April 4, 2024 • 44 mins
We’re back at the Vrana Palace in Sofia, Bulgaria, where King Simeon II and Princess Maria Luisa tell host Becky Milligan about their narrow escape from targeted Allied bombings after their father’s death. As more secrets emerge from the pages of a British diplomat’s private diary, Becky is forced to consider an ugly possibility. But as she follows the trail of poison, a brand new suspect slithers into the frame.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Up starboard nighttime March twenty fourth, nineteen forty four, and
a British Royal Air Force pilot circles his Wellington bomber
over sleeping Sofia tonight. He's been chosen to hit a
very special target. He's waiting for his cue Steady. The
(00:28):
pilot jabs the rudder hard right and the wing bucks upwards.
He's not alone in the pitch dark sky. It's crowded
up here. Forty other British bombers swoop over the Bulgarian
capital and in this thick cloud concentrations everything.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I see done.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Keep on cough.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Sofia is under attack again. In his drafty cockpit, the
pilot is blinded by flashes of it exploding bombs hitting
their targets. Strings of bombs rained down on the city.
They're hitting industrial, government and residential areas. But this pilot
(01:12):
hasn't opened his bomb doors. His shells have an altogether
different destination. He's not there yet, just a couple more miles.
All through the winter and now into the spring, hundreds
of British and American bomber planes have attacked Bulgaria from
(01:34):
the air. The cities in ruins Bulgaria has no soldiers
in active combat, but she's signed a symbolic declaration of
war on Britain and America, and in the eyes of
the Allies, she deserves this beating.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Get below well The.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Wellington's bombay is crammed with heavy blockbuster and incendry bombs
waiting to be dropped, but the pilot's navigator directs him
southeast away from the city, away from the other bombers.
They're very close. Now it's time. The pilot closes the
(02:15):
throttle and the plane begins to dive because tonight there's
a new target, a very deliberate target, Varana Palace, home
to the Bulgarian royal family.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Here we go on, doors open.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And in the palace, cowering in a bunker are Queen
Giovanna and her children, eleven year old Maria Louisa and
the boy King Simeon. They're absolutely petrified. Their father, King Boris,
has been dead for nearly seven months, a suspected victim
of murder. He signed a pat with Hitler and now
(02:59):
his family is paying the price. And once away, the
furious formation of Wellington's pummel Varanha from the sky again
and again This is a made to measure revenge raid
and it's been personally ordered by one man who just
(03:24):
cannot forgive Boris's treachery. Sir Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister,
has no mercy for the young royals. Did he also
sign the order to kill their father from Blanchard's house?
(03:49):
And exactly right, Media, this is the Butterfly King. I'm
Becky Milligan, Chapter four. A snake is still a snake.
(04:45):
I'm back in Bulgaria in the grounds of Rana Palace
with my producer e J to pay another visit to
King Simeon and his sister, Princess Maria Louisa. And as usual,
our taxes dumped us much away from the palace door.
It's a long old walk, I know, but there's no
way in. There're just gates everywhere and guards who won't
(05:08):
let us in.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
It was nice when he realized we were coming for
the king. I think he thought we were a bit,
you know, sort of groupiees. I mean, if you banged
on a gate like that at Buckingham Palace. I know, yes,
I liked your foreign lord.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
What's a very good Bulgarian.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
I think.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
You'll remember that Varana Palace was King Boris's go to place,
his countryside getaway. He felt safe here, catching his butterflies
and playing with his children. Now you know what vrana means,
don't you?
Speaker 6 (05:41):
No?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Crow? Really?
Speaker 4 (05:45):
And you know what the collective noun for a group
of crouses, a murder of crows?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
How fitting is that? Of course, the official reason for
Boris's death is that he died of a heart attack,
but as we've established, his strange symptoms suggest he was poisoned.
That's what his daughter, Maria Louisa has believed all these years.
She was just ten when her father died. She's now
(06:11):
eighty nine, and we're actually visiting her on a rather
special occasion, the Princess's birthday, and we have brought a
couple of We've got a rather a nice little present
for her. Biscuits. Yeah, everybody likes a biscuit. It's not
a dad, but yes, Maria Louisa is turning ninety. I'm
(06:33):
a bit worried about the flavors.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Rose and Violet roses a little bit calls to Newcastle actually, because.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Bulgaria is famous for roses. I did think about that afterwards.
Do you like Violet flavored biscuits. I don't think I've
ever had done. Actually quite disgusting. I really hope she
doesn't offer us one. Well, I'm not going to have one.
Maria Louisa has flown into Sofia from New York to
celebrate with her brother. King Simeon.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
You must be jet bag because I actually got here
yesterday or the day before.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I don't know if you have jet leg when you're older.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
It's worn out all the time, aren't you.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
We're worn out all the time. The thing is, we're
both feeling a bit nervy because today we have to
broach a rather tricky subject, the possibility that Winston Churchill
and Britain may have been responsible for their father's death.
So I'm slightly fearful about the kind of welcome we're
(07:33):
going to get.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Look, here comes a big, posh looking car. Yes, then
come to get us talking enough distrust.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
That looks like an sort of armorplated card, doesn't it.
Oh my god, it's just stopping. It might be the King.
It's the palaces. This way, which way up here? Oh
my god? Is this we're going to hear the accelerator.
I don't want us to do the story anymore. Don't look,
I don't hear me else following us. Oh my god,
I'm quite true. Walkfaster quickly. The thing is, we now
(08:07):
think we know how Boris was killed. We found evidence
in two sources, the London Archives and the diary of
the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebels. They both tell us
it was an Asiatic or Indian poison which did for
the king, probably snake poison. And guess who has ready
(08:27):
access to Asia? During the war in nineteen forty three,
Britain was an imperial power with colonies across South and
Southeast Asia. The British and their Commonwealth allies were fighting
a savage war against the Japanese in the jungles of
(08:49):
Indonesia and Malaysia. Conditions for the troops were pretty terrible.
For every soldier wounded in battle, another one hundred twenty
fell sick due to tropical illnesses. They were bitten by mosquitoes, bugs,
and of course snakes. In fact, before they went to
(09:10):
bed at night, soldiers were worn to check their beds
to make sure they didn't get any nasty surprises. But
it wasn't just those snakes that concern the British. This
Royal Air Force film from nineteen forty one clearly identifies
(09:32):
another treacherous snake, at least in the eyes of the Brits,
a snake hiding in the Royal Palace in Sofia. King Boris.
Speaker 7 (09:43):
Bulgaria lies between Greece and Romania.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Remember, Bulgaria had started the war insisting on her neutrality.
King Boris wanted to stay out of it all, but
he broke his word.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
King Baris agreed to keep out of the war if
we respected bulg as mutality. We kept our promise, but
already Barris was flooding with Hitler.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And when Boris signed that pat with Hitler, Churchill was livid.
To Churchill, honor was everything, and his anger went deep.
The previous winter, Britain had signed the largest surrender in
British history when Singapore fell to Japan. It was a
humiliating defeat for the Empire, a loss of face that
(10:29):
Churchill found very hard to swallow. The Allies were losing
thousands of men every week, yet Boris had managed to
avoid sending a single Bulgarian soldier to the front. Not
one was engaged in active combat. Historian Tessa Dunlop reckons.
(10:50):
Churchill despised Boris for that. What's interesting is.
Speaker 8 (10:54):
Unlike, for example, the Romanians who were holess Bolas in
bed with the Germans, Boris walks this enigmatic line and
I think that's almost infuriating, Like you can hate the Romanians,
but by God, they got their come up and in
Russia they were murdered like flies, you know, whereas Bulgaria
(11:15):
it seems like they've had a pretty easy ride of
the war. To be honest with you, a little bit
of light occupation.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And let's not forget that symbolic declaration of war that
Bulgaria made on Britain and America.
Speaker 8 (11:28):
Can you symbolically be at war with someone talk about
wanting to have it both ways? Well, if you're Churchill,
what are you going to.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Make of that?
