Hitler and Queen Mother
From Mr Andrew Roberts Sir: David Irving's defence of his claim in his second volume of Churchill's War that the Queen Mother supported a peace deal with Hitler in 1940 — that he read an article in the Independent which speculated on such a thing — is no excuse for citing Box 24 of the Monckton Papers if he had not consulted that box, which he hadn't. The article (actually in the Independent on Sunday) was itself a shocking piece of journalism, claiming among other things that Lord Halifax was 'deeply unpopular' in May 1940, when in fact he was the choice as prime minister of senior Labour figures such as Hugh Dalton and Herbert Morrison, as well as of the King, the City, the House of Lords, the Times and the majority of National Government MPs.
If Mr Irving had cited in his sources the speculative newspaper article rather than an archive he had not consulted, his readers would be better placed to draw their own conclusions. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that Box 24 at the Bodleian Library contains any letters from the Queen Mother to Lord Halifax, at least from this period, as they are to be found where one would expect them to be — among Lord Halifax's papers in York. Among them is a letter dated November 1939 in which the then Queen Elizabeth advised Lord Halifax not to read Mein Kampf 'or you might go mad and that would be a pity'. Hardly the words of a Nazi sympathiser.
Andrew Roberts
London SW3
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