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Wallis, Duchess of Windsor

 
Who2 Biography: Wallis Simpson, Royalty
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Wallis Simpson
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  • Born: 19 June 1896
  • Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
  • Died: 24 April 1986
  • Best Known As: The woman for whom King Edward VIII gave up the throne

Name at birth: Bessie Wallis Warfield

Wallis Simpson was the American divorcee for whom King Edward VIII gave up the throne of Great Britain. She met the future king (then Prince of Wales) early in the 1930s and a few years later they became lovers, though she remained married to her second husband, businessman Ernest Simpson. Matters came to a head when Edward became king in 1936. Simpson filed for divorce from her husband, but the royal family and the British government would not allow Edward to marry her. In December Edward stepped down as king, saying in a radio broadcast "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." They were married in France on 3 June 1937, becoming the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and spent the rest of their lives in exile from England, living mainly in France and the United States. In 2003 the British government released documents showing that while she was involved with Edward in the years before he became king, Simpson also was having an affair with a London car dealer named Guy Trundle.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were buried together on the grounds of Windsor Castle... The Duke and Duchess visited Germany in 1937 as guests of Adolf Hitler, creating the lasting impression that they were Nazi sympathizers... Her first marriage took place in 1916, to U.S. Navy pilot Earl Winfield Spencer, but barely lasted a year... She is often credited with the popular saying, "No woman can be too rich or too thin."

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Wallis Warfield duchess of Windsor
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(born June 19, 1896, Blue Ridge Summit, Pa., U.S. — died April 24, 1986, Paris, France) U.S. socialite who became the wife of Prince Edward, duke of Windsor (Edward VIII), after the latter had abdicated the British throne in order to marry her. She had earlier married Earl Spencer in 1916. After their divorce (1927), she married Ernest Simpson (1928) and moved with him to London. As a member of fashionable British society, she met Edward, prince of Wales, and the two gradually fell in love. She filed for divorce in 1936 with the intention of marrying Edward (by then King Edward), but as a woman twice divorced, she was unacceptable as a prospective British queen. Edward renounced the throne, and after she received her divorce they were married in 1937. The two thereafter lived a well-publicized international social life, residing mainly in France.

For more information on Wallis Warfield duchess of Windsor, visit Britannica.com.

Biography: Wallis Simpson
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The romance between Wallis Simpson (1896-1986) and the Duke of Windsor caused one of the biggest scandals in the history of the British monarchy. She was a twice-divorced American, and "David," as she called the man who briefly reigned as King Edward VIII, was forced to abdicate his throne in order to marry her.

Simpson was born Bessie-Wallis Warfield on June 19, 1896, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, a spa town where her parents had gone to help cure her father's tuberculosis. It was a futile attempt, for Teackle Wallis Warfield died just a few months later, leaving Alice Montague Warfield an impoverished widow. Both families hailed from the Old South, but the Montagues of Virginia had lost their fortune after the Civil War. Ironically, Wallis Warfield Simpson's genealogy gave her technically more English blood than members of the British royal family, who later shunned her. Until World War I, the House of Windsor had actually been called the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a line created by several intermarriages between English and German royal cousins.

An Impoverished Childhood

Teackle Warfield had been an unsuccessful Baltimore businessman. After his death, Alice and Bessie-Wallis moved in with her mother-in-law in Baltimore. Hostilities between the women quickly escalated and they were forced to relocate to a dismal section of the city, where Alice Warfield was the proprietress of a boardinghouse for a time. In the end, however, the women were supported by the charity of Teackle's wealthy brother, Solomon Warfield. It was this uncle who paid the tuition for the private schools that Wallis attended.

By the time she was eighteen, Wallis had become an attractive young woman, known for her poised manners and vivacious personality. On a visit to Florida in 1916, she met a young naval lieutenant, Earl Winfield Spencer, and the two quickly fell in love. A native of Chicago, Spencer was one of the first twenty men in the U.S. Navy to earn pilot's wings. They married in November 1916. The brief courtship had not revealed Spencer's fondness for drink. The couple lived on the Pensacola naval base, which Wallis, as she was then known, detested. A deafening crash gong would sound whenever one of the base's planes had gone down. Once it tolled for her husband, who was fortunately unhurt when his aircraft dove into the bay. From these experiences she acquired a hatred of planes, and would suffer from a lifelong fear of flying.

Lived in Asia

Wallis eventually separated from Spencer and settled in Washington near her mother. Her uncle forbade her to petition for divorce, which was a very scandalous legal act at the time. When Spencer was posted to the Far East, she conducted an affair with a dashing Argentinean diplomat. After he tired of her, she was brokenhearted, and joined Spencer in China in 1924. Though the marriage soon disintegrated once more, Wallis remained in China for over two years. She lived with some friends, American raconteurs by the name of Herman and Katherine Rogers, and supplemented her meager income as a naval officer's wife with poker-game winnings.

In 1926, Wallis defied her family and moved to Virginia for a year, in order to obtain a divorce. When her uncle died, she inherited a small trust fund that yielded $60 a month. She had probably counted on a more generous sum, since it was nearly impossible for a woman of her well-heeled, but unskilled and uneducated status to earn any income on her own in 1927. Instead, her disapproving uncle had directed that the bulk of his fortune be used to establish a home for "aged and indigent gentlewomen," where, according to the terms of his will, a room was to be reserved permanently for his niece, should she need it.

Second Marriage

Before her divorce became final, in late 1927, Wallis had already met Anglo-American businessman, Ernest Simpson. This well-to-do, cultured Harvard alumnus had also extracted himself from an unhappy marriage. He moved to London to run his family's shipping business, while she stayed with friends in the south of France. Before long, she accepted Simpson's proposal of marriage, having few other alternatives. They married in July 1928.

