Wallis Simpson: The Woman Who Shook the British Monarchy. – HT
Wallace Simpson was an American socialite whose relationship with King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom triggered one of the greatest crises in the history of the British monarchy. Born Bessie Wallace Warfield in Pennsylvania, she came from a family that although once well off was undergoing clear financial decline.
From an early age she displayed an uncommon determination and ambition. Her charisma and sophistication led her to mingle with high society. But it would be her romance with Edward, the heir to the British throne, that would make her a controversial and fascinating historical figure.
This biography recounts her life from her origins in the United States to her role as Duchess of Windsor, culminating in the sad end that accompanied her final years. Before continuing with this fascinating biography, we invite you to subscribe to the channel and activate the notification bell so you do not miss any of our videos. Without further ado, let us begin.
Wallace was born on the 19th of June 1896 in Blue Ridge Summit, a summer resort on the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania. The only child of Teik Wallace Warfield and Alice Montigue. She lost her father to tuberculosis when she was only a few months old, leaving her and her mother in a precarious financial situation.
Mother and daughter depended on the support of her paternal uncle, Solomon Warfield, a wealthy banker from Baltimore, with whom they lived during part of Wallace’s childhood. Thanks to the family’s help, she received an excellent education. She attended the elite Oldfield School in Maryland, where she stood out for her intelligence and discipline.
She was brilliant, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the top of the class, and she did. A schoolmate later recalled, “From a young age, Wallace cultivated impeccable manners and a firm determination to achieve her goals. In 1916, in the bloom of youth, Wallace met naval aviator Earl Winfield Spencer Jr.
during a visit to Florida. After a brief courtship, the couple married on the 8th of November, 1916 in Baltimore. Wallace was 20 years old, becoming the wife of a United States Navy officer. However, the marriage was far from idyllic. Spencer, who served as a naval pilot, was an alcoholic and often disappeared for long periods.
On one occasion, he even crashed his sea plane after drinking before flying. During the First World War, Spencer was posted to a base in San Diego, California, where Wallace accompanied him. The young wife endured the typical strains of military life, including aircraft accidents that instilled in her a lifelong fear of flying.
The relationship deteriorated with repeated separations. In 1921, Spencer abandoned Wallace for several months, and in 1923, when he was assigned to a mission in the Far East, she chose to remain in the United States. During that period of separation, Wallace began an affair with Felipe Aa Espil, an Argentine diplomat, a sign that the Spencer marriage was in deep crisis.
In 1924, she traveled to Asia to rejoin her husband, spending a season in China, where she sharpened her social astuteness. An Italian diplomat of the period recalled that her conversation was brilliant, and she knew how to draw out the right topic with anyone. Even so, reconciliation with Spencer failed to materialize. Wallace contracted a serious gastrointestinal infection in China and had to be evacuated to Hong Kong to recover.
Returning to the United States in 1925, the couple lived apart and finally divorced on the 10th of December 1927, bringing an end to a turbulent union. By the time her first divorce was finalized, Wallace had already developed a relationship with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive.
Ernest Simpson left his first wife to marry Wallace, and the wedding took place on the 21st of July 1928 at the Chelsea Register Office in London. Through this marriage, Wallace entered the social circles of British high society. At the close of the roaring 20s, the couple settled in an elegant flat in Mayfair with several servants, and Wallace soon adapted to the lifestyle of the wellto-do London elite.
However, financial difficulties loomed. The Simpsons lavish way of life exceeded their means, and in 1929, after the Wall Street crash, Wallace lost much of her investments just as her mother died destitute. Despite these setbacks, Wallace continued to move in exclusive circles and cultivated influential friendships.
It was in this millure that her destiny took a historic turn. Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallace met Thelma Furness, Vic Countess Furness, who at the time was the current mistress of the Prince of Wales, Edward, heir to the British throne. Lady Feress introduced Wallace and Prince Edward on the 10th of January 1931 during a social reception.
In the years that followed, Wallace Simpson began to attend events where she frequently encountered the prince. Between 1931 and 1934, the Simpsons were regular guests at elite parties. With her sophistication and lively conversation, Wallace caught Edward’s attention, although at the time nothing suggested the scandal that was to come.
By 1934, however, the friendship had turned into intimacy. With Lady Fesse absent on a trip, Wallace became the prince’s new mistress towards the end of 1933. The heir to the throne, aged 39, fell deeply in love with the divorced American woman. Edward found Wallace’s strong and irreverent personality fascinating, as well as her manner of speaking to him without deference despite his rank.