Speaker 8 (11:35):
You know you're not going to think, Oh, Boris is
my new best friend.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And what's more, Boris has done it all in the
shadows by playing the system.
Speaker 8 (11:43):
He's managed to get his way and that probably sticks
in the crawl, don't you think of Churchill? I mean,
this man at Churchill stakes his identity on taking the
fight to the enemy, you know, on the lending stages,
even though he's never going to body have to do
and all that kind of jazz, and Boris.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Does the exact opposite, which is head.
Speaker 8 (12:01):
Down work as many people as you can, play them
off against each other, don't play your hand until you
absolutely have to.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And he's done it really rather well. That's infuriating, even
more so because Britain had been double crossed by Boris's family,
the Saxe Coburgs before and Baris.
Speaker 7 (12:20):
Soon followed his minister, being met at the station by
the Fiora himself. And like his father in the last war,
he betrays his people.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Like his father, Boris's dad, Foxy Ferdinand, had been courted
by the British and French in World War One. They
hoped he'd be their ally, but Foxy was also secretly
being wooed by the Germans, and in the end he
decided he'd be better off with them. And for Churchill
(12:50):
and Boris, this is where it all gets personal. Both
men had fought in the First World War on opposite sides.
Of course, Boris with the Tripler that's Germany, Austria, Hungary
and Italy, and Churchill with the Triple Entente that's Britain,
France and Russia, and Churchill still held that grudge. He
(13:12):
just couldn't let it go.
Speaker 8 (13:14):
They think Boris is more Saxe Coburg treachery. Don't forget
Boris is the son of Ferdinand, Berdinand, the only king
in the Balkans to not fight alongside the Entente in
the First World War.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Did Churchill expect Boris to pay for the sins of
his father. Boris's decision to ally with Hitler sent shockwaves
through the British establishment, and that broken promise left more
than one British diplomat feeling like a fool. Diplomats like
(13:49):
Lord George Lloyd. And how do I know because on
one of my trips to the archives I came across
his private papers. We get the real sort of gossipy
side of this, you know, you just don't forget all this.
He was feeding that to London. Yeah, absolutely, I mean
that's what his job was, wasn't it. I expect they
(14:11):
all sort of and they heard something interesting. They're on
the blower, as they would say, then on the blower.
So intriguing, isn't it to have access now to you know,
all of that correspondence and his thoughts and you know
all those little bitchy comments. It's interesting Lord Lloyd was
(14:31):
the chairman of the British Council. It's the sort of
cultural arm of the Foreign Office designed to create good
relations overseas. In the winter of nineteen thirty nine he
was sent on a tour of the Balkans to try
and shore up support for the war. Now Lord Lloyd
was no fool. He was also a spy, and his
(14:53):
personal letters show he had a waspish tongue.
Speaker 9 (14:58):
I dined that night with Colonel Ross, our military attache,
a dinner that would have been pleasant had it not
been for the volubility of Monsieur Chezon, the League of
Nations representative, who may conceivably be interesting on politics, but
who on military affairs, is as ignorant as he is assertive.
The remaining guests were not of great interest. My impression
of him was that he was a rather tiresome wind bag.
(15:19):
The next day, at seven thirty we left for Sofia,
only to be told the ferry would not leave for
some three quarters of an hour. So we went into
a cottage on the key, drank some coffee with bad brandy,
and came to an overheated and reasonably unspeakable restaurant to
have breakfast.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Lord Lloyd first met King Boris in nineteen thirty nine.
That was long before Boris teamed up with Hitler, and
while Lloyd was charmed by him, particularly by the King's
affection for his royal British cousins, the Windsors.
Speaker 9 (15:50):
King Boris alluded to the invariable happiness of his visits
to England. He had especially enjoyed his visits to bell Morrel.
He showed me a small photograph of his late Majester,
King George the Fifth, which he always kept on his
writing table in.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Front of him. He was so impressed that after his
visit he even wrote to King Boris.
Speaker 9 (16:07):
I have, since my audience with your Majesty, done my
best to convince everyone I meet of the strength and
sincerity of Bulgaria's neutrality.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
But a week or so later, Lord Lloyd popped over
the border to Yugoslavia, where he met their ruler, Prince Paul.
He told the Prince about his wonderful audience with the
trustworthy King Boris. The Prince gave him a very different view.
Speaker 9 (16:32):
Prince Paul laughed, merely replied that I was yet another
simple and guileless victim of King Boris's well known tactics.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Prince Paul basically told Lord Lloyd he'd been had, and
that picture of King George the Fifth that Boris had
on his writing table, he.
Speaker 9 (16:47):
Said, as for the photograph, he kept many, often of
different kings and rulers, and pulled out the proper one
for each listener.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Crafty, now, don't forget all this was being fired back
to the government, to Churchill. And while Lord Lloyd might
have been charming to the King privately, he became deeply
suspicious of him.
Speaker 9 (17:11):
I'm under no illusions as to the treachery and perfidy
of King Boris.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
And when Bulgaria signed a pact with Hitler, tempers boiled over.
One of the papers I found in the archives has
an angry comment scrawled into the margin.
Speaker 9 (17:26):
Bulgaria will live to regret her decision.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Is that a veiled threat from the British. Was Lord
Lloyd preparing the way for his spy network to assassinate Boris?
I mean, I don't really need to spell out what secret.
Speaker 10 (17:42):
Services get up to secret services. You know, there's a
bit of a hint on the name of the tin.
They do operations in secret which others cannot do.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
That's Colonel Hamish de Breton Gordon, our weapons expert, remember
his ex military, and let's just say he's not unfamiliar
with covert operations in war time.
Speaker 10 (18:06):
In the defense of the homeland, They're prepared to do
whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
He says, bumping off Boris doesn't sound like the sort
of thing British intelligence would do today, but.
Speaker 10 (18:17):
I would never completely rule out that perhaps these sort
of things had happened in the past.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Oh okay, Oh my god, Okay, Bobby at Rana Palace,
we're under thread. When someone sets the dogs on us.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
All the King's dogs are called Booby, or at least
Boris were just call Booby.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Look it's working.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Luckily. Ej subdues the Royal guard dogs with her special
doggie voice. You're a rubbish god, get money? How nice
to see you again, Love to see you. Should we
go straight here?
Speaker 11 (19:10):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Perfect? Then Yavo, the King's suave and charming aid, comes
to our age. But on our way into the palace
there's a difficult moment. Yavo casually points out the underground
bunker the Royal family had built to protect themselves from
Allied bombing.
Speaker 12 (19:30):
So after the start of the Second World War, they
decide to build a modern bunker. It's right here and
this is yes, this is the entrance. This bunkers saved
the royal family when this tower collapsed. It did collapse
during the night. King Simeon go out with the family.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And then all under here.
Speaker 12 (19:48):
Yes, they see the burning of the house because the
planes came from there. Pull the bombs here and continue.
But it was the few meters of the palace.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
And just when I'm thinking this visit can't get any
more awkward, Yavor drops his own bombshell. His friend Sylvia,
a Bulgarian historian, has apparently found some damning evidence about
who murdered King Boris.
Speaker 13 (20:17):
When they were in UK. They found a document that
showed that the British wants to give weapons to someone
to assassin king bodies in Bulgaria.
Speaker 10 (20:31):
This is what the.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
British heng on. So it's the British.
Speaker 13 (20:37):
Yes, this is what she found.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
I think so Yavl's claiming that a Bulgarian historian has
proof the British wanted King Boris dead and that they
were trying to arm someone to do the job for them.
I can hear Princess Maria Luisa and his Majesty King
Simeon coming down the corridor. We quickly try and get
the details from yavor Victorian Sylvia has found it in
(21:03):
the UK. Yes, I think though, that's what we need.
We do need to speak to her.
Speaker 13 (21:09):
Really, yes, yes, yes, yeah, I will send them a
second message now to see issue answer me.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
After so wonderfully, I feel like, how are you dealing
with the jet lag? Receive just hockey, isn't it?
