Clio is over here, doing the boggle bop
Okay, I am as much up as anyone for something turning up in archives which can be headlined thus: British state 'covered up plot to assassinate King Edward VIII':
It has all the hallmarks of a 21st-century political thriller, including a plot to assassinate a controversial monarch, an MI5 double agent, and claims of a high-level cover-up.
And, ooookaaaaay, we can quite imagine that there were elements within the state apparatus that considered him a significant liability for one or another reason, but covering up an assassination attempt? How is that not Deuced UnBritish, What?
Furthermore, I am just staring at 'recruited by the Italian embassy in London to assassinate the king'.
No, please do tell me why Mussolini wanted to get rid of the King of England.
As far as I know - there may be experts out there who might be able to correct me? - Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, was not exactly in the forefront of any agitation against Italian aggression in Ethiopia or known to have voiced any opinions on the Hoare-Laval Pact (which had collapsed by 1936 anyway), and I cannot think of any other pressing reason why the Italian Government would wish to do this, given that there was a brother ready in the wings and the symbolic rather than actual role of the monarch.
We do note that the person who has revealed this lurid tale has a book forthcoming on the Abdication, a topic upon which we rather wonder whether there is a need for Yet Another Book, so no doubt he needs to find a USP to boost it, she murmurs cynically.
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