In London, the Simpsons fell into a circle of well-connected American expatriates, and became friendly with Thelma, Viscountess Furness, who - though married - was also the mistress of the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne. Simpson was known for her scathing wit and clever banter as a dinner guest. She and the prince probably met in January 1931. "David," as the prince was known, was a charming, affable man two years her senior, described as the world's most eligible bachelor. Though perhaps not in possession of a keen intelligence, the future king was a good soul who enjoyed gardening, bagpipe-playing, and charming women.

Hand of Fate Forced Resolution

The prince soon became a frequent dinner guest at the Simpson home on Bryanston Square, and even bestowed upon Wallis a cairn puppy as a gift, after noticing her fondness for his own dogs. They began traveling together. Buckingham Palace courtiers were becoming distressed by the affair of the king's eldest son with a married, once-divorced American woman. The prince appeared to be deeply in love with Simpson. When she learned that her husband was having an affair in New York, Simpson hired a lawyer recommended by the prince.

Their blithe romance suddenly became a critical matter when King George V died on January 20, 1936. The Prince of Wales ascended to the British throne as Edward VIII, but the coronation would not take place until the spring of 1937, after an appropriate period of mourning. Despite his new duties as ruler of 486 million subjects, he and Simpson continued to be inseparable. In late 1936, the prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, confronted the new king over the affair. Edward firmly declared his intention to marry Simpson once her divorce was finalized. As rumors began trickling out in the British press, public and conservative clerical furor escalated. A constitutional crisis was feared. If the king disregarded parliamentary "advice" regarding suitable spouses for the royal family, there was the possibility of the entire government resigning in protest. Parliament would then have to be dissolved, and a general election called. The very end of the monarchy itself was predicted.

As word of her impending divorce leaked, Simpson began receiving abusive letters. Crowds gathered outside her London apartment. Her divorce would be final in April 1937, and the coronation was slated for May 12. The new king planned to boycott the ceremony unless he was allowed to marry Simpson, since no actual statute barred him from marrying anyone of his choosing, except a Roman Catholic. The king's surprising new sympathies toward millions of unemployed Welsh miners further alienated him from the ruling Tory government. Simpson departed England and tried to dissuade him from placing his throne in jeopardy.

Abdication

A firm display of political opposition finally drove the exhausted and distraught king to abdicate his throne. On December 10, 1936, Edward announced his intentions in a radio broadcast to the nation. He declared: "I have found it impossible to carry out 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." This concluded one of the most heavily reported media stories of the decade. The former king was given the title Duke of Windsor, while his brother "Bertie," ascended to the throne. The new duke agreed to never return to England without permission of the reigning sovereign, in exchange for a generous annual income.

After a separation of several more months, before her divorce was final, Simpson and the Duke were wed at a chateau in France. The terrier that the duke had once given her, was sent to Simpson as their day of reconciliation neared. Shortly after the dog's arrival in France, he was bitten by a snake and died. Simpson considered it an ominous sign and wept profusely.

Simpson and the duke were married on June 3, 1937. The Anglican cleric who performed the ceremony was formally reprimanded. No member of the royal family attended the festivities. The duke received a letter from his brother, the new king, stating that any children resulting from his marriage to Simpson would not be royal and that his new bride would be denied the title of "Her Royal Highness (HRH)."

Fear of Abduction

After their marriage, the Windsors toured Nazi Germany and were received by Adolf Hitler, a trip which further eroded popular support. When war erupted between England and Germany in 1939, the duke was immediately recalled to England and given a military commission in France. When the German army invaded France, they fled to neutral Spain and then Portugal. Winston Churchill, now prime minister, offered the duke a government post, but he dallied before accepting it in an attempt to win the "HRH" title for his wife. British leaders were concerned that the couple's previous display of Nazi sympathy made them vulnerable. The Germans, it was feared, could abduct the Windsors and re-install the duke on the British throne after a successful invasion of the British Isles.

The duke was safely ensconced as governor of the Bahamas in August 1940. He and the duchess lived there for five years and very much disliked the heat. Her only consolation was the occasional shopping trip to New York or Palm Beach. In 1941, it was reported that she and the duke visited a Canadian ranch with 146 pieces of luggage. This incident sparked a period of negative publicity about the Duchess of Windsor and her extravagant tastes in clothes and jewelry.

A Life of Glamorous Leisure

Following the war's end, the Windsors lived primarily in France, eventually settling several miles outside of Paris at a home on the Bois de Boulogne. They each penned autobiographies in the 1950s (hers was titled The Heart Has Its Reasons) and she regularly appeared on lists of the world's best-dressed women. By the late 1960s, the duke had reconciled somewhat with his family. In 1967, he and the duchess returned to England for a formal visit. The duke had been a lifelong smoker, and was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1971. Queen Elizabeth visited the couple at their Paris home. The duke died on May 28, 1972 and his widow was invited to stay at Buckingham Palace for the funeral. A telephoto lens captured her watching the annual Trooping of the Colors, always held on the queen's birthday, from a window at the palace. She looked utterly bereft.

Back in Paris, the duchess rarely entertained after her husband's death. She began to suffer increasing health problems, including coronary artery disease. In the 1980s she lived in near-total seclusion, rarely seen in public. She died at home in Paris on April 24, 1986. The bulk of her estate was left to the Pasteur Institute, a leader in HIV/AIDS research. She is buried alongside the duke in the royal mausoleum at Frogmore.

Further Reading

Birmingham, Stephen, Duchess: The Story of Wallis Warfield Simpson, Little, Brown, 1981.

Dictionary of National Biography, 1986-1990, edited by C. S.Nicholls, Oxford University Press, 1996.

Garrett, Richard, Mrs. Simpson, St. Martin's Press, 1979.

Martin, Ralph, The Woman He Loved, Simon & Schuster, 1973.

