The Real Wallis Simpson: A New History of the American Divorcée Who Became the Duchess of Windsor

by Anna Pasternak

  It was in a dingy local tavern in Budapest, on the Pest side of the river, where they had been guaranteed to hear the best gypsy music in Hungary, that Wallis had a piercing moment of realization about the impossibility of her situation. As the violins swelled with melancholy tunes, amid the flickering candles and rough-hewn wooden tables, she “had the feeling of being torn apart, of being caught up in the inescapable sadness and sorrow of human suffering; and the look in David’s eyes told me that he was in the grip of the same flow of feeling.”50 She later wrote that she was “scarcely in a condition to differentiate these two worlds between which I giddily swung, hoping to have the best of both, but not quite sure whether I could maintain my footing in either.”51

  On Wallis’s return to London, it became clear that her sense of foreboding was justified. Her marital footing could no longer be guaranteed. Ernest, now cold and distant, had “undergone a change.” He showed no interest in her trip and was uncommunicative about his own visit to New York. For the first time, their evenings together were strained, punctuated by arctic silences. Still, Wallis did not act on the warning bells, so enraptured was she to be swept up in the prince’s orbit. “My concern was no more than a tiny cloud in the growing radiance that the prince’s favor cast over my life,” she wrote with insouciance. “I became aware of a rising curiosity concerning me, of new doors opening, and a heightened interest even in my casual remarks. I was stimulated; I was excited; I felt as if I were borne upon a rising wave that seemed to be carrying me ever more rapidly and even higher.”52

  It was the Kitzbühel skiing holiday that convinced royal aides that the prince had gone too far. Sir Clive Wigram, George V’s private secretary, visited Edward at Fort Belvedere and told him how concerned the king was about his personal life. In a memo afterwards, he wrote: “The prince said that he was astonished that anyone could take offence about his personal friends. Mrs. Simpson was a charming, cultivated woman.”53 John Aird, meanwhile, could see that putting any pressure on the prince had negligible effect. If anything, he felt that after Sir Clive’s visit “the devotion of HRH is if possible greater.”54 Godfrey Thomas, the prince’s equerry, said that he believed the prince knew “in his inmost heart” he was behaving badly. Thomas reassured the courtiers that patience was key. “I am sure his eyes will be opened to the folly he is making of himself, and when he does come for help and sympathy, I am sure you will respond as I know I shall.”55

  The rumor mill amongst the staff at the two royal households, York House and Buckingham Palace, was rife with tales of the prince’s nocturnal habits. It was said that two bedrooms at the Fort had been turned into one for the couple’s benefit, presumably to avoid the risk that, when the house was full, the dressing room adjoining Wallis’s bedroom might be occupied and thus access to her impeded. It is a curious detail that Edward always maintained that he never slept with Wallis before his marriage, and sued for libel an author who referred to her as his mistress. Astonishingly, the subject arose between Edward and his father, when Edward challenged the king over his ban on Wallis’s appearance at court. He wanted Wallis to be invited to the court ball to celebrate the Silver Jubilee in May 1935. The king said that he could not invite his son’s mistress to such an occasion. When the prince swore that she was not his “mistress,” the king accepted his son’s word and said that Mrs. Simpson could come. “I think that this is all for the best,” wrote John Aird in his diary, “but it is rather a shock to think of the Prince of Wales lying on his oath, which a lot of people who know think he has.”56

  Sir Clive Wigram wrote that “the staff were horrified at the audacity of the statements of HRH. Apart from actually seeing HRH and Mrs. S in bed together, they had positive proof that HRH lived with her.”57 Tommy Lascelles said that he would find it as easy to believe in the innocence of their relationship as “a herd of unicorns grazing in Hyde Park and a shoal of mermaids swimming in the Serpentine.”58

  Despite the unraveling of their marriage, the Simpsons put on a brave front. That April, Ernest wrote warmly to his mother, keen to impress her with his royal connections and wanting to reassure her that all was well in his marriage:

  My dearest one and only Mother,

  The Prince took two other married couples and ourselves to the Grand National Steeple chase near Liverpool. We had a special car on the train and we were met by a fleet of motors. We lunched in state with Lord Sefton, the owner of the course and had a splendid view from his private stand. It was great fun.