Speaker 11 (21:31):
You have to ignore the dread lag?
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Oh? Very good? Yes, absolutely, Perhaps our birthday biscuits might
soften the mood. Her birthday this year falls on an
unfortunate day.
Speaker 11 (21:43):
Friday the thirteenth. Oh no, and it was Friday the
thirteenth when I was born. Oh my, sorry, it doesn't
work for me, the bad luck and all that rubbish.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Oh yes, throw that out the window. Anyway, this is
for you from us, just because we wanted to market
and by goodness, Heaven's sake, what is it. You can
have a little loan. We hope that this booze is
not booze. No, oh god, we did think of booze,
but then we thought maybe it's biscuits. I told DJ
(22:15):
we should have got Booze. Great delighted, But then we
have to get down to business and the thorny subject
of who killed Maria, Louisa and Simeon's father. I hold
off mentioning what Yavios just told us about that document
his friend found accusing the Brits of murder, because I
(22:37):
first want to explore whether the British had a motive.
The Allied air raids began in April nineteen forty one,
when Boris joined sides with Hitler, and they picked up
again in December of that year in response to the
King's symbolic declaration of war. The British Prime had persuaded
(23:01):
President Roosevelt that Bulgaria needed a sharp lesson. But what's
strange is the raids intensified after the King's death in
nineteen forty four.
Speaker 11 (23:17):
There were huge air raids over Sophia many, many times
and many dates, Sofia almost burned. It was ghastly times
and it was absolutely terrible. We were carped bombs several times,
absolutely horrible, and five minutes after the all clear, my
(23:38):
mother would drive in and visit people in the hospitals,
and you know, there was no water, no electricity.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
And then, as we've heard, the raids became personal, directly
targeting for Anna Palace, where the boy King Simeon was
hiding in that underground bunker with a little flashlight. He
still doesn't like talking about it. He once wrote that
he was sure they were all going to die. His
(24:06):
sister remembers watching her home go up in smoke.
Speaker 11 (24:11):
Sure burns, do you remember seeing the flames? Sure, incendiary
bombs on the roof. The roof was burning. They were
of course wounded people. Other people panicked and were screaming.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And it didn't end there.
Speaker 11 (24:30):
Huge bomb fell in the garden and one of these
enormous bombs made a huge crater, and our chief gardener
decided it was much too complicated to fill the hole,
so put a little pond, and we used to call
it Churchill's Lake.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
It's no longer there, no, but it was over there,
how terrifying, just missing by an inch. So it was
Churchill just trying to frighten Bulgaria. Interchanging sides. Once Boris
was dead, or was he determined to wipe out the
entire royal family? A family he felt was rotten to
(25:09):
the core. Why did he do it? Do you think.
Speaker 11 (25:14):
That you have to ask him?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Up there, Maria Luisa is pointing her finger upwards towards Heaven.
She's not smiling. So Churchill certainly had a motive for
killing King Boris. And remember what Yavil told us about
that document his friend Sylvia found it sounds like the
(25:36):
British were creating their own opportunity. But that's where we've
got another mystery on our hands, because Yavo's friend, Sylvia
won't pick up our calls. But it so happens. We
know another friend of hers, her colleague in fact, the
very distinguished historian George Bosdganoff. You might remember him sore
(26:00):
so slightly frustrated with me from time to time. So
if you look at this right, I think that's nineteen
forty three, and it's more this document. You want me
to shut up, don't you?
Speaker 6 (26:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Okay, yes, So I get my producer EJ to call
him to ask him if he's familiar with Sylvia's discovery.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
I'm absolutely sure I haven't seen such a document that
British he have an agreement for killing Czar Boris. I'm
hearing about this document for the first time in my
life from you now just now.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yes, I found it rather surprising, and I thought if
anybody has found something like that, it would be the
great detective historian mister bos Buganov himself.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Thank you, but I haven't find such a document at all.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Thank you so much, your colleague, Thank you very much.
I'm here and thank you. It was lovely to speak
to you.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
Okay, come back.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
He's missing me already. At least he's promised to try
to reach Sylvia for us. Well. So yeah, so he
thinks it's a mistake.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
A mistake unless Sylvia's squirreled away a document without telling him.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
He's quite indignant, isn't he that? You know, if it's
true there's a document, he will be really cross. Well,
let's see what he can find. Back to nineteen forty one,
Sofia and our list of British motives for murdering Boris.
Boris has allied with the Nazis and the situation in
(27:55):
the city is getting worse. At the British embassy staff
at terrified with good reason under Nazi orders, the Bulgarian
police start arresting British embassy staff. A British official is kidnapped,
(28:16):
the ambassador's butler disappears, and we know this because in
the archives I came across another set of private papers
that shed light on our investigation, the papers of the
British Ambassador to Bulgaria, Sir George Randall, the man at
the heart of the action. He telegrams London in a fury.
Speaker 9 (28:42):
Methods adopted by Bulgarian authorities have been intolerable. Arrest of
the Bulgarian employees of the Press Office was entirely unjustifiable,
and removal of deligation butler without notice was an affront
in which I cannot acquiesce with any dignity. We must
now write off King Boris as a dead loss.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Twenty one year old daughter lives with him, and he
fears for her safety and for the safety of his
sixty embassy staff. He's right to. Under Rendall's direction, the
British mission packs up and DeCamps to Turkey. On the
(29:21):
eleventh of March nineteen forty one, the ambassador and his
diplomatic party arrive at the pair of Palace hotel in Istanbul.
Speaker 9 (29:32):
Hello, may I just have the keys to my room?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Please?
Speaker 9 (29:34):
Sir George Randall, I don't worry about her bags for now,
you can get the boy to bring them up.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Bound by, Rendall and his daughter are given rooms on
an upper floor. That twist of fate saves both their lives,
because a few minutes after they check in, someone has
(29:59):
planted a bomb in their luggage. Six people are killed,
including two members of Rendell's staff, both young women. Several
other people are badly injured who could have planted the
(30:20):
explosives well. The train which had taken them from Sofia
to Istanbul was a private train, and it turns out
that this was the private train of King Boris, the
third of Bulgaria. So for the Brits there were only
two options. The Bulgarians had planted the bomb themselves or
(30:43):
were at the very least complicit. Either way, it wasn't
a good look. The hostility between Bulgaria and Britain had
just reached another level. Altogether. The king had enjoyed cordial
relations over the years. They'd even bonded over their butterfly collections,
(31:07):
but in his end of mission statement, Rendel writes.
Speaker 9 (31:11):
As for the future of the country, it is dark. Indeed,
if Bulgaria meets with heavy punishment, she'll have nobody but
herself and her present rulers to blame.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
All the evidence points in the same direction. The British
had every reason to kill the king, but how did
they do it? Back to the jungle and that snake venom.
And keep in mind that the claim Boris was killed
with snake venom comes from the private diary of Joseph Goebel's,
(31:46):
head of Nazi propaganda. Not really what you'd call a
trustworthy source, but why would he lie in his own diary?
So we know British troops were fighting in the jungles
of Asia. We also know there's a huge population of
deadly snakes in those jungles, and that their venom can
(32:07):
be milked, freeze, dried, and then injected into someone. Our
favorite snake expert, mark O'Shea told us so. But remember
that King Boris took six days to die. If you're
injected with deadly snake venom, wouldn't you keel over immediately?
Speaker 14 (32:26):
Not like you see in the moves where somebody gets
bitten and if all over dead, that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
In fact, it all depends where precisely the venom's injected.
Speaker 14 (32:35):
There are so many different ways of doing injections intramuscular, intravenous, subcutaneously,
interpertor neally, well not that one, thank you very much.
And then obviously the venoms got to spread from there,
the emphatics, through the tissues, through the blood.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
So a person injected with snake venom could take a
while to die, especially if the venom isn't too potent,
and we know the poor king lingered on his deathbed.