British History: Mrs Wallis Simpson
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Simpson, Mrs Wallis (1896-1986). Wife of Edward, duke of Windsor. Born into a Baltimore family, Bessie Wallis Warfield first married an aviator, Earl Winfield Spencer, but his fondness for drink led to divorce. On returning to Baltimore she met an English businessman, Ernest Simpson, and in 1928 became the second Mrs Simpson, moving with her husband to London. Two years later an American friend, Thelma, Lady Furness, introduced her to Edward, the prince of Wales. Mrs Simpson lacked beauty, but oozed wit and charm; Edward found in her the feminine sympathy and understanding he craved. In 1936 she divorced Mr Simpson, and Edward gave up his throne in order to marry her. The couple enjoyed a devoted but childless marriage of some 35 years; she is buried next to him at Frogmore.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Wallis Warfield duchess of Windsor
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Windsor, Wallis Warfield, duchess of (wĭn'zər),1896-1986, American-born wife of Edward, duke of Windsor, who, as Edward VIII, abdicated the British throne in order to marry her. In 1916 she married a naval lieutenant, from whom she was divorced in 1927. The next year she married Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an American businessman residing in London, where she met Edward, who was then prince of Wales. The friendship between Mrs. Simpson and the prince continued after he succeeded to the throne in Jan., 1936. In Oct., 1936, Mrs. Simpson obtained a divorce decree nisi. Rumors of a projected marriage of Edward and Mrs. Simpson preceded the crisis of Dec., 1936, which resulted in Edward's abdication. On Apr. 27, 1937, the Simpson divorce became final, and Mrs. Simpson legally changed her name to Wallis Warfield. On June 3 she married Edward in France, where they made their home. By special letters patent it was provided that the duchess of Windsor should not share her husband's royal rank. Exiled, she and Edward remained in France and became prominent in international social circles. She was not officially invited back to Britain until 1967. She attended Edward's funeral in England in 1972 and was buried next to him at her death.

Bibliography

See her memoir, The Heart Has Its Reasons (1956).

Wikipedia: Wallis, Duchess of Windsor
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Wallis Warfield
Duchess of Windsor
Wallis Simpson in 1936
Spouse Earl Winfield Spencer, Jr.
(m. 1916, div. 1927)
Ernest Aldrich Simpson
(m. 1928, div. 1937)
Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor
(m. 1937)
Full name
Bessie Wallis[1] (née Warfield)
Father Teackle Wallis Warfield
Mother Alice Montague
Born 19 June 1896(1896-06-19)[2]
Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania
Died 24 April 1986 (aged 89)
Bois de Boulogne, Paris
Burial Frogmore, Windsor
Occupation Socialite

Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Spencer, then Simpson; 19 June 1896[2] – 24 April 1986) was an American socialite who married, as her third husband, Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom.

Wallis's father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to a U.S. naval officer, was punctuated with periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1934, during her second marriage, she allegedly became the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. Two years later, after Edward's accession as King, Wallis divorced her second husband and Edward proposed to her.

The King's desire to marry a twice-divorced American with two living ex-husbands caused a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, which ultimately led to the King's abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love".[3] After the abdication, the former king was created Duke of Windsor by his brother George VI. Edward married Wallis six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, without the style "Her Royal Highness".

Before, during and after World War II, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathisers. In the 1950s and 1960s, she and the Duke shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.

Contents

Early life

Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club, at the resort town of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. She was the only child of Teackle Wallis Warfield and Alice Montague.[4] She was named in honour of her father and her mother's sister, Mrs Bessie Buchanan Merryman, and was generally known as Wallis.

The dates of her birth and of her parents' marriage are unclear.[2][5][6] Her parents were married on either 19 November 1895[7] or the same day of the following year.[6] Her father died of tuberculosis on either 15 November 1896,[7] or the same day of the following year.[6] For her first few years, she was raised in Baltimore, Maryland, in modest, even impoverished, circumstances, dependent upon the charity of a wealthy uncle, Solomon Warfield.[8]

In 1901, her aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her large and comfortable house at 9 West Chase Street, Baltimore. A fellow pupil at Wallis's school recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did."[9] Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well.[10]

In 1908, Wallis's mother, Alice, married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin. On 17 April 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Protestant Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, even though there are no contemporaneous records of her ever being baptised.[6] Between 1912 and 1914, Solomon Warfield paid for Wallis to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland. There she made friends with heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont, of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware.[11]

First marriage

In May 1916, Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer, Jr., a U.S. Navy pilot, at Pensacola, Florida, while visiting her cousin Corinne Mustin.[12] It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a life-long fear of flying.[13] On 8 November 1916, the couple married at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore which had been Wallis's parish. Win, as her husband was known, was an alcoholic. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed.[14] After the United States entered World War I in 1917, Spencer was posted to a training base in San Diego, where they remained until 1920.[15] In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego but he and Wallis never met.[16] Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they were reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer had been posted. They soon separated again, and in 1923, when Spencer was posted to the Far East as commander of the Pampanga, Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe Espil.[17] In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin,[18] before sailing to the Far East aboard a troop carrier. The Spencers were briefly reunited until she fell ill from drinking contaminated water, after which she was evacuated to Hong Kong.[19]

An Italian diplomat remembered Wallis from her time in China: "Her conversation was brilliant and she had the habit of bringing up the right subject of conversation with anyone she came in contact with and entertaining them on that subject."[20] According to Hui-lan Koo, the second wife of the Chinese diplomat and later President of the Republic of China Wellington Koo, the only Mandarin phrase that Wallis learned during her sojourn in Asia was "Boy, pass me the champagne".[21][22]

Wallis toured China, and stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain long-term friends, while in Beijing.[23] According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs Milton E. Miles, it was there that Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, later Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, had an affair with him, and became pregnant, leading to a botched abortion that left her unable to conceive.[24] The rumour was later widespread but never substantiated and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it.[25] By September 1925, Wallis and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart.[26] They divorced on 10 December 1927.[4]

