was intense while it lasted, by the end of the war, Edward had ended the relationship.

 

Ali Fahmy Bey

Ali Fahmy Bey became infatuated with Alibert when he first encountered her in Egypt while she was escorting a businessman. He saw her again several times in Paris, and they were eventually formally introduced in July 1922. Following that meeting, they embarked on a tour of gambling and entertainment establishments in Deauville, Biarritz, and Paris. Fahmy returned to Egypt, but soon after, he invited her to the country, feigning illness and telling her that he could not live without her. They were married in December 1922 and had a formal Islamic wedding in January 1923.

 

Killing of Ali Fahmy

On 1 July 1923, the couple arrived in London for the holidays. They stayed at the Savoy Hotel with their entourage consisting of a secretary, a valet, and a maid.On 9 July, the couple and the secretary went to see the operetta The Merry Widow.[7][8] Upon returning to the hotel, they had a late supper where they started one of their frequent arguments. At 2:30 a.m. on 10 July, Alibert shot her husband repeatedly from behind, striking him in the neck, back, and head.[3][1] She used a .32 calibre semi-automatic Browning pistol.The victim was transported to Charing Cross Hospital but died of his wounds in about an hour.

 

Trial

The trial opened on Monday, 10 September 1923, with many people queuing to enter, including some who had waited since before daybreak. The trial lasted until Saturday, 15 September. During the trial, Alibert presented herself as the victim of the "brutality and beastliness" of her "oriental husband". Alibert was defended by Edward Marshall Hall, one of the more famous British lawyers of that era.[3] The trial judge disallowed any mention of Alibert's past as a courtesan, ensuring that the name of the Prince of Wales never was mentioned as part of the evidence during the trial. At the same time, Fahmy was described as "a monster of Eastern depravity and decadence, whose sexual tastes were indicative of an amoral sadism towards his helpless European wife". Alibert was acquitted of all charges.

 

Post-trial

After the trial, Alibert sued her late husband's family aiming to lay claim to his property. A court in Egypt rejected the verdict at the Old Bailey and dismissed her claim. She lived in an apartment facing the Ritz in Paris until the end of her life. After her death, the few remaining letters from Edward, which she had kept as insurance, were found and destroyed by a friend.

 

In culture

Books

The killing of Alibert's husband was the focus of the 1991 book, Scandal at the Savoy: The Infamous 1920s Murder Case by judge and historian Andrew Rose. In the 2013 follow-on work, The Prince, the Princess and the Perfect Murder, Andrew Rose revealed — with the help of Alibert's grandson — that the acquittal of Alibert of the charges of murdering her husband was part of a deal for returning the love letters of the Prince of Wales to him and a guarantee by Alibert that Edward's name would not be mentioned in court. Rose stated: "Really this was a show trial, the authorities wanted Marguerite to be acquitted. A murder conviction would have been catastrophic for the Crown."

 

The story of Alibert is retold in the 2022 debut novel, The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page, as told by the character Mrs. B., a former spy, to the keeper of stories, her cleaner, Janice; Alibert is given the alias Becky. This is clarified in the Author's Note found on page 375 of the paperback version.

 

Television

The trial was dramatised as part of the Granada TV series Lady Killers, broadcast on 20th July 1980, starring Robert Stephens and Barbara Kellerman.

 

In 2013, the UK Channel 4 aired the documentary Edward VIII's Murderous Mistress: Was there a cover-up of Edward VIII's fling with a murderess?

 

In November 2024, Channel 4 broadcast A History of Royal Scandals series 2 episode 4 entitled Crime in which Suzannah Lipscomb discussed Alibert's relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales, her trial for the shooting of husband Ali Fahmy, and the influence of authorities to ensure Alibert's acquittal.

 

Radio

The trial of Marguerite Alibert for the murder of Ali Fahmy Bey was presented in a 2023 episode of the BBC Radio 4 series Lucy Worsley's Lady Killers.

