Lloyd George had supported the moves to replace Chamberlain with Churchill and while he indeed may have wanted to be PM in a ''defeated'' Britain I cannot see him as another Petain or Laval. A British Vichy? Only possible under German occupation - otherwise it couldn't be the servile poodle the actual Vichy government was.wadinga wrote: ..... Lloyd George, who had been prime minister in the First World War, had seen little chance of a British victory in the Second. The Americans would not enter the war, he said, and he made no secret of his readiness to take over his nation in defeat, as Petain had now taken over France. How many others were of like mind can only be guessed. The Duke of Windsor who as Edward VIII abdicated from the throne in 1936 and his wife, the infamous Mrs. Wallis Simpson, were outspoken admirers of Hitler and his Third Reich. Bitterly divided from his family on account of his marriage, there are suggestions that Edward hoped to assume the throne of a defeated Britain with Hitler's blessing.
I don't think either that there is any hard evidence that Edward VIII would have turned traitor. Indeed there are reports that Edward offered to return to Britain to fight in the British Army, but Churchill and the King, George VI, vetoed it because of the risk of being taken prisoner by the Germans. Whatever his feelings towards Queen Elizabeth and other members of his family Britain was still his country and while he did visit pre-war Nazi Germany and praise Hitler, being at war with Germany puts real loyalties first. Edward was packed off to Bermuda. He could have gone from his home in Portugal straight to Germany in June 1940 if he had wanted to - instead he tried to return to England, and dodged the attempts by Schellenburg to capture him.