Speaker 14 (33:02):
The same species could have a considerable amount of variation
in venom. When you milk the venom, you don't know
what concentration of venom is there, because it all depends
when the snake last used it.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Okay, it's clearly not a precise science, but what if
the freeze dried venom wasn't injected, but was slipped into
his food.
Speaker 14 (33:25):
The point with venom is that snake venoms are protein,
so therefore your saliva will start the process of digestion
and your gut will finish it. The venom's probably not
going to be around long enough to actually do anything.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
So Boris couldn't have been killed by swallowing snake venom.
Mark's actually tried it by accident, That is.
Speaker 14 (33:49):
I've caught a lot of spitting cobras and they spit
their venom at your face, and some of that venom
has gone into my.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Mouth, hit the back of my throat. It's quite acrid.
Speaker 14 (33:59):
Generally, I'll just have a swigger water or coffee to
take the taste away.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Remind me never to accept a dinner invitation at Marx.
So let's just recap Boris's symptoms for a minute. He
had a fever, he was vomiting, his skin was covered
in blotches, His red blood cells exploded, then he lost consciousness,
his liver packed up, and finally he had a fatal
(34:24):
heart attack. Does snake venom cause such a reaction.
Speaker 14 (34:28):
Well, there isn't one answer to that, for the simple
fact that snake venoms are complicated cocktails of different toxins.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
This next bit's very technical.
Speaker 14 (34:40):
You've got neurotoxins which affect the nervous system, hemotoxins that
affect the circulatory system, cytotoxins that.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
To be honest, all this is going a bit over
my head. I'm still feeling a bit sick thinking of
Mark's swallowing snake venoms.
Speaker 14 (34:58):
And then suddenly, then you got cardiotoxins that directly target.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
The heart, cardiotoxins a snake venom which directly attacks the heart.
Have I finally found what killed Boris?
Speaker 14 (35:16):
But?
Speaker 1 (35:17):
But why does there always have to be a butt?
Speaker 14 (35:21):
If there's damage to the blood vessels, I would expect
there to be signs of that in the kidneys, and
I would expect the urine to contain blood urine as black.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
As coca cola.
Speaker 14 (35:38):
Right, probably a sizable amount of it, and that's not
been mentioned.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Well, no, he's a king, for goodness sake, I can't
exactly ask about a file of royal p never mind,
But now he's reviewed the symptoms, does Mark agree it
could have been snake venom that killed King Boris?
Speaker 14 (36:00):
I'm absolutely positive that it Wasn't It sounds great, It
sounds so sensational and exciting.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
But no, oh, come on, We've got deadly Asian snakes
whose venom causes heart attacks. What more do you want?
Speaker 14 (36:14):
People can survive snake bites sometimes without any anti venom.
It's estimated that up to fifty percent of bites might
not be fatal even without treatment.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Well, he could have been one of the unlucky few.
Speaker 14 (36:29):
I just don't go for that. If you really absolutely
must bump somebody off, then don't use snake venom. Use
something that is guaranteed to do the.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Job, but maybe better. There's that sort of sense of,
you know, the sort of fog of war and the
mystery and all the spies, and let's do something a
little bit, you know, different. Why I can't say you can.
Speaker 14 (36:57):
I no, you can't. I just say this as an
efficient means of getting rid of somebody. Nice, though it
sounds in a novel or something like that.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Okay, I know, when I'm beaten, looks like Gebels sent
me down a blind alley. So reluctantly I'm scratching out
snake venom as the means that killed the king. But
at least I've still got the British and Churchill in
the frame for the motive. All I have to do
now is pluck up the courage to confront Simeon and
(37:30):
Maria Louisa, to admit to them that I think my
own countrymen killed their father. But our interview doesn't go
the way I'd imagined at all.
Speaker 6 (37:42):
That's just nonsense.
Speaker 11 (37:44):
We were too small and unimportant for Britain to send
somebody and put poison in his soup.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I don't believe it. It turns out the royal siblings
have already researched Britain's potential motives for killing the king,
and they've crossed the British off the list of suspects.
There's a very good reason why. Turns out that by
nineteen forty three King Boris was in secret talks with
the Allies to try to change sides.
Speaker 11 (38:13):
The British had no advantage of it because my father
already we were all trying desperately to ask for Western help.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yes, because Churchill was pretty vociferous about Bulgaria and your father.
Speaker 11 (38:32):
Yeah, but not to the point of poisoning him.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
They know all about the Asian snake venom theory too,
and like me, they've dismissed it.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
This was one of the Nazi theories, part of the propaganda.
They said that it was a snake poison but it
was only found in British Guyana. So obviously trying to
point to the British intelligence for having done the job.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
But why would they have wanted to do that.
Speaker 6 (39:05):
We're on the wrong side in the war. So that
you could think that there's a reason that they should
eliminate the king.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
So the Nazi propaganda minister's diaries were just another piece
of propaganda. Turns out Gebels was counting on his diaries
being published. They were not his private thoughts at all.
And of course, we're in the middle of the war
where everyone is pointing the finger at everyone else and
(39:36):
passing the buck. It seems we're only chasing red herrings here.
And remember Sylvia Yavel's friend who found that document blaming
the British. She discovered it in the British archives. Apparently, well,
even Bulgaria's leading historian, George bos Deganoff can't find her.
(39:57):
She's gone totally able.
Speaker 5 (39:59):
Okay, I tried to call on Sylvia, but she doesn't
answer the phone. But I doubt that such kind of document.
Speaker 9 (40:12):
Existed at all.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
I'm beginning to doubt it too, to be honest, I'm
beginning to doubt everything. In one fell swoop, I've managed
to lose the means, motive, and the opportunity for the
King's murder. And I just don't think Churchill had enough
to gain from murdering Boris, especially if he'd already started
secret talks with the Allies. So who did have something
(40:38):
to gain, and if it wasn't snake poison, how did
they do it. I've come back home to the UK,
to the archives because I've absolutely got to check something out.
I know it's a long shot, but what if Sylvia
really did find something, something that I've somehow missed. So
(41:00):
along with my producer EJ, I'm turning the files inside
out one last time until oh my god, that was
just incredible. I can't believe it. What did you think?
I mean? Okay, sorry, now, I don't know if I
(41:22):
found Sylvia's missing document, but I think I might have
found something even better. So right at the top of it,
it's so secret. It says to be held under lock
and key, and written by the Japanese ambassador in Berlin.
(41:43):
It's a telegram destined for Tokyo announcing the strange death
of King Boris the third and marked most secret, to
be handled with discretion. It's been intercepted and decoded by
the British. Halfway down it says that you know, there's
suspicions that the king was poisoned. And then in black
(42:08):
and white here it says by a British or Soviet plot, Well,
we've discounted the Brits, But what about the Russians? Because
the telegram says something else. It says the Communists are
lying low for the time being. Their time is not
(42:32):
yet ripe for action, not yet. But within a year
of Boris's death, the Red Army will have marched into
Sofia and occupied Bulgaria. So was it the Soviet who
wanted Boris out of the way? Soviet plot? I mean,
(42:52):
that's there we are. I mean it's in black and
white for me, that that adds a whole new dimension
to this. Next time on The Butterfly King, Bulgaria's fortunes
run red that a lot of people afterwards were called
(43:14):
then accuston, a lot of people just disappeared, and a
ghastly exhumation for the royal children.
Speaker 11 (43:21):
So they brought the coffin, and the coffin was of
course with a little glass window, and saw three children,
saw our papa, three years after he had died.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
The Butterfly King is a production of Blanchard House and
Exactly Right Media, hosted by me Becky Milligan. It's written
and produced by Emma Jane Kirby. Original music is by
Daniel Lloyd Evans. Louis nank Manell and Toby Mattamong. Sound
(44:08):
design and engineering by Toby Mattamong and Daniel Lloyd Evans,
artwork by Vanessa Lilac. The managing producer is Amka Schortino Nolan.
The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye. The
executive producer and head of Content at Blanchard House is
(44:29):
Lawrence Grizzel. For Exactly Right Media, the executive producers are
Karen Kilgareff, Georgia Hardstark, and Daniel Kramer, with consulting producer
Kyle Ryan. The Butterfly King is inspired by the book
Hitler and the King by John Hall Spencer.
Up starboard nighttime March twenty fourth, nineteen forty four, and
a British Royal Air Force pilot circles his Wellington bomber
over sleeping Sofia tonight. He's been chosen to hit a
very special target. He's waiting for his cue Steady. The
(00:28):
pilot jabs the rudder hard right and the wing bucks upwards.
He's not alone in the pitch dark sky. It's crowded
up here. Forty other British bombers swoop over the Bulgarian
capital and in this thick cloud concentrations everything.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I see done.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Keep on cough.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Sofia is under attack again. In his drafty cockpit, the
pilot is blinded by flashes of it exploding bombs hitting
their targets. Strings of bombs rained down on the city.
They're hitting industrial, government and residential areas. But this pilot
(01:12):
hasn't opened his bomb doors. His shells have an altogether
different destination. He's not there yet, just a couple more miles.
All through the winter and now into the spring, hundreds
of British and American bomber planes have attacked Bulgaria from
(01:34):
the air. The cities in ruins Bulgaria has no soldiers
in active combat, but she's signed a symbolic declaration of
war on Britain and America, and in the eyes of
the Allies, she deserves this beating.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Get below well The.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Wellington's bombay is crammed with heavy blockbuster and incendry bombs
waiting to be dropped, but the pilot's navigator directs him
southeast away from the city, away from the other bombers.
They're very close. Now it's time. The pilot closes the
(02:15):
throttle and the plane begins to dive because tonight there's
a new target, a very deliberate target, Varana Palace, home
to the Bulgarian royal family.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Here we go on, doors open.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And in the palace, cowering in a bunker are Queen
Giovanna and her children, eleven year old Maria Louisa and
the boy King Simeon. They're absolutely petrified. Their father, King Boris,
has been dead for nearly seven months, a suspected victim
of murder. He signed a pat with Hitler and now
(02:59):
his family is paying the price. And once away, the
furious formation of Wellington's pummel Varanha from the sky again
and again This is a made to measure revenge raid
and it's been personally ordered by one man who just
(03:24):
cannot forgive Boris's treachery. Sir Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister,
has no mercy for the young royals. Did he also
sign the order to kill their father from Blanchard's house?
(03:49):
And exactly right, Media, this is the Butterfly King. I'm
Becky Milligan, Chapter four. A snake is still a snake.
(04:45):
I'm back in Bulgaria in the grounds of Rana Palace
with my producer e J to pay another visit to
King Simeon and his sister, Princess Maria Louisa. And as usual,
our taxes dumped us much away from the palace door.
It's a long old walk, I know, but there's no
way in. There're just gates everywhere and guards who won't
(05:08):
let us in.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
It was nice when he realized we were coming for
the king. I think he thought we were a bit,
you know, sort of groupiees. I mean, if you banged
on a gate like that at Buckingham Palace. I know, yes,
I liked your foreign lord.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
What's a very good Bulgarian.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
I think.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
You'll remember that Varana Palace was King Boris's go to place,
his countryside getaway. He felt safe here, catching his butterflies
and playing with his children. Now you know what vrana means,
don't you?
Speaker 6 (05:41):
No?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Crow? Really?
Speaker 4 (05:45):
And you know what the collective noun for a group
of crouses, a murder of crows?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
How fitting is that? Of course, the official reason for
Boris's death is that he died of a heart attack,
but as we've established, his strange symptoms suggest he was poisoned.
That's what his daughter, Maria Louisa has believed all these years.
She was just ten when her father died. She's now
(06:11):
eighty nine, and we're actually visiting her on a rather
special occasion, the Princess's birthday, and we have brought a
couple of We've got a rather a nice little present
for her. Biscuits. Yeah, everybody likes a biscuit. It's not
a dad, but yes, Maria Louisa is turning ninety. I'm
(06:33):
a bit worried about the flavors.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Rose and Violet roses a little bit calls to Newcastle actually, because.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Bulgaria is famous for roses. I did think about that afterwards.
Do you like Violet flavored biscuits. I don't think I've
ever had done. Actually quite disgusting. I really hope she
doesn't offer us one. Well, I'm not going to have one.
Maria Louisa has flown into Sofia from New York to
celebrate with her brother. King Simeon.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
You must be jet bag because I actually got here
yesterday or the day before.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I don't know if you have jet leg when you're older.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
It's worn out all the time, aren't you.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
We're worn out all the time. The thing is, we're
both feeling a bit nervy because today we have to
broach a rather tricky subject, the possibility that Winston Churchill
and Britain may have been responsible for their father's death.
So I'm slightly fearful about the kind of welcome we're
(07:33):
going to get.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Look, here comes a big, posh looking car. Yes, then
come to get us talking enough distrust.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
That looks like an sort of armorplated card, doesn't it.
Oh my god, it's just stopping. It might be the King.
It's the palaces. This way, which way up here? Oh
my god? Is this we're going to hear the accelerator.
I don't want us to do the story anymore. Don't look,
I don't hear me else following us. Oh my god,
I'm quite true. Walkfaster quickly. The thing is, we now
(08:07):
think we know how Boris was killed. We found evidence
in two sources, the London Archives and the diary of
the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebels. They both tell us
it was an Asiatic or Indian poison which did for
the king, probably snake poison. And guess who has ready
(08:27):
access to Asia? During the war in nineteen forty three,
Britain was an imperial power with colonies across South and
Southeast Asia. The British and their Commonwealth allies were fighting
a savage war against the Japanese in the jungles of
(08:49):
Indonesia and Malaysia. Conditions for the troops were pretty terrible.
For every soldier wounded in battle, another one hundred twenty
fell sick due to tropical illnesses. They were bitten by mosquitoes, bugs,
and of course snakes. In fact, before they went to
(09:10):
bed at night, soldiers were worn to check their beds
to make sure they didn't get any nasty surprises. But
it wasn't just those snakes that concern the British. This
Royal Air Force film from nineteen forty one clearly identifies
(09:32):
another treacherous snake, at least in the eyes of the Brits,
a snake hiding in the Royal Palace in Sofia. King Boris.
Speaker 7 (09:43):
Bulgaria lies between Greece and Romania.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Remember, Bulgaria had started the war insisting on her neutrality.
King Boris wanted to stay out of it all, but
he broke his word.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
King Baris agreed to keep out of the war if
we respected bulg as mutality. We kept our promise, but
already Barris was flooding with Hitler.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And when Boris signed that pat with Hitler, Churchill was livid.
To Churchill, honor was everything, and his anger went deep.
The previous winter, Britain had signed the largest surrender in
British history when Singapore fell to Japan. It was a
humiliating defeat for the Empire, a loss of face that
(10:29):
Churchill found very hard to swallow. The Allies were losing
thousands of men every week, yet Boris had managed to
avoid sending a single Bulgarian soldier to the front. Not
one was engaged in active combat. Historian Tessa Dunlop reckons.
(10:50):
Churchill despised Boris for that. What's interesting is.
Speaker 8 (10:54):
Unlike, for example, the Romanians who were holess Bolas in
bed with the Germans, Boris walks this enigmatic line and
I think that's almost infuriating, Like you can hate the Romanians,
but by God, they got their come up and in
Russia they were murdered like flies, you know, whereas Bulgaria
(11:15):
it seems like they've had a pretty easy ride of
the war. To be honest with you, a little bit
of light occupation.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And let's not forget that symbolic declaration of war that
Bulgaria made on Britain and America.
Speaker 8 (11:28):
Can you symbolically be at war with someone talk about
wanting to have it both ways? Well, if you're Churchill,
what are you going to.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Make of that?
Speaker 8 (11:35):
You know you're not going to think, Oh, Boris is
my new best friend.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And what's more, Boris has done it all in the
shadows by playing the system.
Speaker 8 (11:43):
He's managed to get his way and that probably sticks
in the crawl, don't you think of Churchill? I mean,
this man at Churchill stakes his identity on taking the
fight to the enemy, you know, on the lending stages,
even though he's never going to body have to do
and all that kind of jazz, and Boris.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Does the exact opposite, which is head.
Speaker 8 (12:01):
Down work as many people as you can, play them
off against each other, don't play your hand until you
absolutely have to.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And he's done it really rather well. That's infuriating, even
more so because Britain had been double crossed by Boris's family,
the Saxe Coburgs before and Baris.
Speaker 7 (12:20):
Soon followed his minister, being met at the station by
the Fiora himself. And like his father in the last war,
he betrays his people.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Like his father, Boris's dad, Foxy Ferdinand, had been courted
by the British and French in World War One. They
hoped he'd be their ally, but Foxy was also secretly
being wooed by the Germans, and in the end he
decided he'd be better off with them. And for Churchill
(12:50):
and Boris, this is where it all gets personal. Both
men had fought in the First World War on opposite sides.
Of course, Boris with the Tripler that's Germany, Austria, Hungary
and Italy, and Churchill with the Triple Entente that's Britain,
France and Russia, and Churchill still held that grudge. He
(13:12):
just couldn't let it go.
Speaker 8 (13:14):
They think Boris is more Saxe Coburg treachery. Don't forget
Boris is the son of Ferdinand, Berdinand, the only king
in the Balkans to not fight alongside the Entente in
the First World War.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Did Churchill expect Boris to pay for the sins of
his father. Boris's decision to ally with Hitler sent shockwaves
through the British establishment, and that broken promise left more
than one British diplomat feeling like a fool. Diplomats like
(13:49):
Lord George Lloyd. And how do I know because on
one of my trips to the archives I came across
his private papers. We get the real sort of gossipy
side of this, you know, you just don't forget all this.
He was feeding that to London. Yeah, absolutely, I mean
that's what his job was, wasn't it. I expect they
(14:11):
all sort of and they heard something interesting. They're on
the blower, as they would say, then on the blower.
So intriguing, isn't it to have access now to you know,
all of that correspondence and his thoughts and you know
all those little bitchy comments. It's interesting Lord Lloyd was
(14:31):
the chairman of the British Council. It's the sort of
cultural arm of the Foreign Office designed to create good
relations overseas. In the winter of nineteen thirty nine he
was sent on a tour of the Balkans to try
and shore up support for the war. Now Lord Lloyd
was no fool. He was also a spy, and his
(14:53):
personal letters show he had a waspish tongue.
Speaker 9 (14:58):
I dined that night with Colonel Ross, our military attache,
a dinner that would have been pleasant had it not
been for the volubility of Monsieur Chezon, the League of
Nations representative, who may conceivably be interesting on politics, but
who on military affairs, is as ignorant as he is assertive.
The remaining guests were not of great interest. My impression
of him was that he was a rather tiresome wind bag.
(15:19):
The next day, at seven thirty we left for Sofia,
only to be told the ferry would not leave for
some three quarters of an hour. So we went into
a cottage on the key, drank some coffee with bad brandy,
and came to an overheated and reasonably unspeakable restaurant to
have breakfast.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Lord Lloyd first met King Boris in nineteen thirty nine.
That was long before Boris teamed up with Hitler, and
while Lloyd was charmed by him, particularly by the King's
affection for his royal British cousins, the Windsors.
Speaker 9 (15:50):
King Boris alluded to the invariable happiness of his visits
to England. He had especially enjoyed his visits to bell Morrel.
He showed me a small photograph of his late Majester,
King George the Fifth, which he always kept on his
writing table in.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Front of him. He was so impressed that after his
visit he even wrote to King Boris.
Speaker 9 (16:07):
I have, since my audience with your Majesty, done my
best to convince everyone I meet of the strength and
sincerity of Bulgaria's neutrality.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
But a week or so later, Lord Lloyd popped over
the border to Yugoslavia, where he met their ruler, Prince Paul.
He told the Prince about his wonderful audience with the
trustworthy King Boris. The Prince gave him a very different view.
Speaker 9 (16:32):
Prince Paul laughed, merely replied that I was yet another
simple and guileless victim of King Boris's well known tactics.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Prince Paul basically told Lord Lloyd he'd been had, and
that picture of King George the Fifth that Boris had
on his writing table, he.
Speaker 9 (16:47):
Said, as for the photograph, he kept many, often of
different kings and rulers, and pulled out the proper one
for each listener.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Crafty, now, don't forget all this was being fired back
to the government, to Churchill. And while Lord Lloyd might
have been charming to the King privately, he became deeply
suspicious of him.
Speaker 9 (17:11):
I'm under no illusions as to the treachery and perfidy
of King Boris.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
And when Bulgaria signed a pact with Hitler, tempers boiled over.
One of the papers I found in the archives has
an angry comment scrawled into the margin.
Speaker 9 (17:26):
Bulgaria will live to regret her decision.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Is that a veiled threat from the British. Was Lord
Lloyd preparing the way for his spy network to assassinate Boris?
I mean, I don't really need to spell out what secret.
Speaker 10 (17:42):
Services get up to secret services. You know, there's a
bit of a hint on the name of the tin.
They do operations in secret which others cannot do.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
That's Colonel Hamish de Breton Gordon, our weapons expert, remember
his ex military, and let's just say he's not unfamiliar
with covert operations in war time.
Speaker 10 (18:06):
In the defense of the homeland, They're prepared to do
whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
He says, bumping off Boris doesn't sound like the sort
of thing British intelligence would do today, but.
Speaker 10 (18:17):
I would never completely rule out that perhaps these sort
of things had happened in the past.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Oh okay, Oh my god, Okay, Bobby at Rana Palace,
we're under thread. When someone sets the dogs on us.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
All the King's dogs are called Booby, or at least
Boris were just call Booby.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Look it's working.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Luckily. Ej subdues the Royal guard dogs with her special
doggie voice. You're a rubbish god, get money? How nice
to see you again, Love to see you. Should we
go straight here?
Speaker 11 (19:10):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Perfect? Then Yavo, the King's suave and charming aid, comes
to our age. But on our way into the palace
there's a difficult moment. Yavo casually points out the underground
bunker the Royal family had built to protect themselves from
Allied bombing.
Speaker 12 (19:30):
So after the start of the Second World War, they
decide to build a modern bunker. It's right here and
this is yes, this is the entrance. This bunkers saved
the royal family when this tower collapsed. It did collapse
during the night. King Simeon go out with the family.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And then all under here.
Speaker 12 (19:48):
Yes, they see the burning of the house because the
planes came from there. Pull the bombs here and continue.
But it was the few meters of the palace.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
And just when I'm thinking this visit can't get any
more awkward, Yavor drops his own bombshell. His friend Sylvia,
a Bulgarian historian, has apparently found some damning evidence about
who murdered King Boris.
Speaker 13 (20:17):
When they were in UK. They found a document that
showed that the British wants to give weapons to someone
to assassin king bodies in Bulgaria.
Speaker 10 (20:31):
This is what the.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
British heng on. So it's the British.
Speaker 13 (20:37):
Yes, this is what she found.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
I think so Yavl's claiming that a Bulgarian historian has
proof the British wanted King Boris dead and that they
were trying to arm someone to do the job for them.
I can hear Princess Maria Luisa and his Majesty King
Simeon coming down the corridor. We quickly try and get
the details from yavor Victorian Sylvia has found it in
(21:03):
the UK. Yes, I think though, that's what we need.
We do need to speak to her.
Speaker 13 (21:09):
Really, yes, yes, yes, yeah, I will send them a
second message now to see issue answer me.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
After so wonderfully, I feel like, how are you dealing
with the jet lag? Receive just hockey, isn't it?
Speaker 11 (21:31):
You have to ignore the dread lag?
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Oh? Very good? Yes, absolutely, Perhaps our birthday biscuits might
soften the mood. Her birthday this year falls on an
unfortunate day.