WAS EDWARD VIII REALLY A NAZI, AND HITLER'S WAR BUDDY? 'THE CROWN' SEASON 2 ADDRESSES 'VERGANGENHEIT' / 17 Carnations: The Royals, the Nazis, and the Biggest Cover-Up in History by Andrew Morton / Edward VIII the traitor king - complete documentary

WAS EDWARD VIII REALLY A NAZI, AND HITLER'S WAR BUDDY? 'THE CROWN' SEASON 2 ADDRESSES 'VERGANGENHEIT'

BY EMILY GAUDETTE ON 12/14/17 AT 5:22 PM

http://www.newsweek.com/crown-vergangenheit-edward-hitler-nazi-marburg-files-748868

 The Crown Season 2 finally tackles the dark underbelly of Edward VIII's personality and political leanings after carefully tip-toeing around the subject in Season 1. For those unfamiliar with Edward, the Duke of Windsor (Alex Jennings), and his ties to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, the disdain characters have toward him might seem a little harsh. However, when learning the full extent of Edward's admiration and collusion with Hitler in Episode 6, "Vergangenheit," viewers realize alongside Queen Elizabeth (Claire Foy) that this joker needed to be booted from Britain.

The reveal of Edward's alliance with Hitler plays out on The Crown as all the Netflix drama's storylines do: the top secret information is doled out delicately, set to the swell of violins, as a doe-eyed Foy shudders under its weight.

At first, on The Crown, the Marburg Files are unearthed by the Allied forces, and though Britain's government wants to stall on publishing them, the Americans push for transparency. This leads to Queen Elizabeth being briefed on some of the content regarding her uncle, the Duke of Windsor. She has a conversation with him and decides, without the full story, that as the head of the church of England, she has an ethical obligation to forgive him.

Of course, things get messier when the Queen tells Tommy Lascelles (Pip Torrens) she's willing to forgive Edward. He answers curtly through his mustache, "Before you make your decision, ma'am, I believe you should be in full possession of the facts." According to Lascelles, "The Duke of Windsor made his loyalties clear as soon as he became King."

Lascelles calls Edward's chosen court fellows known Nazis, and says the British government stopped briefing Edward on matters of national security; they believed he may have been involved in treasonous activities. When he abdicated the throne, Edward took his wife to visit Hitler in Germany. Lascelles claims the duke plotted to overthrow Elizabeth's father, reinstate himself as king and give Hitler and the Nazis freedom to prowl Western Europe. Lascelles even alludes to Edward having visited a concentration camp, though he adds, "Of course, the full horrors were yet to come, but nonetheless, he visited."

Just when it appears that Elizabeth cannot handle more bad news, Lascelles asks for permission to continue. He alleges that Edward colluded further with the Nazis, informing them that the Allied Forces had seized Hitler's military plans, which "gave Germany time to change its plan" and eventually take control of Paris. Finally, Lascelles adds, as the anxious-sounding score enters the frame, Edward assured the Germans that Britain would fall to Nazi control as well, as long as the bombing of his own citizens continued.

In response to all this information about her uncle, Elizabeth denies him a job in British government and exiles him and his wife from the country. The episode is harrowing, of course, but does it align perfectly with the historical truth?

What we know about Edward's trip to Germany, while it was under the rule of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, is that Hitler himself concluded that "the Duke of Windsor was an advocate of the Nazi cause and could be of future use," according to The New York Times and Philip Ziegler's biography of Edward VIII. According to Vanity Fair, the plan to reinstate Edward as a puppet king under the Nazi regime was hatched three years after Edward and his wife visited Hitler, as opposed to being concocted on that very trip (as it appears in The Crown).

The intercepted telegrams that suggested Edward was in on the plot surfaced in 1953, and Winston Churchill (with Dwight Eisenhower behind him) tried to cover up the documents, alleging that they were "tendentious and unreliable," according to The Guardian. We do see Churchill, in the episode's cold open, tell the king and gathered dignitaries that the Marburg Files (specifically the Windsor File incriminating Edward) cannot see the light of day, but his reasoning for hiding them isn't explored at length.

Some British historians, including Carolyn Harris, maintain Churchill's argument and believe that Edward wasn't aware of the plot to make him King of England (under Hitler). According to The BBC, Harris says Edward's motives in meeting Hitler were "peaceful" and more about finding a place in government for himself and his wife after abdicating the throne. The BBC also points out that Edward's assistant, Sir Dudley Forwood, later said that the entire trip to Germany was about making the Duchess of Windsor feel included in state affairs. According to Forwood, Edward wanted his new, American bride to feel important, even if she had to (figuratively) step over the bodies of Hitler's victims to do it.

Royal biographer Andrew Morton, author of "17 Carnations: The Royals, the Nazis and the Biggest Cover-Up in History," found a way to condemn Edward's ignorance and suggest that he was indeed a Nazi sympathizer, though Britain tried its best to keep that a secret. "[Edward] was certainly sympathetic...even after the war he thought Hitler was a good fellow and that he'd done a good job in Germany, and he was also anti-Semitic, before, during and after the war," Morton wrote.