Second marriage

By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had already become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, a mild-mannered half-English, half-American shipping executive and former captain in the Coldstream Guards.[27] He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis Spencer on 21 July 1928 at the Register Office in Chelsea, London.[4] Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes where she was staying with her friends, Mr and Mrs Rogers.[28]

The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair.[29] In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who was by now married to Charles Gordon Allen. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on 2 November 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants.[30]

Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, the then-mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales.[31] On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince.[32] The Prince was the eldest son of George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff.[33]

Relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales

In December 1933, while Lady Furness was away in New York, Wallis allegedly became the Prince's mistress. Edward denied this to his father, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as "evidence of a physical sexual act".[34] Wallis soon ousted Lady Furness, and distanced the Prince from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward.[35]

By 1934, Edward was irretrievably besotted with Wallis, finding her domineering manner and abrasive irreverence toward his position appealing; in the words of his official biographer, he became "slavishly dependent" on her.[17] At an evening party in Buckingham Palace, he introduced her to his mother—his father was outraged,[36] primarily on account of her marital history (divorced people were excluded from court).[37] Edward showered Wallis with money and jewels,[38] and in February 1935, and again later in the year, he holidayed with her in Europe.[39] His courtiers became increasingly alarmed as the affair began to interfere with his official duties.[40]

In 1935, Special Branch detectives reported that Wallis was also having an affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, an engineer who was "said to be employed by the Ford Motor Company". Such claims were doubted, however, by Captain Val Bailey, who knew Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades.[41]

Abdication crisis

Main article: Edward VIII abdication crisis

On 20 January 1936, George V died and Edward ascended the throne as Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his accession from a window of St. James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis.[42] It was becoming apparent to Court and Government circles that Edward meant to marry her.[43] The King's behaviour and his relationship with Wallis made him unpopular with the Conservative-led British government, as well as distressing his mother and brother.[44] Although the pre-war British media remained deferential to the monarchy, and no stories of the affair were reported in the domestic press, foreign media widely reported their relationship.[45]

Wallis was named Woman of the Year by Time magazine in 1936. It was the first time the magazine had a Woman rather than a Man of the Year.

The monarch of the United Kingdom is Supreme Governor of the Church of England—at the time of the proposed marriage, and until 2002, the Church of England did not permit the re-marriage of divorced people with living ex-spouses.[46] Accordingly, while there was no civil law barrier to Edward marrying Wallis, the constitutional position was that the King could not marry a divorcée and remain as King (for to do so would conflict with his role as Supreme Governor).[47] Furthermore, the British government and the governments of the Dominions were against the idea of marriage between the King and an American divorcée for other reasons.[48] She was perceived by many in the British Empire as a woman of "limitless ambition",[49] who was pursuing the King because of his wealth and position.[50]

Wallis had already filed for divorce from her second husband and the decree nisi was granted on 27 October 1936.[51] Her relationship with the King had become public knowledge in the United Kingdom by early December. Wallis decided to flee the country as the scandal broke, being driven to the south of France in a dramatic race to outrun the press. For the next three months, she was under siege by the press at the Villa Lou Viei, near Cannes, the home of her close friends Herman and Katherine Rogers.[52]

Back in the United Kingdom, the King consulted with the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, on a way to marry Wallis and keep the throne. The King suggested a morganatic marriage, where the King would remain King but Wallis would not be Queen, but this was rejected by Baldwin and the Prime Ministers of Australia and South Africa.[48] If the King were to marry Wallis against Baldwin's advice, the Government would be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis.[53]

At her hideaway in the south of France, Wallis was pressured by the King's Lord-in-Waiting, Peregrine Cust, 6th Baron Brownlow, to renounce the King. On 7 December 1936, Lord Brownlow read to the press her statement, which he had helped her draft, indicating Wallis's readiness to give up the King.[54] However, Edward was determined to marry Wallis. As the issue of abdication gathered strength, John Theodore Goddard, Wallis's solicitor, stated: "[his] client was ready to do anything to ease the situation but the other end of the wicket [Edward VIII] was determined." This seemingly indicated that the King had decided he had no option but to abdicate if he wished to marry Wallis.[55]

The King signed the Instrument of Abdication on 10 December 1936, in the presence of his three surviving brothers, the Duke of York (who would ascend the throne the following day as George VI), the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. Special laws passed by the Parliaments of the Dominions finalised Edward's abdication the following day, or in Ireland's case one day later. On 11 December 1936, Edward made a broadcast to the people, saying of Wallis, "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."[56]

Afterwards, Prince Edward left Britain and went to Austria, staying at Schloss Enzesfeld, the home of Baron Eugen and Baroness Kitty de Rothschild. Edward had to remain apart from Wallis until there was no danger of compromising the granting of a decree absolute in her divorce proceedings. Upon her divorce being made final in May 1937, she resumed her maiden name of Wallis Warfield. The couple were reunited at the Château de Candé, Monts, France, on 4 May 1937.[57]

Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor

The Windsors on their wedding day

Wallis and Edward married one month later on 3 June 1937, which would have been King George V's 72nd birthday. The wedding took place at the Château de Candé, lent to them by Charles Bedaux, who later worked actively for Nazi Germany in World War II.[58] No member of the British Royal Family attended the wedding. The marriage was to be childless.

