The love story of the century began as a favor between two friends. In January of 1934, Lady Thelma Furness, mistress of the Prince of Wales - and future Edward VIII - was traveling to New York on a most serious matter. Her sister, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt was trying to retain custody of her ten year-old daughter, Little Gloria, from her rich and powerful sister in-law Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Before taking her leave, Thelma lunched at the Ritz with her new friend, Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American-born divorcée married to a prosperous, but dull, shipping magnate.  Thelma asked her friend, "Look after the little man. See that he does not get into any mischief."  Such a request was akin to asking a lion to tend the sheep and its course changed history. Thelma returned ten months later to find that the Prince cut her off from the court and fell in love with Simpson. On December 11, 1936, only ten months after becoming King Edward VIII, he abdicated, forsaking crown and kingdom for the woman he loved.

Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, born in 1894 was raised to continue his family's thousand year-old business - that is, maintaining the throne of the newly renamed House of Windsor.  In large part to anti-German sentiment during World War I, the name was changed from Coburg-Saxe-Gotha. Raised to be king, Edward was a modern gentleman stuck in an ancient profession.  While his forebears kept the mystery of royalty behind baize doors, David as he was affectionately known, was seen in public.  Whether it was touring the coalmines of Manchester or the nightclubs of the West End, the Prince of Wales was the golden haired royal that epitomized the new era and would carry the dwindling Empire forward.   His parents, King George V and Queen Mary disapproved of this way of living and hoped their eldest son would hurry up and marry instead of being seen out, out, out. The press, while respectful, monitored his romances with an array of women, including Freda Dudley Ward and the aforementioned Lady Furness.  But one day a storm named Wallis blew into the town.

Bessie Wallis Montague Warfield was not terribly attractive but made up for that in being clever.  Born in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania to the respectable, but impoverished Warfield family of Baltimore in 1896, Wallis' father died when she was a toddler and her mother took in borders. Living in reduced circumstances, the child was still a bit spoiled where it was alleged her first words were not "Ma Ma" but "Me, Me." The young Wallis had a craving for high society early on, supposedly naming her dollies Mrs. Astor and Mrs. Vanderbilt. Fortunately, there was her wealthy Uncle Sol to ensure that she had a proper upbringing. Wallis' clothing and education were provided for by Sol but a fight about her coming out party, which didn't happen and her early imperiousness distanced him and Wallis was cut out of his estate altogether when he later died.

Craving a better way of life, she set her sights on the dashing aviator Lt. Earl Winfield and married him 1916.  Almost immediately the marriage was a disaster. He claimed to be from a rich Lake Forest, Illinois family but Wallis was decidedly disappointed when she learned he was from a lesser suburb of Chicago.  Plus it was discovered that he was an alcoholic.  A string of unfortunate discoveries like these caused Wallis to divorce her dashing Lieutenant. 

After divorce number one, Wallis and a friend traveled to Peking where she supposedly learned many secrets of the boudoir, including one trick involving ping-pong balls that particularly delighted the Prince of Wales later on.  Upon her return to the United States, Wallis met and married American-born Englishman Ernest Simpson.  A wealthy businessman with an entrée into British society, Wallis had found her calling.  She enjoyed the moneyed titles and the drawing room gossip. It was at one of those smart-set parties that the Simpson's were introduced to the future king. Very quickly, Ernest, Wallis, and Edward became a trio. Much to the distress of the royal family, rumors were afloat that accommodations for Mrs. Simpson but not her husband had been made at Fort Belvedere, the prince's country getaway. The King often fought with Edward about this most dubious alliance.

Ignoring the obvious, Prince Edward was having a grand affair with a married woman.  Untouchable and loved by millions he could do as he pleased and did.  Meanwhile, his father, King George V was sinking towards his end.  On January 20, 1936 the Kings' devoted footman hastened the King's death with an injection of morphine and cocaine so that the news would make the morning headlines rather than the less impressive afternoon news.

Although he was enormously popular with the working public, the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Edwards courtiers were floored by this casual attitude toward his new responsibilities, shirking important duties to spend more time with vulgar American. Although the royal family was royally pissed off about "that woman", Edward insisted on marrying her.  Finally, the powers behind the throne issued a warning that if Edward VIII married the American divorcee without their consent, he would be forced to abdicate the throne. And he did.

On December 11, 1936, Edward VIII officially abdicated the throne to his brother, George, Duke of York, (to be George VI) proclaiming to the people of Britain, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love." Edward and Simpson had to remain apart until her divorce was legal, and on June 3, 1937, they were finally married just outside of Tours, France, in a ceremony attended by no one from the royal family.  Wallis wore Mainbocher and the title of Diva Number One for the next fifty years.

