These two books contrast very well in terms of how to do historical research and writing well versus how to do it lazily and sloppily.
Andrew Lownie’s Traitor King is a great example of deep, serious research combined with strong, clear writing. Lownie makes an extremely well-sourced case for the argument that Edward VIII (David) had strong connections to the Nazis, as did Wallis, and that both of them were fully traitors to the British nation. I have never been a fan of David at all, and this book fully cemented and reinforced every negative opinion I have of him. He truly disgusts me as a person on every level. Simultaneously weak-willed, grasping, lazy, and attempting to overthrow his brother and work with the Nazis as puppet king of England during the start of WWII — every time I felt a little sympathy for him while reading this book, he would then say something anti-Semitic or abandon his valet (who was the best man for his wedding!!) in Paris with no warning as the Germans are invading. Wallis isn’t much better, as she was even closer to the Nazis than David, and was cruel and cheap with staff. This is not a neutral book but I honestly appreciated that because Lownie makes his case with righteous indignation about how David and Wallis’s actions have been covered up by the government and simultaneously how catastrophic him staying king would have been. If you’re going to read one book about these terrible people, this would be the one. It’s accessible, thoughtful, and extremely well sourced. I came away from this respecting Lownie a lot and looking forward to reading his book about the Mountbattens.
In contrast, The Woman Before Wallis irritated me and was a bit of a slog. You would think a book centered around vice, murder, a dramatic trial, and secret letters being used as blackmail would be very entertaining, but this had a lot of flaws. My main issue here is that this is the sort of mid-level, lazy historiography where when you look at the bibliography, he’s mainly referencing other books that are also mid-range history and not doing a lot of original research. It feels gossipy and flimsy overall, with a lot of assumptions and leaps in logic to make his conclusions make sense. I do believe that the government made some sort of deal with Marguerite to get David’s letters back, but I don’t necessarily make the leap that they interfered in the trial and the investigation of the murder. Rose has absolutely no evidence for that beyond his suspicions. Plenty of women who murdered their husbands were acquitted during this time because juries were sympathetic, it didn’t take secret government maneuvering. I did like Rose’s disgust at David’s general moral weakness, which I obviously share. And his description of Marguerite’s defense lawyer during the trial was good. I was just disappointed overall by this book and wouldn’t recommend it.
Warnings in both books for: anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, murder, WWII, sex