Edward had previously been created Duke of Windsor by his brother, the new George VI. However, letters patent, passed by the new King and unanimously supported by the Dominion governments,[59] prevented Wallis, now the Duchess of Windsor, from using the style of Her Royal Highness. The new King's firm view, that the Duchess should not be given a royal title, was shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother).[60] At first, the Royal Family did not accept the Duchess and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and siblings after his abdication. Some biographers have suggested that Queen Elizabeth, Edward's sister-in-law, remained bitter towards Wallis for her role in bringing George VI to the throne (which she may have seen as a factor in George VI's early death),[61] and for prematurely behaving as Edward's consort when she was his mistress.[62] But these claims were denied by Queen Elizabeth's close friends; for example, the Duke of Grafton wrote that she "never said anything nasty about the Duchess of Windsor, except to say she really hadn't got a clue what she was dealing with."[63] On the other hand, the Duchess of Windsor referred to Queen Elizabeth alternatively as "Mrs Temple" or as "Cookie", alluding to her solid figure and fondness for food, and to her daughter, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), as "Shirley", as in Shirley Temple.[64] The Duchess bitterly resented the denial of the royal title and the refusal of the Duke's relatives to accept her as part of the family.[17][65] However, within the household of the Duke and Duchess, the style "Her Royal Highness" was used by those who were close to the couple.[66]

According to the wife of former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford, who knew both the future Queen Mother and the Duchess of Windsor but was only friendly with the latter, the Queen's antipathy toward her sister-in-law may have had a deeper source. As Lady Mosley wrote to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, after the death of the Duke of Windsor, "probably the theory of their [the Windsors'] contemporaries that Cake [a Mitford nickname for the Queen Mother, derived from her confectionary fashion sense] was rather in love with him [the Duke] (as a girl) & took second best, may account for much."[67]

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor with Adolf Hitler.

The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they visited Germany as personal guests of the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, a tour much publicised by the German media. Hitler said of the Duchess, "she would have made a good Queen."[68] The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent,[17] a claim that she acknowledged (but denied) in her letters to the Duke.[69] FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathiser. The ex-Duke of Württemberg told the FBI that she and leading Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop had been lovers in London.[70] There were even rather improbable reports during World War II that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table,[71] and had continued to pass details to him even during the invasion of France.[72]

World War II

Following the outbreak of war in 1939, the Duke was given a military post in the British Army stationed in France. According to the son of William Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside, the Duchess continued to entertain friends associated with the fascist movement, and leaked details of the French and Belgian defences gleaned from the Duke.[73] When the Germans invaded the north of France and bombed Britain in May 1940, the Duchess told an American journalist, "I can't say I feel sorry for them."[74] As the German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris home, first to Biarritz, then in June to Spain. There, she told the United States ambassador, Alexander W. Weddell, that France had lost because it was "internally diseased".[75] In July, the pair moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where the British ambassador billeted them at first in the home of a banker who may have been a double agent working for both Germany and Britain.[76] In August, a British warship dispatched the pair to the Bahamas and the Duke was installed as Governor.

Wallis performed her role as the Governor's lady competently for five years. However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena", in a reference to Napoleon Bonaparte's final place of exile.[77] She was heavily criticised for her extravagant shopping trips to the United States, undertaken when Britain was under rationing and blackout.[17] Her racist attitudes towards the local population (she called them "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt) reflected her upbringing.[78][79] In 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill strenuously objected when she and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean aboard a yacht belonging to a Swedish magnate, Axel Wenner-Gren, whom Churchill stated to be "pro-German". Churchill felt compelled to complain again when the Duke gave a "defeatist" interview.[80] The British establishment distrusted the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge wrote that her anti-British activities were motivated by a desire for revenge against the country that rejected her as its queen.[81] After the war, the couple returned to France and retirement.

Later life and death

The Duchess of Windsor in 1970

In 1946, when the Duchess was staying at Ednam Lodge, the home of the Earl of Dudley, some of her jewels were stolen. There were rumours that the theft had been masterminded by the British Royal Family, as an attempt to regain jewels taken from the Royal Collection by the Duke, or by the Windsors themselves—they made a large deposit of loose stones at Cartier the following year. However, in 1960, Richard Dunphie confessed to the crime. The stolen pieces were only a small portion of the Windsor jewels, which were either bought privately, inherited by the Duke, or given to the Duke when he was Prince of Wales.[82]

On George VI's death in 1952, the Duke returned to England for the funeral. The Duchess did not attend; the previous October whilst staying in London she had told her husband, "I hate this country. I shall hate it to my grave."[83] Later that year, they were offered the use of a house by the Paris municipal authorities. The couple lived at 4 rue du Champ d'Entraînement in Neuilly near Paris for most of the remainder of their lives, essentially living a life of easy retirement.[84] They bought a second home in the country, where they soon became close friends with their neighbours, Oswald and Diana Mosley.[85] Years later, Diana Mosley claimed that the Duke and Duchess shared her and her husband's views that Hitler should have been given a free hand to destroy Communism.[86] As the Duke himself wrote in the New York Daily News of 13 December 1966: "...it was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too, that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash Communism forever ... I thought the rest of us could be fence-sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out."[87]

In 1965, when the Duke and Duchess visited London as the Duke required eye surgery, the Queen and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent visited them. Later, in 1967, the Duke and Duchess joined the Royal Family in London for the unveiling of a plaque by the Queen to commemorate the centenary of Queen Mary's birth.[88] Both the Queen and Prince Charles visited the Windsors in Paris in the Duke's later years, the Queen's visit coming only shortly before the Duke died.[89]

Upon the Duke's death from cancer in 1972, the increasingly senile and frail Duchess travelled to England to attend his funeral,[90] staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit.[91] The Duchess lived the remainder of her life as a recluse, supported by both her husband's estate and an allowance from the Queen.[92] In October 1976, she was due to receive the Queen Mother, but as the Duchess was too frail and mentally absent to receive her, her staff cancelled the visit at the last minute. The Queen Mother sent flowers with a card reading, "In Friendship, Elizabeth."[93] After her husband's death, the Duchess gave her legal authority to her French lawyer, Suzanne Blum.[94] This potentially exploitative relationship was explored in Caroline Blackwood's book The Last of the Duchess, written in 1980, but not published until after Blum's death in 1995.[95] In 1980, the Duchess lost the power of speech.[96] Toward the end, she was bed-ridden and did not receive any visitors, apart from her doctor and nurses.

