Traitor King cover art

Traitor King

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

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

Traitor King

By: Andrew Lownie
Narrated by: Andrew Lownie
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £13.86

Buy Now for £13.86

LIMITED TIME OFFER

£0.99/mo for 3 months - terms apply. Offer ends 31 August 2026.
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. Europe Great Britain Military Politics & Activism Royalty
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

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."
All stars
Most relevant
A somewhat lacklustre reading of an interesting story. The premise of the story is that he/they were knowing and deliberate traitors before and during WW2. His black market gold and currency dealing during and after WW2 aren't much discussed.

Fascinating Story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I did enjoy this book and it tells us a lot of things we didn’t know which surprised me as I thought I knew the story pretty well however I did get a little lost on certain things it’s just a matter of hanging in there and sticking with it, overall I enjoyed this book and am now interested in the Mountbatten story from the same author.

The things we never knew

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I chose this on the strength of the author's book on Guy Burgess, but it is a poor companion to that excellent tome.
The story of the Windsors has been told many times but Andrew Lownie's version shows some excellent research and use of background detail, revealing a level of self-absorption, entitlement and playing of the establishment that makes them hard to not despise.
Mr Lownie has chosen to narrate this tale himself and either because of the lack of an editor or studio time he doesn't do a very good job... and he's reading his own text. The basic mispronunciations and mistakes in rhythm and emphasis are most distracting. I listened to this book more than once, not through enjoyment but in order to piece the story together better. It wasn't a waste of time but could have been so much better, as the Guy Burgess book proves is possible.

A Tale of Two Wasters

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The story of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson is well known, but hearing his post-abdication career described here in detail fills one with with surprise and astonishment at the level of his selfishness, myopia and corruption. The life story is is compelling, but the reading less so. The reader hesitates over almost every foreign name, or pronounces them differently on different occasions. A rather emotionless and flat reading.

Sensational story, less sensational reading

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a very interesting, important, well researched, well organised and well written piece of English social history. Sadly, it is almost wholly ruined by the terrible narration by its author. He reads mostly in a monotone, swallows many of his words, stumbles in long sentences and occasionally puts a sudden emphasis on random words. It is a pity he did not delegate the job of reading his book aloud to someone with a fluent speaking voice who could have done it justice.

Interesting book spoilt by terrible narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews