Even after all these years I think it is still difficult to find a fair account of the abdication and the subsequent relationship between the Windsors and the rest of the Royal Family. Of all the characters involved we've only ever had the actual accounts of the Windsors in their memoirs which to be fair aren't the most reliable historical records but nor should they be entirely ignored.
As far as the family were concerned i think it would be fair to say that they preferred to overlook "dear David's" failings and preferred instead to blame Wallis for his behaviour and the abdication.
The rift between the two sides - based on their surviving letters and the recollections of most courtiers involved with both sides - sugests that the fault lay on both sides. Edward's obsession with money and his determination to maintain his lifestyle to avoid suggestions that he'd lost "caste" by abdicating and then marrying Wallis (hence his incessant demands over form, his obsession with the HRH issue and his general fear of taxation, his desire for maintaining some kind of public profile hence his ill advised trip to Germany and speech from Verdun ahead of George VI's departure for Canada and America) on the other side George VI's determination that Wallis should not be HRH, his fear of being overshadowed by his brother, his desire for them not to return, his anger over his brother's behaviour in exile and his fury over what he considered his brother's lies over their financial agreements (which dated back to George V's will and the fact that Edward VIII didn't disclose his private savings when his brother promised him an allowance after the abdication).
To answer the question about the influence of Queen Elizabeth - she certainly had considerable influence on her husband (despite the image she preferred to present to the world) and there is enough evidence to suggest that she disliked Wallis (like Queen Mary and most of the Royal Family they were convinced his behaviour was all "that womans" fault) - I don't believe as has been often posited that she "hated" her. I don't doubt that the Queen as Duchess of York was possibly aware of how Wallis and David referred to her, but I suspect that if she had known she wouldn't have been as angry as her husband (who adored his wife) and Elizabeth was also known to have a certain fondness for the odd bitchy comment herself. Granted in the early years of their reign Elizabeth was determined to keep them as far away as possible (she was perhaps more aware than most of how the Duke's brothers had always admired him, feared the effect of how her husband would be compared to the Duke if they returned and she is on record as being rather uncharitable towards the Duchess), but to blame the Queen for the entire attitude of the court and government isn't accurate. It was their new Prime Minister Chamberlain who was most disgusted with the Duke of Windsor over the financial settlement and his subsequent behaviour, and even the Windsors' old ally Churchill quickly fell out with the Duke after he assumed the premiership over his demands and behaviour during and just after the fall of France and his subsequent behaviour in the Caribbean. Most people who knew the late Queen Elizabeth suggest that whilst she certainly didn't like or approve of Wallis she didn't hate her (most of those quoted on this did know the Queen well and weren't at all unwilling to criticise her behaviour).
I think someone mentioned the family scrabbling around to try and get back "royal" items that David had given Wallis - the only person who seems to have carried on "dropping" in was Louis Mountbatten and its highly unlikely that it was at either the Queen or the Queen Mother's suggestion - in fact one of the few things that the Queen Mother and Wallis agreed on was a shared distrust of "Dickie" Mountbatten.
Over time these kind of things become myths don't they - there's an element of truth in all the oft repeated arguements about the abdication and its aftermath - but it's not necessarily the truth.