The Duchess of Windsor died on 24 April 1986 at her home in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris.[4] Her funeral was held at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by her two surviving sisters-in-law: the Queen Mother and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester. The Queen, Prince Philip, and the Prince and Princess of Wales attended both the funeral ceremony and the burial. She was buried next to Edward in the Royal Burial Ground near Windsor Castle, as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor".[97] Until a 1965 agreement with Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke and Duchess had previously planned for a burial in a purchased cemetery plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where the father of the Duchess was interred.[98]

Most of her estate went to the Pasteur Institute medical research foundation, on the instructions of Suzanne Blum. The decision took the Royal Family and the Duchess's friends by surprise, as she had shown no interest in charity during her life.[99] In an auction at Sotheby's in April 1987 the Duchess's remarkable jewelry collection raised $45 million for the Institute, approximately seven times its pre-sale estimate.[100] In recognition of the help France gave to the Duke and Duchess in providing them with a home, and in lieu of death duties, the Duchess's collection of Louis XVI furniture, some porcelain and paintings were made over to the French state.[101] The British Royal Family received no major bequests. Mohammed Al-Fayed, owner of Harrods department store, bought much of the non-financial estate, including the lease of the Paris mansion. The bulk of his collection was sold in 1998, the year after his son's death in the car accident that also claimed the life of Diana, Princess of Wales. The sale raised more than £14 million for charity.[97]

Legacy

Wallis was plagued by rumours of other lovers. The otherwise homosexual American playboy Jimmy Donahue, an heir to the Woolworth fortune, claimed to have had a liaison with the Duchess in the 1950s, but Donahue was notorious for his inventive pranks and rumour-mongering.[102] The existence of a so-called "China dossier" (detailing the supposed sexual and criminal exploits of Wallis in China) is denied by virtually all historians and biographers.[103] Although there have been rumours of pregnancy and abortion, most notably involving Count Ciano in China, there is no hard evidence that the Duchess became pregnant by any of her lovers or her three husbands. Claims that she suffered from androgen insensitivity syndrome, also known as testicular feminisation,[41][104] seem improbable, if not impossible, given her operation for uterine fibroids in 1951.[105]

The Duchess published her ghost-written memoirs, The Heart Has Its Reasons, in 1956. Author Charles Higham says of the book, "facts were remorselessly rearranged in what amounted to a self-performed face-lift ... reflecting in abundance its author's politically misguided but winning and desirable personality." He describes the Duchess as "charismatic, electric and compulsively ambitious".[106] Hearsay, conjecture and politically motivated propaganda have clouded assessment of the Duchess of Windsor's life, unhelped by her own manipulation of the truth. But there is no document which proves directly that she was anything other than a victim of her own ambition, who lived out a great romance that became a great tragedy. In the opinion of her biographers, "she experienced the ultimate fairy tale, becoming the adored favourite of the most glamorous bachelor of his time. The idyll went wrong when, ignoring her pleas, he threw up his position to spend the rest of his life with her."[107] Academics agree that she ascended a precipice that

left her with fewer alternatives than she had anticipated. Somehow she thought that the Establishment could be overcome once [Edward] was king, and she confessed frankly to Aunt Bessie about her "insatiable ambitions" ... Trapped by his flight from responsibility into exactly the role she had sought, suddenly she warned him, in a letter, "You and I can only create disaster together" ... she predicted to society hostess Sybil Colefax, "two people will suffer" because of "the workings of a system" ... Denied dignity, and without anything useful to do, the new Duke of Windsor and his Duchess would be international society's most notorious parasites for a generation, while they thoroughly bored each other ... She had thought of him as emotionally a Peter Pan, and of herself an Alice in Wonderland. The book they had written together, however, was a Paradise Lost.[108]

The Duchess herself is reported to have summed up her life in a sentence: "You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."[109]

In popular culture

Wallis was portrayed by Faye Dunaway in The Woman I Love (1972, made-for-TV movie), by Cynthia Harris in Edward & Mrs. Simpson (1978, seven-part miniseries), by Jane Seymour in The Woman He Loved (1988, made-for-TV movie), and by Joely Richardson in Wallis & Edward (2005, made-for-TV movie). Bertie and Elizabeth (2002, made-for-TV movie) tells the story from the point of view of Edward's brother Bertie, who became George VI after the abdication.[110] Jane Hartley portrayed Wallis Simpson in the 1997 West End musical Always.[111] Madonna is reportedly planning a movie-musical about Wallis.[112]

In his 1981 novel Famous Last Words, award-winning Canadian author Timothy Findley concocts his plot around several World War II-era prominent characters; "Mrs Simpson" is depicted as manipulative yet also tragic. Author Anne Edwards wrote a sympathetic account of Wallis's early life culminating with her marriage to Edward in her 1991 book Wallis: The Novel. Wallis also features in a short story by Rose Tremain called "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson", a play called The Duchess by Linda Griffiths, and in the fifth and final Young Bond book by Charlie Higson, By Royal Command.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

  • 19 June 1896 – 8 November 1916: Miss Warfield
  • 8 November 1916 – 21 July 1928: Mrs Spencer
  • 21 July 1928 – 7 May 1937: Mrs Simpson
  • 7 May – 3 June 1937: Mrs Wallis Warfield[51][113]
  • 3 June 1937 – 24 April 1986: Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor
  • During Edward's term as Governor of The Bahamas (18 August 1940 – 28 July 1945), Wallis was entitled to be known as Her Excellency. However, this was subsumed by the superior appellation Her Grace, to which she was entitled as a duchess.
  • Edward could not accept that his wife had been denied the style Her Royal Highness, and she was unofficially styled within their own household as Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Windsor.