His official biographer would later admit that the prince became survially dependent on Wallace to the point that he began to prioritize her company over his royal duties. Edward showered Wallace with luxurious gifts and jewelry and in 1935 took her on private trips across Europe, scandalizing courtiers. Wallace’s influence over the prince grew steadily and displaced not only Lady Fesse but also former confidants such as Freda Dudley Ward.
Meanwhile, Wallace’s husband Ernest Simpson faced the situation with tacit resignation as his own financial problems worsened. By 1934, the romance between Wallace and Edward was an open secret in certain circles, although the British press still suppressed it out of deference to the crown.
On the 20th of January 1936, King George V, Edward’s father, died, and the Prince of Wales ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. At that time, Wallace was still married to Ernest Simpson. But this did not prevent the new monarch from breaking protocol from the very first day. The morning after his father’s death, Edward VIII appeared greeting the accession council from a window of St.
James’s palace with Wallace Simpson at his side, an unprecedented public gesture, for she was not only a foreign commoner, but still had a living husband. This challenge to convention alarmed the court and the government. It soon became evident that the king intended to marry Wallace as soon as she was free. In private, Edward had already told his inner circle of his firm intention to take her as his wife once her divorce was finalized.
The prospect of Wallace Simpson becoming queen consort unleashed a political and religious storm. The British monarch is also supreme governor of the Church of England which at that time forbade marriage to a divorced person whose former spouse was still alive. Wallace divorced twice both her ex-husbands still living was deemed socially and politically unacceptable as a royal consort by the government and by the dominions of the British Empire.
There was no civil law preventing the king from marrying her. But there was a constitutional and moral barrier. Doing so would have created an irreconcilable conflict between the sovereigns duty and his personal desires. The authorities led by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made it clear that they would not approve the union.
In traditional British society, Wallace was viewed as an intriguer, a woman perceived by some as possessing an unlimited ambition and motivated by interest in the king’s wealth and position. The king’s own mother, Queen Mary, and his sister-in-law, the Duchess of York, the future Queen Mother, were horrified by the situation.
By mid 1936, Wallace took the initiative to free herself from her second marriage. On 27th October 1936, she obtained a provisional decree of divorce against Ernest Simpson in London, alleging his adultery with a childhood friend of hers. But that autumn, the romance with the king moved from rumor to open scandal when foreign newspapers began reporting it widely, finally forcing the British press to break its silence.
At the beginning of December 1936, with her name on everyone’s lips, Wallace decided to remove herself from the eye of the storm, she fled England and sought refuge at Villa Louuvier, the home of her friends Herman and Catherine Rogers in Khan on the French Riviera. There she was virtually besieged by journalists for months.
From London, a desperate solution was sought. Edward VIII consulted Prime Minister Baldwin about the possibility of a morganatic marriage, that is marrying Wallace without her being crowned queen. But this proposal was categorically rejected by the British cabinet and by the governments of the Commonwealth. Baldwin warned the king that if he insisted on marrying against his advice, the entire government would resign, triggering a constitutional crisis of enormous magnitude.
Meanwhile, in France, Edward’s associates pressed Wallace to renounce the relationship for the good of the realm. On the 7th of December 1936, Lord Peragrin Brow, acting on the king’s behalf, even drafted a statement for the press in which Wallace expressed her decision to give up the monarch’s love and withdraw from the scene.
In fact, Wallace was prepared to sacrifice her personal happiness to avoid Edward’s downfall, for she understood the grave consequences of the situation. But the king did not yield. Edward VIII made it clear that he would not abandon his intention to marry Wallace, even if it meant relinquishing the throne. “You will do nothing of the sort.
I will not tolerate it. With or without the throne, I am going to marry you, the monarch told her firmly when she, distressed, offered to step aside. Faced with Edward’s unshakable determination, Wallace had no choice but to watch from afar the outcome she and many others feared.
On 10th December 1936 at Windsor Castle, Edward VIII signed the instrument of abdication in the presence of his three brothers. The following day, the 11th of December, he officially ceased to be king after parliamentary approval of the document. That night, Edward addressed the nation by radio to explain his decision in a historic broadcast.
In it, he uttered words that would remain etched in the collective memory. You can believe me when I say that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king without the help and support of the woman I love. With this phrase, the former monarch publicly acknowledged that nothing could part him from Wallace Simpson.
Upon hearing the news of the abdication, Wallace reacted with a mixture of love and fury. The damned fool,” she exclaimed, berating Edward for sacrificing the crown. For although she loved him, she had never wished to bear the blame for precipitating the abdication. With the crisis concluded, the throne passed to Edward’s younger brother, the Duke of York, who was crowned as George V 6th, father of the future Elizabeth II.
