[antod]

Not directly, but for that reason it was a massive relief for the govt when he did abdicate and they could "exile" him and his wife and their Nazi sympathies somewhere far away.

Basically he never wanted to be King, and seemed totally unsuitable for it anyway.

[foldr]

Edward VIII abdicated at the end of 1936, almost three years before the start of the second world war. At that time being a Nazi sympathizer was still perfectly respectable in much of British high society. I think possibly you are getting the timeline slightly mixed up.

[antod]

You're right I had the timeline between abdication and "exile" condensed in my head. But by govt relief I wasn't referring to High Society but the functional bureaucracy of govt and intelligence services etc.

I recall (possibly faulty memory) from a documentary I watched once, that the bureaucracy stopped providing him with certain daily government briefing documents out of fears for national security.

[antod]

Then again, the intelligence services were riddled with communist sympathisers so that probably explains it just as much :)