Ancestry

The Duchess of Windsor had a common ancestor on indirect line(Mareen Duvall) with two U.S. Presidents (Harry S. Truman and Barack Obama), and actor Robert Duvall.[114][115][116]

The Duchess of Windsor's ancestors in three generations[117]


 Daniel Warfield
Nancy Mactier
Richard Emory
Anna Gittings
Henry Brown Montague
Mary Anne Moody
Thomas Love
Frances Priscilla Presbury
Henry Mactier Warfield
Anna Emory
William Latane Montague
Sallie Howard Love
Teackle Wallis Warfield
(1861–1896)
Alice (Alys) Montague
(1869–1929)
Wallis, Duchess of Windsor

Footnotes and sources

  1. ^ After her marriage to the Duke of Windsor, Wallis probably had no surname—if she did have one, it was his family name, Windsor.
  2. ^ a b c On a 1924 ship's passenger manifest for the SS France, accessible on ellisisland.org, her birthdate is given as 19 February 1892, though her age was listed as 28. According to the 1900 census returns, quoted by author Charles Higham, she was born in June 1895, before her parents' marriage (Higham, p. 4). Author Greg King, noted that, though Higham's "scandalous assertion of illegitimacy enlivens the telling of the Duchess's life", "the evidence to support it is slim indeed", and that it "strains credulity" (King, p. 11). Most sources agree on 19 June 1896.
  3. ^ Windsor, The Duke of (1951), A King's Story, London: Cassell and Co Ltd, p. 413 
  4. ^ a b c d Weir, Alison (1995), Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy Revised edition, Random House, p. 328, ISBN 0-7126-7448-9 
  5. ^ King, Greg (1999), The Duchess of Windsor, Citadel Press, p. 11, ISBN 1-55972-471-4 
  6. ^ a b c d Higham, Charles (2005), Mrs Simpson, Pan Books, p. 4, ISBN 0-330-42678-8 
  7. ^ a b King, p. 13
  8. ^ Higham, p. 5
  9. ^ Higham, p. 7
  10. ^ Higham, p. 8
  11. ^ Higham, pp. 12–13
  12. ^ Higham, p. 18
  13. ^ Higham, p. 20
  14. ^ Higham, pp. 23–24
  15. ^ Higham, pp. 26–28
  16. ^ Higham, p. 29
  17. ^ a b c d e Ziegler, Philip (2004), "Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press), doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/38277, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/38277, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  18. ^ Bloch, Michael (1996), The Duchess of Windsor, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, p. 22, ISBN 0297835904 
  19. ^ Higham, p. 38
  20. ^ Higham, p. 46
  21. ^ Koo, Madame Wellington (1943), Hui-Lan Koo: An Autobiography as told to Mary van Rensselaer Thayer, New York: Dial Press 
  22. ^ Maher, Catherine (31 October 1943), "Madame Wellington Koo's Life Story", New York Times: BR7 
  23. ^ Higham, p. 47
  24. ^ Higham, p. 50
  25. ^ Moseley, Ray (1999), Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano, New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 9–10, ISBN 0-300-07917-6 
  26. ^ Higham, pp. 50–51
  27. ^ Higham, pp. 53–54
  28. ^ Higham, p. 58
  29. ^ Higham, p. 64
  30. ^ Higham, p. 67
  31. ^ Higham, p. 68
  32. ^ Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, p. 37
  33. ^ Higham, pp. 73–80
  34. ^ Diary of Clive Wigram, 1st Baron Wigram quoted in Bradford, Sarah (1989), George VI, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, pp. 145–147, ISBN 0297796674 
  35. ^ Ziegler, Philip (1991), King Edward VIII: The official biography, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 227–228, ISBN 0-394-57730-2 
  36. ^ Ziegler, p. 231
  37. ^ Beaverbrook, Lord; Edited by A. J. P. Taylor (1966), The Abdication of King Edward VIII, London: Hamish Hamilton, p. 111 
  38. ^ Ziegler, p. 238
  39. ^ Higham, p. 113 and p. 125 ff
  40. ^ Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, pp. 58 and 71
  41. ^ a b Fox, James (1 September 2003), "The Oddest Couple", Vanity Fair (517): 276–291, ISSN 07338899 
  42. ^ The Duke of Windsor, p. 265
  43. ^ Ziegler, pp. 277–278
  44. ^ Ziegler, pp. 289–292
  45. ^ Broad, Lewis (1961), The Abdication, London: Frederick Muller Ltd, p. 44 
  46. ^ Marriage in Church After a Divorce, The Church of England, http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/papers/mcad/, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  47. ^ Beaverbrook, pp. 39–44 and p. 122
  48. ^ a b Ziegler, pp. 305–307
  49. ^ Sir Horace Wilson writing to Neville Chamberlain quoted in Higham, p. 191
  50. ^ Ziegler, p. 234 and p. 312
  51. ^ a b Ashley, Mike (1998), The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens, London: Robinson, p. 701, ISBN 1-84119-096-9 
  52. ^ The Duke of Windsor, p. 359
  53. ^ Beaverbrook, p. 57
  54. ^ Tinniswood, Adrian (1992), Belton House, The National Trust, p. 34, ISBN 0707801133 
  55. ^ Norton-Taylor, Richard; Evans, Rob (2 March 2000), "Edward and Mrs Simpson cast in new light", The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,191136,00.html, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  56. ^ The Duke of Windsor, p. 413
  57. ^ Higham, p. 224
  58. ^ Howarth, Patrick (1987), George VI, Hutchinson, p. 73, ISBN 0091710006 
  59. ^ Diary of Neville Chamberlain quoted in Bradford, p. 243
  60. ^ Home Office memo on the Duke and Duchess's title, National Archives, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/releases/2003/january30/edward_duke.htm, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  61. ^ Higham, p. 437
  62. ^ Bradford, p. 172
  63. ^ Hogg, James; Mortimer, Michael (2002), The Queen Mother Remembered, BBC books, pp. 84–85, ISBN 0-563-36214-6 
