A prominent royal historian has claimed classified documents from The Royal Archives suggest the exiled Duke of Windsor was a Nazi sympathiser who gave up detailed plans of Buckingham Palace allowing it to be bombed in World War Two. The Duke, formerly known as King Edward VIII until his abdication in 1936 to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson, is the subject of many letters and correspondence in the archives that were collated by Alan Lascelles, royal secretary to four monarchs between 1920 and 1953. Unpopular in his time for his decision to abdicate and all but cut off from the royal family, the Duke visited Germany throughout the 1930s and was thought to be plotting to rule German-occupied Britain as a puppet monarch for Hitler in the event of a succesful invasion. Speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival yesterday, royal expert Alexander Larman said that whilst he had been given access to the archives for a book on the royal family during the war he had been surprised at the level of condemnation thrown at the Duke, revealing a Royal archivist had told him: ‘We are not in the business of protecting the Duke of Windsor’s reputation.’ He said: ‘The Nazi’s knew what they were doing and that’s because they had inside information [from the duke].