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

by Anna Pasternak

  The evidence revealed that on July 28, 1936, Ernest Simpson had spent the night in bedroom number four of the Hotel de Paris, at Bray in Buckinghamshire, with a “Mrs. Simpson” who was not his wife. She was the implausibly named Buttercup Kennedy (this was, in fact, the pseudonym under which Mary Raffray had booked into the same hotel with Ernest). The judge said testily: “Well, I suppose that I must come to the conclusion that there was adultery in this case.” When Wallis’s counsel responded, “I assume what your Lordship has in mind,” Sir John Hawke replied: “How do you know what is in my mind, Mr. Birkett?”1

  “I was much too tense to pay attention to my surroundings or even to follow the details of the proceedings, which lasted only a few minutes,” Wallis later wrote. “All I remember of that ordeal was the hostility of the judge as he scrutinized me while I was testifying, and his obvious attempts to discomfit Mr. Birkett. For a terrible moment I felt sure he was determined to deny me my divorce.”2

  Wallis was granted a decree nisi, with costs against Ernest. “A moment later, Mr. Goddard had me by the arm and was guiding me out of the courtroom and into the car. We started at once for London,” remembered Wallis. Due to the press throng and the police, George Ladbroke, the king’s chauffeur, whom Edward had sent to collect Wallis, had to skillfully maneuver the car to get away. On the long journey back to London, while Goddard exuded an air of quiet triumph, Wallis sank back, exhausted. She was thankful the ordeal was over but, as always, anxious. Few around her realized, let alone were sensitive to, her fragility.

  All day, in between carrying out his duties, the king had waited for news. After lunch, he heard that Wallis had been granted a decree nisi. He knew that it would be six months before the absolute. “Wallis therefore could not remarry before the end of April 1937,” he deduced. “However, with my Coronation fixed for May 12th, this seems to allow ample time for me to work things out. Inwardly relieved—mistakenly, as it proved—I returned to my engagements.”3

  That evening, Wallis and Edward enjoyed an initially happy reunion dinner at Cumberland Terrace. Their ease was short-lived. Detecting his “suppressed anxiety,” Wallis coaxed the truth out of Edward. He told her about Baldwin’s visit and the prime minister’s wish that he had prevented Wallis’s divorce proceedings. “My first reaction was one of utter bewilderment; then as I began to grasp the enormity of what was on Mr. Baldwin’s mind, I was appalled,” said Wallis. “For there could be only one explanation for his unasked-for and unprecedented intervention: he had clearly made up his mind that David wanted to marry me and he wished to foreclose such a possibility, once and for all.” Edward promised that he would “fix things,” but, the more perceptive of the two, she was to be correct when she surmised: “David’s reassurance notwithstanding, I was still convinced that we had not heard the last of Stanley Baldwin.”4

  Faithful to its word, the British press reported the divorce hearing in brief, discreet paragraphs. Elsewhere in the world, lurid headlines screamed, the most unedifying being one Chicago newspaper’s “KING’S MOLL RENO’D IN WOLSEY’S HOME TOWN”—a reference to Ipswich and Thomas Wolsey, Henry VIII’s ill-fated divorce broker.

  “Already the press here is beginning to register digs and slight disapproval,” noted Chips Channon. “And it is quite true that the monarchy has lost caste enormously since last January. All the world knows is that the king is the slave of an American, who has had two husbands and two divorces. It does not know how charming, how wise, and sympathetic she is, nor what an edifying influence. It seems the whole press angle has been clumsily handled. The king is at his worst with Fleet Street, off-hand, angry and ungracious; he never treats them in the right way, or realises that his popularity largely depends on them.”5

  While serious rumors circulated that the king intended to marry Wallis, she was at pains to refute such gossip. Cecil Beaton attested to this when she invited him to her new Regent’s Park house to photograph her, and then, a few days later, sketch her. Beaton sat in her pale-white and olive-green drawing room, noting the extravagant Constance Spry flower arrangements, mixed with bark and wild grasses. The king sent Wallis bouquets from Spry almost every day, at a cost of £5 a bouquet (around £100 today). Beaton considered that Wallis looked astonishing: “Immaculate, soignee and fresh as a young girl. Her skin was as bright and smooth as the inside of a shell, her hair so sleek she might have been Chinese.” He cheekily suggested a background of scrolls and ermine pinned on a white cloth for the shoot. “Don’t do anything connected with the Coronation for me,” Wallis immediately responded. “I want none of that now.”6 Beaton reported that when he asked her to lower her chin, “as though bowing,” the unfortunate reference caused her to look sharply at him.