Though no one can say for sure exactly why Edward brought his wife to meet Hitler, it's safe to say he at least sympathized with some part of the Nazi regime, which makes him, in the most literal sense of the term, a Nazi sympathizer.

Edward was appointed governor of the Bahamas during the controversy surrounding his Nazi ties, and after a stint there, he lived out the rest of his life in France. The Crown does touch on Edward's time in the Bahamas, which Elizabeth informs him was a tactic to keep him away from the war in the mainland, but it doesn't do much with Edward's character beyond making Elizabeth confront him. If Edward was involved with Hitler and the Nazis, which historical documents seem to suggest, it feels especially hollow to remember that he simply lived out his life of luxury in France, socially ostracized but not tried for treason.

The Crown Season 2 is streaming on Netflix.

17 Carnations: The Royals, the Nazis, and the Biggest Cover-Up in History

by Andrew Morton

“For fans of the Netflix series The Crown, a meticulously researched historical tour de force about the secret ties among Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, the Duke of Windsor, and Adolf Hitler before, during, and after World War II--now in paperback.

Andrew Morton tells the story of the feckless Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor, his American wife, Wallis Simpson, the bizarre wartime Nazi plot to make him a puppet king after the invasion of Britain, and the attempted cover-up by Churchill, General Eisenhower, and King George VI of the duke's relations with Hitler. From the alleged affair between Simpson and the German foreign minister to the discovery of top secret correspondence about the man dubbed "the traitor king" and the Nazi high command, this is a saga of intrigue, betrayal, and deception suffused with a heady aroma of sex and suspicion.

For the first time, Morton reveals the full story behind the cover-up of those damning letters and diagrams: the daring heist ordered by King George VI, the smooth duplicity of a Soviet spy as well as the bitter rows and recriminations among the British and American diplomats, politicians, and academics. Drawing on FBI documents, exclusive pictures, and material from the German, Russian, and British royal archives, as well as the personal correspondence of Churchill, Eisenhower, and the Windsors themselves, 17 CARNATIONS is a dazzling historical drama, full of adventure, intrigue, and startling revelations, written by a master of the genre.”

Unmasked, Edward the Nazi King of England: Princess Diana's biographer reveals the Duke of Windsor's collusion with Hitler… and a plot to regain his throne

Unique microfilm revealed the innermost workings of the Nazi regime

Found incriminating correspondence relating to former King of England

New book by Diana biographer reveals the Duke of Windsor was willing to deal with Hitler to win back his throne

Called Hitler a 'great man' and openly criticised Churchill the 'warmonger'

Was convinced conflict could've been avoided if he stayed on the throne

The Nazi leader would put the Duke back on the Throne as a puppet king

However, details of the secret deal were ordered destroyed after the war

Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee and American President Eisenhower among those who attempted to cover up damning dossier

By Andrew Morton For The Mail On Sunday

PUBLISHED: 22:07 GMT, 28 February 2015 | UPDATED: 19:50 GMT, 1 March 2015

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2973681/Edward-Nazi-King-England-Princess-Dianas-biographer-reveals-Duke-Windsor-s-collusion-Hitler.html

It was the most unlikely place to find a treasure trove: tucked inside a battered metal canister covered in a tatty plastic raincoat and hidden in a remote German estate, where it had been hastily buried in the dying days of the Nazi regime.

The men who discovered it in the weeks following the end of the war were dubbed ‘documents men’, Allied soldiers charged with finding the secrets of Hitler’s Third Reich. Inside was unique microfilm that revealed the innermost workings of the Nazi regime. Back in London, the haul was triumphantly called pirates’ gold.

But within days, they realised with horror that the thousands of files detailing every part of the Nazi regime’s inner workings contained incriminating correspondence relating to the former King of England, Edward VIII, his wife – the divorced American Wallis Simpson, whom he married in 1937 – and their links to dictator Adolf Hitler.

Honoured guests: Edward and Wallis depart Hitler’s mountain retreat in October 1937, after meeting the Fuhrer

The book claims that the Duke, center, was angered at being forced to abdicate the throne in 1936 and was willing to work with Adolf Hitler, right, to regain it

This was dynamite that could explode beneath the Monarchy.

For the next 12 years, war leader Winston Churchill, post-war Prime Minister Clement Attlee, American President Eisenhower and others in the political elite attempted to destroy or cover up the damning Windsor dossier.