  64. ^ Bloch, Michael (1988), The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor, London: Bantam Books, p. 259, ISBN 059301667X 
  65. ^ See also, Bloch, Michael (ed.) (1986), Wallis and Edward: Letters 1931–1937, Summit Books, pp. 231, 233, ISBN 0-671-61209-3  Cited in Bradford, p. 232
  66. ^ Higham, p. 232
  67. ^ Letter from Lady Mosley to the Duchess of Devonshire, 5 June 1972, in Mosley, Charlotte (ed.) (2007). The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. London: Fourth Estate, p. 582.
  68. ^ Bowcott, Owen; Bates, Stephen (30 January 2003), "Fear that Windsors would 'flit' to Germany", The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/freedom/Story/0,2763,885183,00.html, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  69. ^ Higham, p. 203
  70. ^ Evans, Rob; Hencke, David (29 June 2002), "Wallis Simpson, the Nazi minister, the telltale monk and an FBI plot", The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4451107,00.html, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  71. ^ Bloch, Michael (1982), The Duke of Windsor's War, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, p. 355, ISBN 0297779478 
  72. ^ Higham, p. 317
  73. ^ Higham, p. 305
  74. ^ Higham, p. 313
  75. ^ Higham, p. 323
  76. ^ Bloch, The Duke of Windsor's War, p. 102
  77. ^ Higham, p. 330 and Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, pp. 153 and 159
  78. ^ Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, p. 165
  79. ^ When telling a story of how Wallis complained about blacks being allowed on Park Avenue (Manhattan), Joanne Cummings, the wife of Nathan Cummings, said of Wallis, "She grew up in the South, at a certain time, with certain prejudices." Source: Menkes, p. 88
  80. ^ Howarth, p. 130
  81. ^ Howarth, p. 113
  82. ^ Menkes, Suzy (1987), The Windsor Style, London: Grafton Books, pp. 192–193, ISBN 0246132124 
  83. ^ Higham, p. 443
  84. ^ Menkes, pp. 11–48
  85. ^ Higham, p. 449 and Ziegler, p. 545
  86. ^ Higham, p. 450
  87. ^ Higham, pp. 259–260
  88. ^ Higham, pp. 466–469
  89. ^ Higham, p. 473 and Bloch, The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor, p. 299
  90. ^ Conducted by William Launcelot Scott Fleming, Dean of Windsor (former Bishop of Portsmouth; and Norwich) The Times, Monday, 5 June 1972; p. 2; Issue 58496; col. E
  91. ^ Higham, pp. 477–479
  92. ^ Ziegler, p. 555
  93. ^ Higham, pp. 487–488
  94. ^ Higham, p. 490 and Menkes, p. 199
  95. ^ Blackwood, Lady Caroline (1995), The Last of the Duchess, Pantheon, ISBN 0679439706 
  96. ^ Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, p. 222
  97. ^ a b Simple funeral rites for Duchess, BBC, 29 April 1998, http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/29/newsid_2500000/2500427.stm, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  98. ^ Rasmussen, Frederick (29 April 1986), Windsors had a plot at Green Mount, Baltimore: The Baltimore Sun 
  99. ^ Menkes, p. 200
  100. ^ Culme, John; Rayner, Nicholas (1987), The Jewels of The Duchess of Windsor, New York: Vendome Press, p. 7 
  101. ^ Menkes, pp. 198, 206 and 207
  102. ^ Wilson, Christopher (2001), Dancing With the Devil: the Windsors and Jimmy Donahue, London: HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-653159-8 
  103. ^ Higham, p. 119 and Ziegler, p. 224
  104. ^ Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, pp. 10, 13, and 230
  105. ^ Ziegler, p. 533 and Higham, p. 496
  106. ^ Higham, pp. 452–453
  107. ^ Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, p. 231
  108. ^ Weintraub, Stanley (8 June 1986), Washington Post: X05 
  109. ^ Wilson, p. 179
  110. ^ Bertie and Elizabeth, Internet Movie Database, Inc, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310733/fullcredits#cast/, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  111. ^ Always, the Musical, Record Cabinet 
  112. ^ Cockcroft, Lucy (16 February 2009), Madonna bid to star in movie as Wallis Simpson, Telegraph Media Group Ltd, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/4636960/Madonna-bid-to-star-in-film-as-Wallis-Simpson.html, retrieved 2 September 2009 
  113. ^ Wallis resumed her maiden surname and dropped the name "Bessie" by deed poll on 7 May 1937
  114. ^ Reitwiesner, William Addams, Ancestry of Barack Obama, http://www.wargs.com/political/obama.html, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  115. ^ Fornek, Scott (9 September 2007), "Six degrees of Barack Obama", Chicago Sun Times, http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/familytree/545441,BSX-News-wotreec09.stng, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  116. ^ Notable Descendants of Mareen Duvall, The Society of Mareen Duvall Descendants, http://www.duvallsociety.org/notables.html, retrieved 9 May 2009 
  117. ^ Steinberg, Glenn A, European Royalty during World War II: Genealogical Tables. Ahnenreihe of Bessie Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, http://gsteinbe.intrasun.tcnj.edu/royalty/ahnenreihe/Simpson.html, retrieved 9 May 2009 

References

Further reading

  • Mosley, Diana (1980), The Duchess of Windsor, Sidgwick & Jackson 
  • Windsor, The Duchess of (1956), The Heart has its Reasons: The Memoirs of the Duchess of Windsor, New York: Houghton Mifflin 
  • Ziegler, Philip (1985), Mountbatten: the official biography, Collins 

External links

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