  Much, much love, in which Wallis joins, and a big hug,

  Affectionately, Ernest.59

  At Easter, Ernest joined Wallis motoring around Cornwall with the prince, and their friends the Hunters, to see the camellias and rhododendrons in bloom. According to Wallis, whatever Ernest was “thinking or feeling, he loyally played his part.”60 Whilst staying on the Duchy estate, Edward began penning Wallis intimate billets-doux, which he had delivered to her room. But a shadow was now cast over the trio. Where the arrangement had previously been chummily inclusive, Ernest was now excluded. Wallis and Edward were sufficiently emotionally entwined to have developed their own private language, which spelt out the intensity of their relationship. They referred to themselves as “WE,” representing their joint first names and symbolizing their union. They also devised the adjective eanum, which to them meant tiny, “poor,” “affecting” and “pathetic.” Edward wrote to Wallis from St. Austell Bay Hotel, his note accompanying an Easter gift of a bracelet:

  My [twice underlined] Eanum—My [thrice underlined] Wallis

  This is not the kind of Easter WE want but it will be alright next year. The Easter Bunny has brought this from Us All [twice underlined] & Slipper says he likes it too but it has to be fitted and christened later. I love you more & more & more each & every minute & miss you so [thrice underlined] terribly here. You do too dont you my sweetheart.

  God bless WE. Always your[s] [twice underlined].61

  Edward’s obsession with Wallis was causing him to act with increasingly rash indiscretion. Wallis would have received the letter, and the accompanying piece of jewelry, while sharing a room with Ernest. She, meanwhile, was no longer under any illusions that this was a romantic relationship that the prince seemed wholly committed to. The mounting tension between the trio finally erupted in a terrible row between Wallis and Ernest on their return from Cornwall. This provoked Wallis to write her first stern letter to the prince. It reveals how she by now fully assumed the role of disapproving mother, reprimanding a thoughtless naughty boy.

  Tuesday a.m.

  David dear—

  I was and still am most terribly upset. You see my dear one can’t go through life stepping on other people. . . . You think only of what you want and take it without the slightest thought of others. One can arrive at the same result in a kinder way. I had a long quiet talk with E last night and I felt very eanum at the end. Everything he said was so true. The evening was difficult as you did stay too late. Doesn’t your love for me reach the heights of wanting to make things a little easier for me. The lovely things you say to me aren’t of much value unless they are backed up by equal actions.

  I was upset and also very disappointed in a boy—because David what are all those words if what they say isn’t enough for a little sacrifice on our part to do what is the right thing for all concerned. So far you have always come first in my actions if there had to be a choice (like Sat). It isn’t fair and cannot always be that way.

  Sometimes I think you haven’t grown up where love is concerned and perhaps it’s only a boyish passion for surely it lacks the thought of me that a man’s love is capable of. . . . Your behaviour last night made me realise how very alone I shall be some day—and because I love you I don’t seem to have the strength to protect myself from your youthfulness.

  God bless WE and be kind to me in the years to come for I have lost something noble for a boy who may always remain a Peter Pan.62

  Those close to the couple could see th
e inherent insecurity in Wallis’s position. As Chips Channon wrote on May 14, the day of the Silver Jubilee Ball: “She is madly anxious to storm society while she is still his favourite so that when he leaves her, as he leaves everybody in time, she will be secure.”63 Chips continued to comment on the gossip fizzing about Wallis’s appearance later at the ball. “There is tremendous excitement about Mrs. Simpson. It is a war of the knife between past and present. Officially I am on-side—but secretly delighted for she always was an appalling, selfish, silly influence. Mrs. S has enormously improved the prince. In fact, I find her duel over the Prince of Wales between Mrs. Simpson, supported by Diana Cooper, and strangely, enough, Emerald, and the ——I camp, is most diverting. In fact, the romance surpasses all else in interest.”64

  Of the state ball, Wallis recalled that after the king and queen had made their entrance, the dancing began. “As David and I danced past, I thought I felt the king’s eyes rest searchingly on me. Something in his look made me feel all this graciousness and pageantry were but the glittering tip of an iceberg that extended down into unseen depths I could never plumb, depths filled with an icy menace for such as me.” A chill ran through Wallis, and in spite of being seen dancing the fox-trot with the Prince of Wales, “in that moment I knew that between David’s world and mine lay an abyss that I could never cross, one he could never bridge for me.”65