Even King George VI, at loggerheads with his elder brother, the Duke of Windsor, since his abdication in 1936, was ‘greatly agitated’.

Now my three years of research have uncovered the extent of Edward’s Nazi sympathies and the monumental efforts lasting more than a decade by the Establishment on both sides to trace, conceal and destroy vital documents that they feared could bring down the House of Windsor.

The jaw-dropping contents of the file concerned the wartime activities of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, particularly their brief stay in Spain and Portugal after the fall of France in 1940. The secret papers painted an astonishing portrait of a man who was disaffected with his position, disloyal to his family and unpatriotic towards his country.

The file revealed that such was his disaffection that Churchill, his friend and supporter, had threatened him with court martial unless he obeyed military orders.

During this Iberian sojourn, many of Edward’s unguarded utterances were secretly recorded by German diplomats and pro-Fascist Spanish aristocrats who sent the material in minute detail to Berlin, where Hitler and his right-hand man, foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, pored over the Royal runes.

The transcripts reveal that Edward, who felt he had been ostracised and humiliated in the wake of his abdication in 1936, was outspoken in his criticism of Churchill and the war and was convinced that, if he had stayed on the throne, conflict could have been avoided.

He was angered at being forced to abdicate the throne in 1936 because he wanted to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, left, and was willing to work with Hitler, right

The Duke of Windsor chats to Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels at a party in Berlin in 1937

Only the continued heavy bombing of British cities, he believed, would bring the United Kingdom to the negotiating table. Taken at face value, the Duke was speaking high treason, giving succour to the enemy when Britain faced its darkest hour of the war. If the German files were to be believed, here was a man who had no faith in his country’s leaders or his own family. He was also a man who fully approved of Hitler and his spurious plans for peace.

Worryingly, they chimed with Washington’s intelligence. American ambassadors to Spain and Portugal who met the couple at this time were so alarmed that they sent messages to Washington reporting that the couple were ‘indiscreet and outspoken against the British government’. Historian John Costello later described the Duke’s sentiments as ‘tantamount to treason’.

Such was the dangerous importance of these unguarded private utterances that it gave the Nazi high command complete faith in a sinister plot to entice the Duke and Duchess to stay in Spain, where he would wait for the Germans to invade and conquer his homeland. Then the man who spent his honeymoon in Austria before the war and visited Germany in October 1937 as Hitler’s honoured guest would return to Britain as the Fuhrer’s puppet king.

The Nazis even had a code name for the plot – Operation Willi – which was the extraordinary climax to a bizarre entanglement between the Duke, the Duchess and Hitler which began shortly after he was elected German Chancellor in 1933.

Not only did Hitler try to marry Edward, then Prince of Wales, to a young German princess, but he then flooded London with a slew of Nazi supporting aristocrats with orders to find out what their Royal cousins were thinking. The stammering Duke of York, Edward’s brother and later King George VI, was blunt about this blue-blooded Nazi courtship. ‘My own family relations in Germany have been used to spy and get particulars from other members of my family,’ he later observed. Edward and Wallis welcomed them with open arms.

The couple, pictured, married at a private ceremony on June 3, 1937 in France and honeymooned in Germany

Edward, right, celebrates his marriage to Wallis Simpson in France in June 1937 with a cup of tea

The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson in 1937

As serious doubts began to be raised at home about Edward’s fitness to be King, he was viewed inside the Third Reich as a friend and ally of the Nazi regime.

Wallis Simpson came under special scrutiny from both sides. Even Hitler was intrigued by her relationship with the pompous but charming Von Ribbentrop, who had singled her out for special attention when he was Nazi ambassador in London in the 1930s.

It was said Von Ribbentrop sent Wallis bouquets of flowers, ordered from society florist Constance Spry, to her home. The Prince of Wales’s cousin, the well-informed Duke of Württemberg stoked the rumour mill, stating that the bouquets of 17 carnations (some say they were roses) represented the number of occasions Wallis and Von Ribbentrop had slept together.

Hitler is a great man... Churchill's a warmonger

Such was the concern about the proximity of Wallis and her then husband Ernest to the future King that at the height of her clandestine affair with Edward in 1935, Scotland Yard detectives were ordered to watch the couple and delve into their private life.

It emerged that not only was Ernest hoping for a high honour when the new King took the throne, but his wife was two-timing him and Edward with a third man, Ford car salesman Guy Trundle.

