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

by Anna Pasternak

  While cruising the Aegean, Edward took advantage of Duff Cooper’s counsel regarding his relationship with Wallis. “The king and Papa had a great many conversations on board about the issue,” said John Julius Norwich. “Papa said that he should delay his coronation, go and do a big durbar in India and give the issue time to resolve. Papa could see that this thing had got too big for Wallis and that she was longing to get the hell out. My father saw that and wanted to give her a chance to get away. But the king was absolutely determined to marry her. It was a schoolboy love, as though he had never been in love before, and poor Wallis was in a completely impossible position. My father felt deeply for them both.”17

  Everywhere that they went, Edward and Wallis were photographed. Like modern celebrities, they were chased by the press, an early foretaste of paparazzi hounding. They were photographed passing through Salzburg, driving in Athens, bathing in the sea (the king did an hour’s rowing in the ship’s dinghy every day for exercise); but probably the most memorable photograph, of which the world took note, was of the royal couple getting into a small boat. Wallis’s hand is proprietorially placed on the king’s forearm—a breathtaking breach of protocol—while he is bending attentively towards her, every sinew of his body strained in devotion. The photographs, which circled the globe, were startling because they captured the couple’s unguarded intimacy and tenderness.

  Of the king, Diana Cooper wrote: “He is utterly himself and unselfconscious. That I think is the reason why he does some things (that he likes) superlatively well. He does not act. In the middle of the procession he stopped for a good two minutes to do up his shoe. . . . We were all left staring at his behind. But it did not occur to him to wait, and so the people said: ‘Isn’t he human! Isn’t he natural! He stopped to do up his shoe like any of us!’ ”18

  Edward could be both a thoughtful, courteous host and an insufferable egotist. Endearingly, he adored childish pursuits such as fishing jellyfish out of the sea. He would lean out of his dinghy, scooping them up in an old shrimping net, while his guests stood at the ship’s prow, shouting: “There’s a big one, Sir.” He did not create a fuss when at every mealtime on the Nahlin he was served last—an example of his impeccable manners and out of deference to his guests—with the result that there was never enough food for him. Even though he was fastidious about what he ate—he, like Wallis, was forever terrified of gaining weight—every day he had to say at least once: “Yes, but I do want something to eat.”19 This he took in good humor. But it was after a dinner with his cousin, King George II of the Hellenes, recently returned to the throne following his exile, that the tenor of the cruise soured. Edward went into a troubled and prolonged mood, which naturally his guests found dispiriting.

  The dinner at King George’s magnificent rented villa in Corfu, up a winding hill lined with cypress trees, was, according to Diana Cooper, “A1.” On the large formal terrace, she sat next to the Greek monarch, with Wallis on George II’s other side. Diana observed Edward turn the full force of his charm onto “an exceedingly good-looking Englishwoman” called Joyce Brittain-Jones. Lady Diana disparagingly referred to her as “Mrs. Jones.” Diana noted Wallis “doing splendidly, the wisecracks following in quick succession, the king clearly very admiring and amused.”20 The dinner went on until 1.30 a.m., by which time Diana was “nearly crying” with fatigue.21

  Back on board the Nahlin, the group was discussing the evening and George II’s attachment to divorcée Mrs. Brittain-Jones. She was his constant companion, with whom the king had found great love and solace since his loveless marriage to Princess Elisabeth of Romania had ended in divorce the year before. “Why doesn’t he just marry her?” asked Wallis. Without thinking, one of the guests replied in astonished tones that it was impossible for the king to marry a woman who was both a commoner and a divorcée. Hearing this statement of fact voiced out loud, mirroring his own plight, clearly rankled with Edward. His own dilemma was brought into focus, triggering days of melancholy. Whichever way he now turned, a dereliction of duty was inevitable. To the woman he loved or to the Crown. Wallis, finely attuned to the king’s mood swings, became tetchy that night too. Later that evening, when her dress—an exquisite filigree material embroidered with dragonflies—caught under the legs of a chair, the king got down on his hands and knees to try to free it. Diana Cooper said that Wallis stared at him coldly and cut him down, saying: “Well, that’s the maust extraordinary performance I’ve ever seen.”22

  Wallis, increasingly aware that she was trapped in a dependent position, found ways to diminish and punish Edward in public. Just as she knew how to soothe him, she knew exactly how to torment him. It showed an unappealing side to her character—a rebellion and release against feelings of suffocation and loss of control over her own life. While the masochistic side of the king believed he deserved and benefited from Wallis’s censure, no doubt he received her forgiveness as a form of benediction. This was part of the power that Wallis had over him.