Edward, now a highranking but idol prince, departed into exile in Europe. He was granted the title Duke of Windsor, but his newly minted title came with the bitter caveat that Wallace would not receive the style of her royal highness. This detail decided by the new king and supported by the family and the government wounded Edward deeply and especially Wallace who felt publicly slighted.
By order of George V 6th, the Duchess of Windsor, the title Wallace acquired upon her marriage, would never be accepted into the royal circle, nor invited to official events, deliberately keeping her on the margins of the family. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, never forgave Wallace. Years later, she would admit privately that the two people who had caused her the most trouble in life were Wallace Simpson and Hitler.
After the storm, the two lovers were finally able to reunite. Wallace’s divorce from Ernest Simpson became final in May 1937, and she having resumed her maiden name Warfield for a few days, was now free to marry. On the 3rd of June 1937, at the Chateau de Kai, France, Wallace married Edward, Duke of Windsor.
The ceremony, simple and intimate, was marked by the total absence of members of the British royal family. None attended, underscoring official repudiation. Wallace appeared exquisitly elegant in a pale blue gown designed by Maine Bushcher, while Edward, although never crowned, yet still a prince of the blood, finally had at his side the woman for whom he had risked so much.
The date chosen for the wedding coincided inadvertently with what would have been the 72nd birthday of the late George V, a fact Queen Mary considered a deliberate affront to the memory of the former king. After the wedding, the newlyweds settled first in France, living between luxury hotels and mansions lent by wealthy friends.
Their social life was active. They hosted dinners, attended parties, and traveled frequently, becoming celebrities within the international set of the era. With no official responsibilities, their daily life unfolded between leisure and frivolity, something the satirical press quickly pointed out.
In October 1937, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor made a much publicized visit to Nazi Germany, where they were received with honors. During that trip, they even met Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who according to reports remarked that Wallace would have made a good queen. The photograph of the couple beside the Nazi leader caused astonishment in Britain.
For only a few months after the abdication, the exiles appeared to be flirting with the regime rising in Europe. This gesture only fueled the suspicions already circulating within the British government that the Duchess might sympathize with the Nazis or even act as their agent. >> >> Wallace always ridiculed such accusations in her letters to Edward, but declassified files released decades later revealed that both the United Kingdom’s security service and the United States FBI compiled reports on alleged links between the Windsor and
figures within Nazism. More outlandish rumors suggested, for example, that Wallace had been the lover of Nazi Minister Yoim von Ribentrop and kept a signed photograph of him on her bedside table, or that she passed confidential information to Germany during the war. Although none of these claims were ever proven, such gossip further damaged the Duchess’s already battered reputation on British soil.
When the second world war broke out in September 1939, the Windsors were still living in France. Edward offered his military services to Britain and was appointed liaison officer on a mission in French territory. Wallace remained by his side during the first months of the war in Europe. However, new controversies arose.
It was said that the duchess remained in contact with pro-fascist acquaintances and that naively or imprudently she divulged strategic information that Edward received in his post. When in May 1940 the German blitzkrieg swept through France and bombed British cities. Wallace made a remark that would mark her forever in the eyes of the British public.
To an American journalist, she confessed coldly, “I cannot say I feel sorry for them.” This comment, interpreted as a near treacherous lack of empathy, outraged the British people and Winston Churchill’s government. As Hitler’s troops advanced through France, the Windsors fled Paris southwards, first to be crossed into Francoist Spain in June 1940.
From Madrid, Wallace opined to the United States ambassador that France’s collapse was due to the country being sick internally. In July 1940, the couple moved to Lisbon, Portugal, staying in the home of a Portuguese banker suspected of German connections. The situation became uncomfortable for London. with the risk that the Windsor might be used by the Nazis for propaganda purposes.
There was even a German plan to possibly reinstall Edward on the throne if they invaded Britain. Churchill decided to remove them from Europe. In August 1940, a British warship transported the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to the Bahamas in the Caribbean where Edward was appointed colonial governor. For 5 years, Wallace carried out the role of colonial first lady in Nassau, attempting to adjust to a life very different from European opulence.
She organized local charity work and accompanied the Duke at official events, dutifully fulfilling her obligations. But in private, Wallace detested that tropical exile. She described the Bahamas as our Saint Helina in illusion to the remote island where Napoleon spent his final days. I hate this place,” she wrote in letters to her aunt, complaining about the climate and the local society.