It was also discovered that a neighbour in Wallis’s apartment block, Bryanston Court in Central London, was Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe – a woman who had been monitored by the security services since 1928. They considered her a political intriguer – possibly a Nazi spy, but certainly a woman with direct access to Hitler himself. It was not long before worried Establishment figures wondered if Princess Stephanie and Wallis were working hand-in-glove, and Bryanston Court was a nest of espionage and plotting.

Military leaders had serious concerns about the Duke of Windsor, right, and his wife Wallis Simpson, left

MRS Simpson had already been described by Palace courtiers as a witch, a vampire and a high-class blackmailer. Soon she was being spoken of as a Nazi spy. Within weeks of Edward ascending the throne in January 1936, there was considerable concern that the Government red boxes – which to this day are ferried to the Palace containing intelligence reports, policy briefings and important documents needing Royal approval or signature – were being treated in a cavalier manner, their contents accessible to prying eyes.

The pre-war Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, learned that the French and Swiss governments knew that the King was discussing everything with Mrs Simpson. As she was believed to be ‘in the pocket of Ribbentrop’, this was a matter of grave concern.

American ambassador Robert Worth Bingham reported to President Roosevelt: ‘Many people here suspect that Mrs Simpson is in German pay. I think this is unlikely.’

All the while Hitler was observing developments from afar, sitting in his private cinema watching newsreels of the new young King, Edward VIII, and his American mistress. At least it made a change from his usual diet of Disney cartoons.

The King’s possible reaction was on Hitler’s mind when he occupied the Rhineland in March 1936 – effectively tearing up the Treaty of Versailles. His calculation that Edward would give him tacit support proved correct. That April the King sent Hitler a telegram wishing him ‘happiness and welfare’ for his 47th birthday.

For all his scrutiny of the youthful and glamorous new King, Hitler badly misjudged his quarry. He felt Edward was a man of the world, a man of power and ambition. And Von Ribbentrop had grossly overestimated Edward’s influence over British politics, believing he was capable of dictating foreign policy.

Despite concerns, the Duke of Windsor made trips to the War Office, pictured, during the conflict

So the Fuhrer was astonished when, in December 1936, Edward gave up his empire for Wallis, the twice-divorced American. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels caustically observed: ‘He has made a complete fool of himself… it was lacking in dignity and taste.’ Hitler believed Edward had been ousted by Churchill, who had manoeuvred him into a dubious marriage.

But even after the abdication, the Nazis still kept faith, inviting him to visit the Fatherland in October 1937.

During the 12-day visit, Germany was bedecked with alternating Union Flags and swastikas, and Wallis accepted curtsies from high and low-born alike. She was even referred to as ‘Her Royal Highness’, a title King George VI had pointedly denied her.

The Nazi leadership was impressed, seeing in the Duke one of their own. Goebbels described him as a ‘tender seedling of reason’. Nonetheless the couple’s phones were tapped throughout their visit. Controversially, the former King gave a Nazi salute when he met Hitler and other leaders. He later confirmed he did salute Hitler during their private 50-minute conversation at his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden, but insisted ‘it was a soldier’s salute’. After taking tea, they bade each other a fond farewell, never to meet again. As they drove away Hitler remarked to his interpreter: ‘The Duchess would have made a good queen.’

This was emphatically not the view of Queen Elizabeth, later the Queen Mother. Once war was declared in September 1939 and Wallis and Edward paid a short visit to London before being packed off to France, she could barely contain her loathing. She wrote to Queen Mary – mother of her husband George and Edward: ‘I trust she will soon return to France and STAY THERE. I am sure she hates this dear country and therefore she should not be here in wartime.’

Such was the routine suspicion and hostility felt towards the couple that when Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, showed the Duke around the Secret Room – where the exact position of the Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine fleets were plotted – the Earl of Crawford, a government Minister, warned: ‘He will blab and babble out state secrets without realising the danger.’

Edward’s behaviour did not inspire confidence. Though he schemed briefly to lead an international peace movement – which many believed would only add succour to the Nazi cause – he expended more effort playing golf and agitating to have his French chef released from Army duty. And there remains considerable circumstantial evidence that loose-lipped table talk by the Duke while he was in Paris made its way back to Berlin and influenced Hitler’s military strategy.