  Wallis kept up her jovial, reassuring front in her correspondence with Aunt Bessie. After the ball, she wrote of her evening, describing the diamond clips she received as a jubilee present. “The Prince danced with me after the opening one with the Queen so you see I am not neglected on the right things.”66 She continued to regale her aunt with examples of her popularity, explaining that she was besieged by invitations. Wise to the situation she explained: “They think that in asking me they’ll get him.” Before adding, tellingly: “It will be lovely when something happens to break it up.”67

  However, Edward had no intention of letting Wallis go. He later wrote: “A prince’s heart, like his politics, must remain within the constitutional pale. But my heart refused to be so confined; and presently and imperceptibly the hope formed that one day I might be able to share my life with her, just how I did not know.”68 The prince and Mrs. Simpson continued to storm society, while Special Branch continued to spy on Wallis and the royal family made every effort to avoid her. The battle lines that Chips Channon referred to were drawn between the old-guard traditionalists (chiefly King George V, Queen Mary, the Duke and Duchess of York and Princess Marina) and the pro-Wallis camp (which included the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Kent, Lady Cunard, Lady Colefax, Chips Channon, the Duff Coopers, Cecil Beaton and Winston Churchill).

  Later that May, on Empire Day, Chips Channon wrote in his diary: “We had cocktails at Mrs. Simpson’s little flat in Bryanston Court. The Prince was charm itself. He is boisterous, wrinkled and gay. His voice is more American than ever. (It doesn’t matter, since all the Royal Family except the Duke of Kent have German voices.) He wore a short black coat and soft collar, checked socks and a tie. . . . He shook and passed the cocktails very much the jeune homme de la maison.”69

  A few nights later, Chips joined the prince and “the ménage Simpson” in Emerald Cunard’s box at the opera. He noted the positive influence and mesmeric hold Wallis had over the heir to the throne. It was she who chided Edward to leave, reminding him not to be late in joining the queen for a ball. As he left, she removed a cigar from his breast pocket, admonishing: “It doesn’t look very pretty.” The party noted that the prince left but was back within half an hour.

  Wallis’s reign at the Fort was similarly in its zenith. That summer Lady Diana Cooper and her husband, Duff, were weekend guests. “We arrived after midnight (perhaps as chaperones),” recalled Lady Diana:

  Jabber and beer and bed was the order. I did not leave the “cabin’s seclusion” until 1 o’clock, having been told that no one else did. HRH was dressed in plus-twenties with vivid azure socks. Wallis, admirably correct and chic. Me bang wrong! Everything is a few hours later than other places (perhaps it is American time). A splendid tea arrived at 6.30 with Anthony Eden and Esmond Harmsworth [son and heir of Lord Rothermere]. Dinner was at 10. Emerald arrived at 8.30 for cocktails, which she doesn’t drink although the prince prepares the portions with his own poor hands and does all the glass-filling. The Prince changed into a Donald tartan dress-kilt with an immense white leather purse in front, and played the pipes round the table after dinner, having first fetched his bonnet. We “reeled” to bed at 2 a.m.70

  While the British press had yet to write anything about the royal romance, keeping the public completely in the dark about the affair, American publications were less reverential and inhibited. That June, Wallis wrote to Aunt Bessie, who was “upset by Hearst [Newspapers’] reporters lies.” She tried to put her aunt’s mind at rest. “You know I am not going to get a divorce. Ernest and I are perfectly happy and understand each other so please put it all out of your head and tell people they can’t believe the press.”71

  It was not just the whispers in the press that were mounting. Superintendent Canning’s report, delivered to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Philip Game on July 3, not only alleged that Wallis was having an affair with Guy Trundle; it also speculated about a controversial liaison between Wallis and Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s ambassador to Britain. The relentlessly charming Ribbentrop, a former wine salesman, had for the last two years been peddling the Third Reich to the British aristocracy. He cultivated Lady Cunard as a route to the Prince of Wales. In June, Wallis and the prince had met Ribbentrop at a large gathering at Emerald’s. Winston Churchill, also in attendance, listened as the German droned on about the achievements of the führer. When he left, Churchill turned to his hostess and said: “Emerald, I hope we never have to hear that broken gramophone record again.”72