  Everyone saw the end of the cruise as a blessing. “I feel the sooner the trip ends for us, the better,” wrote Diana Cooper to a friend. “It’s impossible to enjoy antiquities with people who won’t land for them and who call Delphi Delhi.”23

  Wallis and Edward took a private train from Turkey, through Bulgaria to Yugoslavia, before ending up in Vienna. The king was delighted that Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria joined the train before Sofia and, as a keen driver of locomotives on his state railways, allowed Edward to join him up front. “We had two kings in the cab of the engine,” Wallis recalled. “The King of Bulgaria was at the throttle and the King of England was allowed to blow the whistle at the crossings.”24

  The royal party stayed once more for a few days at the Bristol Hotel in Vienna. Elsa Maxwell (who had not yet met Wallis but would later be a close friend) happened to be in the lobby when the party arrived. “The clicking of heels by the manager and his staff sounded like castanets and a crew of porters scurried through the door with mountains of luggage,” she wrote.

  Then the king’s entourage entered, led by a small, distinguished-looking woman. Her expression and the purposeful way she walked gave me the impression that she would brush aside anyone who had the temerity to get in her path. I took a second, startled look when I saw the king following a few paces behind. I had never seen Mrs. Simpson. It was difficult to believe that this was the woman who was going to create such a turmoil throughout the British Empire. Yet a few nights later, when I saw the king’s look of adoration when he danced with the woman he was to marry, I knew he was utterly in love with her.25

  On September 14, the king flew back to England from Zurich and Wallis went with the rest of the party to Paris to stay at the Hôtel Meurice. Of the trip, Tommy Lascelles said to John Aird that he “could not be better pleased with HM’s behaviour as compared to past trips.”26 He was alluding to the prince’s previous womanizing, so could at least see that Wallis had a stabilizing influence in this respect.

  While most of the Western world outside Britain was agog with the relationship of King Edward and Mrs. Simpson, still not a word was whispered in the British press. Upholding a dignified reserve, even Queen Mary did not refer to Mrs. Simpson when Edward went to dine with her at Buckingham Palace on his return. “Greeting her, I wondered how much she knew about the stories appearing in the American press,” Edward wrote later. Queen Mary’s conversation revealed nothing. She asked her son if he had enjoyed the cruise and about the heat in the Adriatic. They discussed King George II of Greece. “David got back from abroad looking very well,” was all Queen Mary noted in her diary, “—and came to dine with me and we had a nice talk.”27

  The queen was delighted that her son planned to spend the last two weeks of September at Balmoral. If she hoped that the Nahlin trip was his last hurrah before he settled dutifully into his role as monarch, returning to the more traditional ways of her husband, King George V, she would soon be disappointed. Yet Edward, who loved the life in the Highlands—if not th
e formality of court life at Balmoral—looked forward to his Scottish trip after the enervating heat of the Balkans. True to form, he would do Balmoral his way. “The deerstalking would be at its best; there would still be plenty of grouse on the moors and the exhilarating air and hard exercise to put me in condition for the heavy schedule awaiting me,” he said.28

  Meanwhile in Paris, Wallis, recuperating from a nasty cold, was “amazed and then shocked” to read American press clippings sent to her by friends and family. Her relationship with the king, which “heretofore had been purely personal between David and me was now a topic of dinner-table conversation for every newspaper reader in the United States, Europe and the Dominions.”29 When the king telephoned her, she confided her “deepening misgivings” and told him some of the scurrilous rumors being bandied about. Edward batted away her anxieties, reassuring her that there would be no public comment in England and that the furore would soon quieten down.

