Elsa and the Windsor's

This letter to her Mother with checks enclosed to pay for the Hotel she lives in and for her personal use.

She goes with the Duke to Lord Max Beaverbrook's Villa, where Winston Churchill was spending a couple of days.

King Edward VIII abdicates in December of 1936 to marry American Divorcee Wallis Simpson “You can never be too rich or too thin”

He is then known as the Duke of Windsor.

Wallis was known to have had a long term relationship with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi ambassador to Britain. Previously in 1925 Wallis (while still married to EW Spencer Jr.)  engaged in an affair with fascist Count Galeazzo Ciano, who later became Benito Mussolini’s son-in-law.

And although she was never trained or proven an official Nazi spy, there was cause for concern, as in “loose lips” and “pillow talk”. Both British and American intel considered her a massive security risk.

Historians uncovered evidence that the Duke of Windsor held pro-Nazi sympathies and maintained contact with German officials during World War II. Edward was known to be particularly careless with state secrets and government papers, leaving such items in plain view for Wallis’s perusal.

While no concrete prosecutable evidence was produced, she and the Duke were labeled as “dangerous collaborators” by the FBI and the UK’s M15. But suffice it to say, the Windsor’s were notorious for a litany of questionable affiliations and behavior.

Now enter, Elsa Blaisdell, to whom these letters and other associated documents belonged.

Her letters and other documents date 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, & 1949

Previously Elsa was the executive secretary to the Finance Office of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. An important facility. She resigned this post in 1941.

Thus began her employment as the personal secretary to the Windsor’s

Drama abounded when in October of 1946 thieves stole the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels by entering through Elsa Blaisdell’s open bedroom window. Rumors speculated the theft was an inside job to recover for King George VI and his daughters, family property that was rightfully theirs….

Here for your perusal, are the personal letters and other ephemera, from Elsa’s years as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s personal secretary.

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