  Chips Channon noted in his diary: “much gossip about the Prince of Wales’ alleged Nazi leanings; he is alleged to have been influenced by Emerald (who is rather éprise with Herr Ribbentrop) through Mrs. Simpson. . . . He has just made an extraordinary speech to the British Legion advocating friendship with Germany; it is only a gesture, but a gesture that may be taken seriously in Germany and elsewhere. If only the Chancelleries of Europe knew that his speech was the result of Emerald Cunard’s intrigues, themselves inspired by Herr Ribbentrop’s dimple!”73

  In July, Edward took part in a naval review in the Channel. His separation from Wallis inspired him to write to her at one o’clock in the morning on board his ship:

  A boy is holding a girl so very tight in his arms tonight. . . . A girl knows that not anybody or anything can separate WE—not even the stars—and that WE belong to each other for ever. WE love [twice underlined] each other more than life so God bless WE. Your [twice underlined] David74

  For his August holiday that year, the prince rented the Marquess of Cholmondeley’s summer residence, Villa Le Roc, in Cannes. As Edward was not allowed to receive gifts from his subjects, he paid George Rocksavage a token £5 for the fortnight’s stay. Wallis wrote to Aunt Bessie of the villa, with its pretty terraced gardens bursting with zinnias and plumbago: “We got here on Monday to find a lovely villa on the water—our own rocks and all the privacy in the world but very hot.”75 The Duke of Westminster’s yacht, Cutty Sark, was at their disposal. Again, Wallis accompanied the prince without Ernest. Ernest absented himself because his mother was visiting him in London, then he was due on business in America. Wallis gushed to her aunt: “My party consists of Lord and Lady Brownlow, Buists, Mrs Fitzgerald and Lord Sefton. Très chic. E. is quite content for me to go as he can do nothing for me in the way of a holiday.” She ended her missive by asking her aunt to go and see her husband when he is in the States. Ernest, she revealed, “is still the man of my dreams.”76

  John Aird, who was in attendance on the trip, was alarmed when, on arrival at the villa, the prince rushed in and gave the best bedroom to his equerry, apportion
ing himself “a rotten little room next to W.” An hour later the decision was reversed. “At whose suggestion I do not know,” recorded Aird.77 Most likely Wallis’s, given that only she could steer the prince towards more dignified behavior. Indeed, the couple’s correspondence during the trip bears witness to Wallis’s eye for detail. She writes to him from her room in the morning, suggesting that as they have a lunch for ten later that day, including with Sir Robert Vansittart, the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, it would be more comfortable if the butler could organize “chairs without arms.” As well as seating plans, menu plans—“I didn’t see a green vegetable on the menu”—she explains: “I like everyone to think you do things well.”78

  Wallis always needed to be in control. “She liked to know exactly what was going on,” said Hugo Vickers. “Later in their life together, if someone dropped a plate in their house in the French countryside and the duchess was in Paris, she would know as if by radar. She said to her butler: ‘If something breaks, please tell me. I won’t mind but please always let me know.’ She was incredibly straightforward like that and her staff adored her for it.”79 Indeed, a kitchen maid who later worked for Wallis attests to this: “All the maids spoke well of Mrs. Simpson.”80

  Oblivious to the dramatic extent of it, Wallis, with her maternal chiding, vigilant housekeeping, lack of sycophancy, genuine intelligent interest in Edward’s official duties and air of assured competency, had become indispensable to the prince. She was his oxygen. Without her, Winston Churchill observed, he was haggard and dejected.81 By the end of the long summer holiday, having stretched their European sojourn through to October, Edward knew that he wanted to marry her. How he would realize this became his principal obsession. “It was all quite vague but nonetheless vivid,” he later wrote. “This dream of being able to bring into my life what for so long had been lacking.”82 He intended to discuss the matter with his father that autumn. Meanwhile, he wrote to Wallis, pleading with her not to forsake him: “Please, please Wallis don’t get scared or loose [sic] faith when you are away from me. I love you more every minute and no difficulties or complications can possibly prevent our ultimate happiness.”83