  On September 16, Wallis wrote Edward a revelatory letter. Seized with panic, it was as if she had suddenly shaken herself awake from a skittish dream that had lasted two and a half years, to be confronted with the stark reality of her situation.

  That July, through the king’s solicitor, Theodore Goddard, Wallis had begun divorce proceedings against Ernest. A date had been set for the trial of October 27. Goddard had retained the services of Norman Birkett, the most celebrated and publicized advocate of his day. The king knew that if Wallis received her decree nisi, she would be eligible to apply for her divorce to be made absolute six months later, at the end of April 1937. It would therefore be technically possible for her to remarry before the May coronation. Goddard had decided that the case should be tried outside London, as he naively thought that it would attract less attention. He chose Ipswich Assizes in Suffolk, where Wallis would have to live prior to the trial in order to gain the necessary residential qualification for the hearing. A suitable cottage, Beech House, near Felixstowe, was found. The arrangements had been set in motion. At this late hour, the fearful Wallis suddenly did a volte-face and begged to return to Ernest.

  Dear David,

  This is a difficult letter to write—but I feel it’s easier than talking and less painful. I must really return to Ernest for a great many reasons which please be patient and read. The first being because we are so awfully congenial and understand getting on together very well—which is really an art in marriage. We have no small irritations one for the other.

  Wallis detailed the benefits of the less exhilarating but more stable union with Ernest, even accommodating being poor and “unable to do the attractive amusing things in life which I must confess I do love and enjoy—also the possession of beautiful things is thrilling to me and much appreciated but weighed against a calm congenial life I choose the latter for I know that though I shall suffer greatly now I shall be a happier calmer old lady.” In no uncertain terms, she tried to break from the king.

  I know Ernest and have the deepest affection and respect for him. I feel I am better with him than with you—and so you must understand. I am sure dear David that in a few months your life will run again as it did before and without my nagging. Also you have been independent of affection all your life. We have had lovely beautiful times together and I thank God for them and know that you will go on with your job doing it better and in a more dignified manner each year. That would please me so. I am sure you and I would only create disaster together.

  Wallis, who was regularly accused of being avaricious and an adventuress, out for whatever material gain she could get, said that she would contact the king’s lawyer to “arrange the return of everything.” This included the life-changing sum of money that had been settled on her. “I want you to be happy,” she concluded to Edward. “I feel sure I can’t make you so and I honestly don’t think you can me. . . . I am sure that after this letter you will realise that no human being could assume this responsibility and it would be most unfair to make things harder for me by seeing me. Good-bye WE all say. Wallis.”30

  Hugo Vickers believes that by this time Wallis and Ernest had more of a “brother-sister relationship.” “He was the only one she could turn to,” he said. “Whether she was still in love with him or not, I’m not sure, but he represented stability and security and one thing is for certain, she absolutely did not want the abdication.”31 A legal advisor and old friend of Edward’s, Sir Walter Monckton, wrote: “The easy view is that she should have been made to give him up. But I never knew any man whom it would have been harder to get rid of.”32

  Before putting her feelings in writing, Wallis had tried to explain her misgivings to Edward on the telephone. He responded with the following letter, written from the Fort at half past midnight:

  Good night my Wallis.

  Why do you say such hard things to David on the telephone sometimes? Hard things like you would prefer to have someone else with you tonight when you are sick that I would be bored that I don’t understand and lots of others which hurt me so. . . . I feel like bursting tonight with love and such a longing to hold you tighter than I ever have before. You see I do love you so entirely and in every way Wallis. Madly tenderly adoringly and with admiration and such confidence.33

  Bit by bit, Edward wore Wallis down with his protestations of love and declarations of need. He phoned her frequently, rarely giving her space to gather her thoughts. He simply would not hear of letting her go. In a state of agitated confusion, her nerves shredded, she succumbed to the king’s considerable pressure, continuing with plans to join him at Balmoral. She stopped briefly in London, where she met with Theodore Goddard to settle the final arrangements of her divorce.