Speaker 11 (21:43):
Friday the thirteenth. Oh no, and it was Friday the
thirteenth when I was born. Oh my, sorry, it doesn't
work for me, the bad luck and all that rubbish.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Oh yes, throw that out the window. Anyway, this is
for you from us, just because we wanted to market
and by goodness, Heaven's sake, what is it. You can
have a little loan. We hope that this booze is
not booze. No, oh god, we did think of booze,
but then we thought maybe it's biscuits. I told DJ
(22:15):
we should have got Booze. Great delighted, But then we
have to get down to business and the thorny subject
of who killed Maria, Louisa and Simeon's father. I hold
off mentioning what Yavios just told us about that document
his friend found accusing the Brits of murder, because I
(22:37):
first want to explore whether the British had a motive.
The Allied air raids began in April nineteen forty one,
when Boris joined sides with Hitler, and they picked up
again in December of that year in response to the
King's symbolic declaration of war. The British Prime had persuaded
(23:01):
President Roosevelt that Bulgaria needed a sharp lesson. But what's
strange is the raids intensified after the King's death in
nineteen forty four.
Speaker 11 (23:17):
There were huge air raids over Sophia many, many times
and many dates, Sofia almost burned. It was ghastly times
and it was absolutely terrible. We were carped bombs several times,
absolutely horrible, and five minutes after the all clear, my
(23:38):
mother would drive in and visit people in the hospitals,
and you know, there was no water, no electricity.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
And then, as we've heard, the raids became personal, directly
targeting for Anna Palace, where the boy King Simeon was
hiding in that underground bunker with a little flashlight. He
still doesn't like talking about it. He once wrote that
he was sure they were all going to die. His
(24:06):
sister remembers watching her home go up in smoke.
Speaker 11 (24:11):
Sure burns, do you remember seeing the flames? Sure, incendiary
bombs on the roof. The roof was burning. They were
of course wounded people. Other people panicked and were screaming.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And it didn't end there.
Speaker 11 (24:30):
Huge bomb fell in the garden and one of these
enormous bombs made a huge crater, and our chief gardener
decided it was much too complicated to fill the hole,
so put a little pond, and we used to call
it Churchill's Lake.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
It's no longer there, no, but it was over there,
how terrifying, just missing by an inch. So it was
Churchill just trying to frighten Bulgaria. Interchanging sides. Once Boris
was dead, or was he determined to wipe out the
entire royal family? A family he felt was rotten to
(25:09):
the core. Why did he do it? Do you think.
Speaker 11 (25:14):
That you have to ask him?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Up there, Maria Luisa is pointing her finger upwards towards Heaven.
She's not smiling. So Churchill certainly had a motive for
killing King Boris. And remember what Yavil told us about
that document his friend Sylvia found it sounds like the
(25:36):
British were creating their own opportunity. But that's where we've
got another mystery on our hands, because Yavo's friend, Sylvia
won't pick up our calls. But it so happens. We
know another friend of hers, her colleague in fact, the
very distinguished historian George Bosdganoff. You might remember him sore
(26:00):
so slightly frustrated with me from time to time. So
if you look at this right, I think that's nineteen
forty three, and it's more this document. You want me
to shut up, don't you?
Speaker 6 (26:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Okay, yes, So I get my producer EJ to call
him to ask him if he's familiar with Sylvia's discovery.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
I'm absolutely sure I haven't seen such a document that
British he have an agreement for killing Czar Boris. I'm
hearing about this document for the first time in my
life from you now just now.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yes, I found it rather surprising, and I thought if
anybody has found something like that, it would be the
great detective historian mister bos Buganov himself.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Thank you, but I haven't find such a document at all.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Thank you so much, your colleague, Thank you very much.
I'm here and thank you. It was lovely to speak
to you.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
Okay, come back.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
He's missing me already. At least he's promised to try
to reach Sylvia for us. Well. So yeah, so he
thinks it's a mistake.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
A mistake unless Sylvia's squirreled away a document without telling him.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
He's quite indignant, isn't he that? You know, if it's
true there's a document, he will be really cross. Well,
let's see what he can find. Back to nineteen forty one,
Sofia and our list of British motives for murdering Boris.
Boris has allied with the Nazis and the situation in
(27:55):
the city is getting worse. At the British embassy staff
at terrified with good reason under Nazi orders, the Bulgarian
police start arresting British embassy staff. A British official is kidnapped,
(28:16):
the ambassador's butler disappears, and we know this because in
the archives I came across another set of private papers
that shed light on our investigation, the papers of the
British Ambassador to Bulgaria, Sir George Randall, the man at
the heart of the action. He telegrams London in a fury.
Speaker 9 (28:42):
Methods adopted by Bulgarian authorities have been intolerable. Arrest of
the Bulgarian employees of the Press Office was entirely unjustifiable,
and removal of deligation butler without notice was an affront
in which I cannot acquiesce with any dignity. We must
now write off King Boris as a dead loss.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Twenty one year old daughter lives with him, and he
fears for her safety and for the safety of his
sixty embassy staff. He's right to. Under Rendall's direction, the
British mission packs up and DeCamps to Turkey. On the
(29:21):
eleventh of March nineteen forty one, the ambassador and his
diplomatic party arrive at the pair of Palace hotel in Istanbul.
Speaker 9 (29:32):
Hello, may I just have the keys to my room?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Please?
Speaker 9 (29:34):
Sir George Randall, I don't worry about her bags for now,
you can get the boy to bring them up.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Bound by, Rendall and his daughter are given rooms on
an upper floor. That twist of fate saves both their lives,
because a few minutes after they check in, someone has
(29:59):
planted a bomb in their luggage. Six people are killed,
including two members of Rendell's staff, both young women. Several
other people are badly injured who could have planted the
(30:20):
explosives well. The train which had taken them from Sofia
to Istanbul was a private train, and it turns out
that this was the private train of King Boris, the
third of Bulgaria. So for the Brits there were only
two options. The Bulgarians had planted the bomb themselves or
(30:43):
were at the very least complicit. Either way, it wasn't
a good look. The hostility between Bulgaria and Britain had
just reached another level. Altogether. The king had enjoyed cordial
relations over the years. They'd even bonded over their butterfly collections,
(31:07):
but in his end of mission statement, Rendel writes.
Speaker 9 (31:11):
As for the future of the country, it is dark. Indeed,
if Bulgaria meets with heavy punishment, she'll have nobody but
herself and her present rulers to blame.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
All the evidence points in the same direction. The British
had every reason to kill the king, but how did
they do it? Back to the jungle and that snake venom.
And keep in mind that the claim Boris was killed
with snake venom comes from the private diary of Joseph Goebel's,
(31:46):
head of Nazi propaganda. Not really what you'd call a
trustworthy source, but why would he lie in his own diary?
So we know British troops were fighting in the jungles
of Asia. We also know there's a huge population of
deadly snakes in those jungles, and that their venom can
(32:07):
be milked, freeze, dried, and then injected into someone. Our
favorite snake expert, mark O'Shea told us so. But remember
that King Boris took six days to die. If you're
injected with deadly snake venom, wouldn't you keel over immediately?
Speaker 14 (32:26):
Not like you see in the moves where somebody gets
bitten and if all over dead, that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
In fact, it all depends where precisely the venom's injected.
Speaker 14 (32:35):
There are so many different ways of doing injections intramuscular, intravenous, subcutaneously,
interpertor neally, well not that one, thank you very much.
And then obviously the venoms got to spread from there,
the emphatics, through the tissues, through the blood.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
So a person injected with snake venom could take a
while to die, especially if the venom isn't too potent,
and we know the poor king lingered on his deathbed.
Speaker 14 (33:02):
The same species could have a considerable amount of variation
in venom. When you milk the venom, you don't know
what concentration of venom is there, because it all depends
when the snake last used it.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Okay, it's clearly not a precise science, but what if
the freeze dried venom wasn't injected, but was slipped into
his food.