After the marriage, the British royal family bestowed the now estranged Edward with the title, His Royal Highness, Duke of Windsor, but to further emphasize their bitter disapproval of Wallis, they withheld the title of "Royal Highness" from his duchess. Queen Elizabeth (later to add the Queen Mother to her name) despised this flashy woman who pushed her simple husband and loving family to the throne and did everything within her power to ensure the American was afforded no royal courtesies. It later prompted Wallis to say of England, "I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave."

Further distancing him from the royal family, the Duke and Duchess met Hitler in 1937, with both expressing pro-German sentiments and risking Britain's involvement in the coming war. They traveled to the United States and began speaking out about the war, disturbing the tenuous string of diplomacy. This was more than the royal family could take and sent the couple off in 1940 to the Bahamas where the Duke was made Governor and Commander in Chief. Apparently the royal family knew more than they cared to tell the public as it wasn't revealed until 2003 that Wallis' Nazi sympathies were the real tipping point in the abdication crisis and not her divorces as had been widely believed.

Disappointed and miserable in the Caribbean heat, Wallis flew to New York frequently to have her hair done and attend round after round of lunches in her honor.  Their friend in the Bahamas, Sir Harry Oakes, was murdered there and the tinge of scandal began following the Windsor's. After the war, the couple moved to Paris where they rented an estate on the grounds of the Tulleries from the City of Paris for four dollars a month. There, the Windsor's held court and traveled the globe ceaselessly, wherever there was an estate to vacation on or a yacht to sail, the Windsor's could be found.

Childless, ("The Duke is not heir-conditioned.") the couple made children of their pug dogs, feeding them from silver bowls.  The humans lived just as lavishly.  They dressed for dinner every night of their lives, had the footmen wear scarlet and gold livery, their servants matched the lettuce leaves of their salads and individually prepared the bathroom tissue into squares so their employers wouldn't have to tear the roll themselves.  Banished from England and off the lucrative Civil List, the couple moved in international social circles where they were perceived as the top rank of the assembled plumage. 

Their notoriety took a plunge during the 1950's when the couple befriended Woolworth five-and-dime heir Jimmy Donahue, the son of Jessie Woolworth Donahue and first cousin of Barbara Hutton.  The younger man was handsome, socially prominent and rich - criteria the Windsor's considered before involving themselves with newcomers.  Fully estranged from his brother, George VI, the Windsor's needed someone rich to help finance their alluring lifestyle. David, calling his wife "my romance," afforded her every opportunity and tolerated the younger man, but Wallis engaged him to the point where they were quite inseparable.  At one point the friendship took on sexual overtones and almost caused the Windsor's to divorce, even though Donahue was a notorious homosexual. Had a divorce occurred, it would have been deemed "the greatest betrayal in history." After several years on the circuit, Donahue overstepped his bounds with the Windsor's, often insulting them publicly.  One night after a drunken revelry, Jimmy kicked the Duchess in the shin, causing her to bleed.  The Duke ordered Jimmy out of their room and out of their lives, although later stories were told that Jimmy wasn't taking proper care of his hygiene and ate too much garlic, causing him to have offensive breath.

The couple divided their time between Paris and whoever invited them to their estate/plantation/yacht/gala/bridge party.  Wallis was revered for many years as the imprimatur of high society although she merely led its cold, decaying hand out of the drawing room and onto the society pages, further antagonizing a pointless existence.  The last word in chic, she was a perennial on the Best Dressed Lists and her pug dogs were entered in the Westminster Dog Show but rarely did she lend her name to important charitable events. She was fascinating as an object of mystery but the curtain had been drawing close for years.  The couple's aura of glamour was tarnished by having been everywhere and seen by everyone for the price of dinner. 

In 1956 she wrote her memoirs, "The Heart Has Its Reasons," around the time the Duke wrote his own, "A King's Story."  Both elevated their love story to a new audience but having spent a lifetime accomplishing nothing, their importance diminished.

Wallis never gained acceptance by the royal family until after the Duke's death in 1972, when Queen Elizabeth II invited her to stay at Buckingham Palace. She spent the next fourteen years living alone in Paris in poor health until her death on April 24, 1986. In 1936 she was called, "the most romantic figure of all times," she later confessed to a friend, "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."

Written by Blair Schulman.
Let him know what you think!

 

Books