  The king, already in the Highlands, was surrounded by his family. The Duke and Duchess of York resided at Birkall, seven miles away from Balmoral, while his brother Harry and his wife, Alice, stayed at Abergeldie Mains, another estate house. Instead of the usual and anticipated roll call of Cabinet ministers, archbishops, admirals, generals and the aristocracy customarily invited to Balmoral, Edward “wanted others to see it and enjoy with me its famous sport and amenities.”34 He said: “Naturally Wallis was included in the house party, and her arrival with Mr. and Mrs. Herman Rogers a few days later was duly recorded, with my instructions, in the Court Circular.”35

  On September 19, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, wrote to Queen Mary, who had asked her to go to Balmoral to remove certain personal photographs which she wanted to keep. In her letter, Elizabeth talked about going to Aberdeen the following week. The king had been asked to open the Aberdeen Infirmary but had told the Lord Provost of Aberdeen that he would not be able to do so because the court was still in mourning. He asked his brother Bertie to deputize for him, despite the fact that he, too, was in mourning.

  “Next week we go to Aberdeen to open the new hospital,” wrote Elizabeth. “I do wish that David could have done it, as they have all worked so hard and for so long, & it will be one of the best in Scotland, and it would have given enormous pleasure to the countryside round here. But he won’t, so there it is!” She went on to add: “I am secretly rather dreading next week, but I haven’t heard if a certain person is coming or not—I do hope not as everything is talked of up here.”36

  On September 23, instead of fulfilling his official engagements for that day, the king drove himself sixty miles to Aberdeen station, to meet Wallis off the train. Wallis, in a party with fellow guests, could have waited at Aberdeen and changed trains for Ballater, the nearest station to Balmoral, eight miles away. But Edward, who could not bear the thought of his beloved changing trains and would not wait a moment longer than necessary to be reunited with her, decided to drive to Aberdeen—the city where he had said he could not open the infirmary. Barely disguised in motoring goggles, he arrived at the station at the same time that his brother was carrying out his official duties on the other side of the city. Later that day, on the front page of the Aberdeen evening newspaper, two photographs were published side by side: one of the Yorks opening t
he hospital, the other of the cavalier king, with the caption: “His Majesty in Aberdeen. Surprise visit in car to meet guests.”

  This staggering lack of tact and sensitivity did the king irreparable damage. “This has done him more harm than anything else and has lost him Scotland,” wrote Sir Godfrey Thomas in his diary.37 In Aberdeen, someone daubed a wall with graffiti: “Down With the American Harlot.”

  The following morning, Wallis took precedence over the Duke and Duchess of York in the Court Circular. In his overzealous desire to secure Wallis in his life, Edward’s sanity was again coming under question by horrified courtiers. The king’s obsession with Mrs. Simpson was making him lose what limited judgment he had previously possessed. “The king was like the child in the fairy story who was given every gift except a soul,” wrote Tommy Lascelles acerbically. “He had no real friends for whom he cared a straw. His private secretaries had a devil of a time.”38

  At Balmoral, Edward put Wallis in the best guest room and refused to sleep in the king’s room, installing himself instead in the dressing room of Wallis’s suite. The couple still corresponded through notes. The king sent Wallis a list of local dignitaries who were invited that evening for a film screening. “Darling—here are the people who are going to bore us for eanum time tonight.”39 Wallis replied on a slip of Balmoral writing paper: “DDD—have you thought of changing the film as all the nuts have seen it? WE can see it in London.”40

  To his mother, the king wrote breezily that the weather was fine and that Balmoral, where Queen Victoria’s wallpaper still hangs, was most comfortable: “only a few more baths will have to be added for another year.”41

  On Saturday evening, Edward threw a dinner and reception to which the Duke and Duchess of York were invited. Most of the guests, including the Duke and Duchess of Kent, were already assembled when the Yorks arrived. As Elizabeth preceded her husband into the drawing room, Wallis walked forward to receive her. The eighteen other people present in the room read Wallis’s gesture in different ways. Some saw it as a mistaken act of politeness, others saw it as an insouciant flouting of her power. The Duchess of York, still furious about events in Aberdeen only days earlier, openly showed her resentment at being received by Wallis. Devoid of her usual smile, her face set in a “freezing expression,” Elizabeth walked straight past Wallis and said, to no one in particular: “I came to dine with the king.”42