  Wallis’s elusive quality was tricky for even Beaton to capture. None of his sketches quite came off. “Mrs. Simpson proved an exceptionally difficult woman to draw,” he said, reflecting the complexity of Wallis’s persona. Yet he found her conversationally open, spirited and fun to be around. “She spoke amusingly, in staccato sentences punctuated by explosive bursts of laughter that lit up her face with great gaiety and made her eyebrows look attractively surprised.” Towards the early evening the door opened and the butler announced: “His Majesty.” Wallis let out a cry of surprise: “Oh, Sir, we were just talking about you.”7 Edward, who struck Beaton with his relaxed ease, examined the photographic proofs of Wallis which were laid out on the sofa. He announced that he wanted to buy them all. With a whisky and soda in hand, he allowed Beaton to sketch him, stressing he must capture the left side of his face as it showed the parting of his hair.

  The “cocktail hour” that Beaton described at Cumberland Terrace was so full of life and laughter that is it easy to see why Edward, lonely at Buckingham Palace, sought the comfort of Wallis and her inimitable homemaking. Aunt Bessie, who had recently arrived in England as a support to Wallis, joined them for drinks later that evening before they were all due to go to a dinner at Emerald Cunard’s. Hot hors d’oeuvre, served on a silver tray, accompanied by green grapes stuffed with cream cheese, were passed around.

  “The king talked very fast,” remembered Beaton, “darted around the room, rang bells, busily untied parcels with red, slightly horny hands that looked surprisingly like a mechanic’s. He had a bad cold and wore a heavy silk jersey. Wallis’s eyes sparkled; her brows lifted in mock-pain; her mouth turned down at the corners as she laughed. The aunt sat back quipping. At last the king (like a child whose before-dinner play hour had come to an end) was told that we must all go. Wallis, who had only a few minutes to dress for Emerald Cunard’s dinner, was already beginning to unbutton her dress.”8

  Diana Vreeland said of Wallis at this time, “suddenly she had the most beautiful clothes in London and the most divine house in Cumberland Terrace, filled with white lilacs and burning perfume and the whole lot.”9

  On the surface, the king’s life seemed to proceed normally during the first half of November. He later wrote: “But now that I myself was caught up in a struggle of the heart and the spirit, the old, easy sense of security crumbled away. And as I discharged my kingly duties, the ceremonial parts, especially, took on an air of unreality.”10 The state opening of Parliament on November 3 demonstrated that Edward Windsor, when inspired, could fulfill his role with consummate skill. As it was pouring with rain, and Edward maintained that “pageantry needs sunshine,” he canceled the traditional state procession, driving to Westminster in a closed Daimler. This raised disapproving eyebrows in court circles. Yet once at the Houses of Parliament—at what would be King Edward VIII’s only opening of Parliament—he determined to excel.

  “Well do I recall the hush inside the House of Lords as I mounted the steps to the throne,” he wrote. “As I looked out over the brilliant scene, my senses were suddenly assailed by an almost suffocating odour of mothballs given off by the colourful robes removed from storage for this formal airing. The smell was nauseating, and sitting there on the throne I could feel the pumping of my
own heart.”11 The Times reported that his speech was exemplary: “One more page in the history of Parliament has been written. A young King had made his first speech from the Throne. Not alone the fact that his was a Throne by itself, but his whole Royal demeanour make one feel that ‘in himself was all his state.’ ”12 But under the surface there was disquiet. “I dined at the House of Commons,” wrote Chips Channon, “and what was to have been a quiet snack developed into an acrimonious argument over the eternal problem—will the king marry Mrs. Simpson? MPs are like a lot of old concierges on this matter, and can think and talk of little else. But the situation is extremely serious, and the country is indignant; it does seem foolish that the monarchy, the oldest institution in the world after the papacy, should crash, as it may, over dear Wallis.”13

  Wallis, finding her infamy uncomfortable, was “beginning to be seriously disturbed by the reaction of people much closer to home.”14 She could no longer go out, even to the hairdresser’s, without people stopping and staring at her. In spite of the continuing silence of the British press, the London circles in which she moved were well aware of the trumpeting foreign press. Wallis, for whom dignity was a supremely important element of her character, found these public embarrassments excruciating.