The Duke, pictured here making his abdication speech, believed Britain could be bombed to submission

Wallis’s friend, playwright Clare Boothe Luce, recalled an evening in May 1940 when the Windsors were playing cards in their Paris home. Luce was listening to BBC radio news describing a Luftwaffe fighter attack on coastal towns. When she remarked how sorry she felt for the casualties, the Duchess looked up briefly from her cards and replied: ‘After what they did to me I can’t say I feel sorry for them – a whole nation against one lone woman.’

The self-absorption of Edward and Wallis meant it was entirely in character that, when the Germans advanced south through France in 1940, he demanded that a Royal Navy ship pick them up from Nice.

The former King was bluntly told to drive to Spain, ostensibly a neutral country, and take his chances.

Their four-car convoy included a hired van just for the Royal luggage. They were however motoring into a trap, one partially of their own making. Within days of their arrival in Madrid, German diplomats were working with their Spanish allies to ensure the former King remained in Spain. The couple were offered a small fortune and a palace in Ronda in southern Spain to sit out the war.

Edward was so tempted by the offer that he telegraphed Churchill and asked if there was any need for a prompt return to London. Churchill ordered that he be moved to neighbouring Portugal.

According to German diplomats, the Duke was seen as ‘the only Englishman with whom Hitler would negotiate any peace terms, the logical director of England’s destiny after the war’. Like Vidkun Quisling, the Nazi appointee to rule Norway, and Marshal Petain in occupied France, the Duke of Windsor was the perfect puppet.

Operation Willi was treated with deadly seriousness by Hitler and Von Ribbentrop, the Fuhrer ordering his top spymaster Walter Schellenberg to travel to Lisbon to entice or if necessary kidnap the Windsors. Their every move, gesture and sentiment was pored over, with German diplomats looking for signs of encouragement.

The Duke twice secretly contacted the Nazis via a Spanish diplomat, asking first if they would protect his two rented houses in Paris and Cannes and their contents. The captured microfilm revealed the potentially explosive negotiations – the Germans agreed to his request. Even the ambassador brother of Spanish dictator Franco was shocked by Edward’s behaviour. ‘A prince does not ask favours of his country’s enemies. To request the handing over of things he could replace or dispense with is not correct.’

Moreover, the couple’s defeatist attitude in private conversations greatly concerned the British ambassador. ‘The Duke believed that Great Britain faced a catastrophic military defeat which could only be avoided through a peace settlement with Germany,’ observed historian Michael Bloch.

The Duke even stunned the American journalist Fulton Oestler by saying in an interview during the war, when he had been appointed Governor of the Bahamas: ‘It would be a tragic thing for the world if Hitler was overthrown, Hitler is the right and logical leader of the German people. Hitler is a very great man.’

Little wonder that a draft letter written on Churchill’s behalf in 1940 informing the prime ministers of the Dominions about the decision to appoint the Duke Governor of the Bahamas focused on his ‘pro-Nazi inclinations’ and the fact that he may become a centre of intrigue.

Edward’s disloyalty knew no boundaries. The Duke considered his younger brother George ‘utterly stupid’, the Queen an intriguer and Churchill a warmonger. At least that was how the Germans described it. Such was the collapse in relations between Edward and the British Government when he was in Portugal that the Duke believed he would be arrested if he went to the British Embassy in Lisbon. Little wonder that the Windsor File was so potentially incendiary.

When he was shown the dossier after the war, Churchill immediately insisted that it be destroyed lest it damage the standing of the Monarchy. So did the King, the Prime Minister and Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower.

However several copies had been made, some lodged with the Americans. American academics, drafted in to the wartime State Department, warned that they would be breaking the law if they destroyed the Windsor file.

Their views prevailed. But it took another 12 years, after years of British delaying tactics, for the file to be published.

The Duke of Windsor, who was worried about the publication, largely escaped scot-free, the media briefed to see him as an unwitting and innocent victim of misguided Nazi intrigues.

Today, with the help of new documents and letters never previously seen, we can see this dark corner of British history in a more honest light – how seriously the Windsors’ Nazi sympathies were taken at the time and the deep alarm the postwar discovery of the Nazi files caused at the highest levels.

The wrangling between the British and their American allies about the Windsor File was not without cost. It created a sour climate of suspicion and distrust that endured, with the Americans perplexed that the British would expend so much diplomatic and political capital on a man without public position who was effectively exiled from his homeland.

It was seen in Westminster as a small price to be paid to maintain the illusion of Monarchy as the national crucible of honour, duty and loyalty.

17 Carnations by Andrew Morton is published by Michael O’Mara, priced £20.00.