Speaker 14 (33:25):
The point with venom is that snake venoms are protein,
so therefore your saliva will start the process of digestion
and your gut will finish it. The venom's probably not
going to be around long enough to actually do anything.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
So Boris couldn't have been killed by swallowing snake venom.
Mark's actually tried it by accident, That is.
Speaker 14 (33:49):
I've caught a lot of spitting cobras and they spit
their venom at your face, and some of that venom
has gone into my.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Mouth, hit the back of my throat. It's quite acrid.
Speaker 14 (33:59):
Generally, I'll just have a swigger water or coffee to
take the taste away.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Remind me never to accept a dinner invitation at Marx.
So let's just recap Boris's symptoms for a minute. He
had a fever, he was vomiting, his skin was covered
in blotches, His red blood cells exploded, then he lost consciousness,
his liver packed up, and finally he had a fatal
(34:24):
heart attack. Does snake venom cause such a reaction.
Speaker 14 (34:28):
Well, there isn't one answer to that, for the simple
fact that snake venoms are complicated cocktails of different toxins.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
This next bit's very technical.
Speaker 14 (34:40):
You've got neurotoxins which affect the nervous system, hemotoxins that
affect the circulatory system, cytotoxins that.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
To be honest, all this is going a bit over
my head. I'm still feeling a bit sick thinking of
Mark's swallowing snake venoms.
Speaker 14 (34:58):
And then suddenly, then you got cardiotoxins that directly target.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
The heart, cardiotoxins a snake venom which directly attacks the heart.
Have I finally found what killed Boris?
Speaker 14 (35:16):
But?
Speaker 1 (35:17):
But why does there always have to be a butt?
Speaker 14 (35:21):
If there's damage to the blood vessels, I would expect
there to be signs of that in the kidneys, and
I would expect the urine to contain blood urine as black.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
As coca cola.
Speaker 14 (35:38):
Right, probably a sizable amount of it, and that's not
been mentioned.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Well, no, he's a king, for goodness sake, I can't
exactly ask about a file of royal p never mind,
But now he's reviewed the symptoms, does Mark agree it
could have been snake venom that killed King Boris?
Speaker 14 (36:00):
I'm absolutely positive that it Wasn't It sounds great, It
sounds so sensational and exciting.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
But no, oh, come on, We've got deadly Asian snakes
whose venom causes heart attacks. What more do you want?
Speaker 14 (36:14):
People can survive snake bites sometimes without any anti venom.
It's estimated that up to fifty percent of bites might
not be fatal even without treatment.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Well, he could have been one of the unlucky few.
Speaker 14 (36:29):
I just don't go for that. If you really absolutely
must bump somebody off, then don't use snake venom. Use
something that is guaranteed to do the.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Job, but maybe better. There's that sort of sense of,
you know, the sort of fog of war and the
mystery and all the spies, and let's do something a
little bit, you know, different. Why I can't say you can.
Speaker 14 (36:57):
I no, you can't. I just say this as an
efficient means of getting rid of somebody. Nice, though it
sounds in a novel or something like that.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Okay, I know, when I'm beaten, looks like Gebels sent
me down a blind alley. So reluctantly I'm scratching out
snake venom as the means that killed the king. But
at least I've still got the British and Churchill in
the frame for the motive. All I have to do
now is pluck up the courage to confront Simeon and
(37:30):
Maria Louisa, to admit to them that I think my
own countrymen killed their father. But our interview doesn't go
the way I'd imagined at all.
Speaker 6 (37:42):
That's just nonsense.
Speaker 11 (37:44):
We were too small and unimportant for Britain to send
somebody and put poison in his soup.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I don't believe it. It turns out the royal siblings
have already researched Britain's potential motives for killing the king,
and they've crossed the British off the list of suspects.
There's a very good reason why. Turns out that by
nineteen forty three King Boris was in secret talks with
the Allies to try to change sides.
Speaker 11 (38:13):
The British had no advantage of it because my father
already we were all trying desperately to ask for Western help.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yes, because Churchill was pretty vociferous about Bulgaria and your father.
Speaker 11 (38:32):
Yeah, but not to the point of poisoning him.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
They know all about the Asian snake venom theory too,
and like me, they've dismissed it.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
This was one of the Nazi theories, part of the propaganda.
They said that it was a snake poison but it
was only found in British Guyana. So obviously trying to
point to the British intelligence for having done the job.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
But why would they have wanted to do that.
Speaker 6 (39:05):
We're on the wrong side in the war. So that
you could think that there's a reason that they should
eliminate the king.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
So the Nazi propaganda minister's diaries were just another piece
of propaganda. Turns out Gebels was counting on his diaries
being published. They were not his private thoughts at all.
And of course, we're in the middle of the war
where everyone is pointing the finger at everyone else and
(39:36):
passing the buck. It seems we're only chasing red herrings here.
And remember Sylvia Yavel's friend who found that document blaming
the British. She discovered it in the British archives. Apparently, well,
even Bulgaria's leading historian, George bos Deganoff can't find her.
(39:57):
She's gone totally able.
Speaker 5 (39:59):
Okay, I tried to call on Sylvia, but she doesn't
answer the phone. But I doubt that such kind of document.
Speaker 9 (40:12):
Existed at all.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
I'm beginning to doubt it too, to be honest, I'm
beginning to doubt everything. In one fell swoop, I've managed
to lose the means, motive, and the opportunity for the
King's murder. And I just don't think Churchill had enough
to gain from murdering Boris, especially if he'd already started
secret talks with the Allies. So who did have something
(40:38):
to gain, and if it wasn't snake poison, how did
they do it. I've come back home to the UK,
to the archives because I've absolutely got to check something out.
I know it's a long shot, but what if Sylvia
really did find something, something that I've somehow missed. So
(41:00):
along with my producer EJ, I'm turning the files inside
out one last time until oh my god, that was
just incredible. I can't believe it. What did you think?
I mean? Okay, sorry, now, I don't know if I
(41:22):
found Sylvia's missing document, but I think I might have
found something even better. So right at the top of it,
it's so secret. It says to be held under lock
and key, and written by the Japanese ambassador in Berlin.
(41:43):
It's a telegram destined for Tokyo announcing the strange death
of King Boris the third and marked most secret, to
be handled with discretion. It's been intercepted and decoded by
the British. Halfway down it says that you know, there's
suspicions that the king was poisoned. And then in black
(42:08):
and white here it says by a British or Soviet plot, Well,
we've discounted the Brits, But what about the Russians? Because
the telegram says something else. It says the Communists are
lying low for the time being. Their time is not
(42:32):
yet ripe for action, not yet. But within a year
of Boris's death, the Red Army will have marched into
Sofia and occupied Bulgaria. So was it the Soviet who
wanted Boris out of the way? Soviet plot? I mean,
(42:52):
that's there we are. I mean it's in black and
white for me, that that adds a whole new dimension
to this. Next time on The Butterfly King, Bulgaria's fortunes
run red that a lot of people afterwards were called
(43:14):
then accuston, a lot of people just disappeared, and a
ghastly exhumation for the royal children.
Speaker 11 (43:21):
So they brought the coffin, and the coffin was of
course with a little glass window, and saw three children,
saw our papa, three years after he had died.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
The Butterfly King is a production of Blanchard House and
Exactly Right Media, hosted by me Becky Milligan. It's written
and produced by Emma Jane Kirby. Original music is by
Daniel Lloyd Evans. Louis nank Manell and Toby Mattamong. Sound
(44:08):
design and engineering by Toby Mattamong and Daniel Lloyd Evans,
artwork by Vanessa Lilac. The managing producer is Amka Schortino Nolan.
The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye. The
executive producer and head of Content at Blanchard House is
(44:29):
Lawrence Grizzel. For Exactly Right Media, the executive producers are
Karen Kilgareff, Georgia Hardstark, and Daniel Kramer, with consulting producer
Kyle Ryan. The Butterfly King is inspired by the book
Hitler and the King by John Hall Spencer.
Hosts And Creators
Emma Jane Kirby
Becky Milligan
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.