  Over the next week, Edward took his part in the Armistice ceremonies and celebrations. It is a poignant irony that the king fulfilled what were to be his last ceremonial duties that autumn conscientiously and with flair. Whether deliberately or not, he made a regal last hurrah. His visit to inspect the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet at Portland on November 12 and 13 was highly successful, while bearing his own stamp. He won the hearts of everyone present and turned the still-pouring rain to his advantage. Unlike Sir Samuel Hoare, the first lord of the Admiralty, Edward rejected a waterproof while inspecting men similarly drenched. Sir Samuel reported that it was a “small thing, but sailors take note of small things, and in this they saw a real difference between the politician and the Monarch.”15

  That evening the king displayed his finest talents, his charm and sense of camaraderie ensuring his absolute popularity. At a concert on board the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous, the vast underdeck was packed with thousands of sailors. Elbowing his way through the crowd, Edward wanted to see what was happening at the other end of the hall, whereupon he started a singsong to the accompaniment of a sailor’s mouth organ. “When he came back to the platform, he made an impromptu speech that brought the house down,” said Sir Samuel Hoare. “Then, a seaman in the crowd prompted three cheers for him, and there followed an unforgettable scene of the wildest and most spontaneous enthusiasm. Here, indeed, was the Prince Charming, who would win the hearts of all sorts of conditions of men and women and send a thrill through great crowds.”16

  “The king could be incredibly thoughtful and could be brilliant with the armed forces, especially the Navy, which he loved,” said the Duke of Fragnito. “Once when, as the Prince of Wales, he went to Dartmouth on an inspection, a family cousin of ours was there and the prince knew of him. He asked to be introduced to him and, in the parade, pulled him out and walked up and down for a minute or two, then dismissed him. But it was to help my cousin; to show that he had the friendship of the royal family. We thought he was so kind to improve the position of the young cadet.”17

  The king’s two days of naval inspection in Portland were, he later said, “good days.” “Engrossed in inspecting the ships, talking to sailors and reminiscing with old shipmates, I was able to put aside for a few hours the burning issue that was pressing for decision.”18

  While away, Wallis had written to inform him that a British weekly news magazine, Cavalcade, had mentioned “the king’s matter.” The magazine also claimed that an unnamed London hostess had imposed a fine of five shillings on any guest discussing the king’s “non-state activities” in front of the servants.19 “They are selling Cavalcade in the streets of the City [of London],” Wallis wrote, alarmed. “Think of the harm among that class. Goddard says it is a libel. Something must be done at once. I hope your pain is better and that soon we will be able to be happy although now one’s eyes are sad & worried. I long to be gay and open with everybody. Hiding is an awful life.”20

  On the evening that the king returned from Portland, he joined Wallis and Bessie at the Fort. “Now out of the darkening sky came a thunderclap, all the more shattering because of the unexpected quarter from which it came,”21 Wallis recalled. The king was in a buoyant mood when he met Wallis and her aunt. After giving them a brief account of his trip, he excused himself, explaining that an urgent dispatch from the palace awaited his attention. His butler had informed him that there was a letter from Major Hardinge, who was anxious that the king read it straight away. Placed on top of the pile of red dispatch boxes, it glared: “Urgent and Confidential.” The king, still cold to the bone from the naval review, but forgoing a longed-for bath, carefully read the letter from Hardinge instead. “An instant later,” he wrote, “I was confronted by the most serious crisis of my life.”22

  Buckingham Palace

  13th November 1936

  Sir,

  With my humble duty,

  As your Majesty’s Private Secretary, I feel it my duty to bring to your notice the following facts which have come to my knowledge, and which I know to be accurate …

  Alec Hardinge went on to inform the king that the prime minister and senior members of the government were meeting that day to discuss the government’s possible action in the light of “the serious situation which is developing” over the king’s intentions towards Wallis. Hardinge also warned that the silence of the British press was not going to be maintained and would burst in a matter of days. Even more alarming, he told the king that the resignation of the government was an eventuality that could not be excluded and that, with the dissolution of Parliament and a general election, Hardinge had “reason to know” that the king would find it impossible to form a new government.

