Princes at War: The Bitter Battle Inside Britain’s Royal Family in the Darkest Days of WWII by Deborah Cadbury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Princes at War is a study of the four surviving sons of George V from the Abdication Crisis of 1936 to the death of George VI in 1952. The eldest son became Edward VIII after his father’s death and became the Duke of Windsor after he abdicated. Prince Albert, the second son, became George VI after the abdication. Prince Henry became the Duke of Gloucester and Prince George, the youngest of the four, became Duke of Kent.

It is a very interesting book to read; certainly it is no substitute for a full biography of any of the four brothers, but it covers the activities of all four through this time period with a focus being primarily on the yers of the Second World War. I knew very little about the two younger brothers, and the author really develops a sense of who they were and what they did during this time period. Gloucester, from whom nothing much was expected, really came into his own and was a major support of George VI. Kent also buckled down, shed his playboy image, and worked hard at his post in the RAF until his death in a still somewhat mysterious plane crash in 1942.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor are something quite different. Certainly both were impressed by Fascism and admired Hitler at least to some extent. In 1940, did this cross the line and become treason? This is still unclear to some extent, but in the summer of 1940 they were both more preoccupied with the furnishings of their houses in Occupied France than they were about the mortal peril that was facing the United Kingdom.

The hero of course is George VI who held the royal family together during the war years, and also rose to the occasion as the war-time head of state. His relationship with Churchill is fascinating, and could be the subject of a whole book by itself.

So if you’re interested in the royal family or Great Britain during World War II, I think you’ll find this book well worth your time.