  He ended by “begging” the king to insist that “Mrs. Simpson go abroad without further delay,” and concluded: “Owing to the changing attitude of the Press the matter has become one of great urgency.”23 (This exigency, however, did not preclude Hardinge from adding in his postscript that he was going to High Wycombe after dinner for a shoot the following day, but that the Post Office would have his telephone number.)

  The king’s reaction was one of shock and anger. “Angry because of the way it was launched, with the startling suggestion that I send from my land, my realm, the woman I intended to marry.”24 Sensibly he resisted seizing the telephone, had a hot bath and, after dinner, read the letter again. As a conscientious private secretary, it was Hardinge’s duty to alert the king to what was happening. Yet the messenger was a man whom Edward now disliked and distrusted. He suspected that Hardinge was Baldwin’s agent, querying: “Who would have told Alec Hardinge all this but the prime minister?”

  “I was obviously in love,” the king later recalled. “They had struck at the very roots of my pride. Only the most fainthearted would have remained unaroused by such a challenge. There was little sleep for me that night. This was not the crisis of a prince; it was the crisis of a king. And, because it was not my nature to watch and wait, I resolved to come to grips with Mr. Baldwin and the nebulous figures around him.”25

  Admirably, Edward carried his disturbing secret alone for two days, “pressing with deadly weight upon my every thought and action.”26 Of this gallant approach, not wanting to worry Wallis until absolutely necessary, Wallis recalled: “He always had an extraordinary capacity for keeping his inner tensions locked up inside his mind and heart.”27

  That Friday night, Edward played after-dinner cards with Wallis and Aunt Bessie, his gaiety temporarily restored with rounds of three-handed rummy. The next day, friends came for lunch at the Fort, oblivious to the immense strain the king was under. On Sunday afternoon, Wallis and Edward had been invited to the Duke and Duchess of Kent’s for tea at Coppins. Excusing himself from lunch o
n the pretext of business with the librarian at Windsor, Edward left for a secret rendezvous with Sir Walter Monckton, reassuring Wallis that the car would return in an hour, so she could collect him from Windsor for their trip to tea.

  Monckton was waiting for the king in his old rooms on the second floor of Windsor Castle. Edward handed him Hardinge’s letter, which Monckton read slowly. The lawyer’s expression turned to shock. He agreed with the king that it could not have been written without some discussion with Mr. Baldwin.

  “The first thing I must do,” said Edward, “is to send for the prime minister—tomorrow. I shall tell him that if, as would appear, he and the government are against my marrying Mrs. Simpson I am prepared to go.”

  “He will not like to hear that,” said Walter gravely.

  “I shall not find it easy to say.”28

  The king asked Monckton if he would act as his personal advisor and liaise with Downing Street; Sir Walter, who would prove a calm, expert support to the king, agreed.

  Wallis and Edward went to tea with the Kents, which the king described as “an agreeable but brief visit.”29 But back at the Fort, it became impossible for him to conceal his burdens a moment longer. He took Wallis into his study and said: “A most serious thing has happened. I have kept it from you since Friday evening. But since it concerns you no less than it does me, you must know what is involved.”30 On his desk stood his red dispatch box, which he opened with a key. He took out the letter and handed it to Wallis. Asking her to read it alone, he left the room.31

  After she had read the explosive missive, Wallis felt numb. She said: “This was the end I had always known in the back of my mind was bound to come.” Realizing that the government’s stance would trigger a crisis with the king, Wallis concluded: “Clearly, there was only one thing for me to do: it was to leave the country immediately as Hardinge had implored.”32

  When Edward returned a few moments later, Wallis told him that her departure would be in everyone’s best interests. “You’ll do no such thing,” he told her. “I won’t have it. This letter is an impertinence.”33