Her frequent shopping trips to the United States during the war, while Britains were enduring rationing and blackouts, earned her criticism for frivolity. Moreover, her condescending attitudes and racist remarks towards the island’s population, whom she described in her correspondence as lazy and prosperous blacks, reflected the prejudices of her southern upbringing and deepened her unpopularity in the colony.
Prime Minister Churchill even intervened personally to veto some activities of the Duke and Duchess. He forbade them from accepting the invitation of a Swedish magnate suspected of Nazi sympathies for a cruise and had to reprimand Edward when he gave an interview with a defeist tone about the war.
For the British authorities, distrust towards Wallace was permanent. Sir Alexander Harding, private secretary to George V 6th, even wrote that the Duchess’s attitudes were driven by a desire for revenge against a country that had rejected her as queen. Only with the Allied victory in 1945 did this chapter end. In March of that year, Edward resigned his post and the couple left Nassau without any ceremony.
The war was ending and with it their Caribbean exile. With the end of the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor returned to France and never again resided in England. They settled in a mansion on the outskirts of Paris in the Bua de Bolognia thanks to a special concession from the French government.
There they rebuilt a comfortable existence but one lacking a clear purpose. They traveled frequently to New York and other capitals were guests of honor at parties and events and their public profile continued to inspire both curiosity and controversy in equal measure. In 1951, Edward published his memoirs, A King’s Story, attempting to offer his version of events.
Wallace, for her part, published in 1956 her autobiography titled The Heart Has Its Reasons, in which she recounted episodes from her life and her great romance with Edward. Although the book sought to justify herself to the world, many felt it contained more silences than revelations. Even so, the very title, The Heart has Its Reasons, became emblematic when referring to the story of a king who abdicated for love.
As the years passed, a tentative thaw occurred in relations between the Windsor and the British royal family. In 1952, when King George V 6th died, Edward returned briefly to London for his brother’s funeral. Wallace, resentful, refused to accompany him. Before that journey, she told Edward bitterly, “I hate this country.
I shall go on hating it until the grave, making clear that she would never forgive England for her ostracism.” Some biographers have suggested that Queen Elizabeth, Edward’s sister-in-law, harbored resentment towards Wallace for the role she had played in George V 6th’s accession, which she may have viewed as a contributing factor in his early death, and for behaving prematurely as Edward’s consort when she was merely his mistress.
These claims were denied by close friends of Queen Elizabeth. For example, the Duke of Grafton wrote that she never said anything unpleasant about the Duchess of Windsor except that she really had no idea what she was dealing with. For her part, the Duchess of Windsor referred to Queen Elizabeth as Mrs. Temple and cookies, alluding to her solid figure and her fondness for food.
The new sovereign, Elizabeth II, young and discreet, maintained official distance for years, but allowed some gestures. In 1965, the Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, paid an informal visit to the Windsors in Paris in what was an act of courtesy and late reconciliation. The following year, Elizabeth II invited Edward to London to take part in the unveiling of a commemorative plaque to Queen Mary, his mother, and Wallace was also present at discreet family gatherings.
However, the Duchess of Windsor never received the title of her royal highness, and this remained a thorn in her pride until the end of her days. The 1950s and 1960s passed for the Windsor amidst travel, gala dinners, and sometimes controversial friendships. In France, they developed a close relationship with Oswald and Diana Mosley, well-known British fascist leaders in exile, with whom they shared certain political views.
Indeed, Diana Mosley remarked that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor agreed with them that Hitler should have been given free reign to destroy communism. Edward himself wrote an article in 1966 in which he opined that it would have been in Europe’s best interests to let the Nazis annihilate the Soviets while the rest remained neutral.
Such public statements only confirmed in the eyes of many the couple’s misguided affinity with fascism and complicated any rehabilitation of their image in the United Kingdom. In May 1972, Edward, Duke of Windsor, died in Paris at the age of 77 from throat cancer. Wallace, now a widow, returned briefly to England to attend her husband’s funeral in Windsor.
During that visit, she stayed for the first time inside Buckingham Palace, a late gesture of acceptance. It is said that the Queen Mother, despite everything, sent flowers to Wallace with a note that read, “With friendship, Elizabeth.” After bidding farewell to Edward, Wallace returned to Paris, where difficult years awaited her.
Without her life’s companion, the Duchess spent her final years practically alone, ill, and reclusive. She suffered from dementia and was physically frail. By 1976, she could no longer hold a coherent conversation. She had entrusted her affairs to her lawyer and guardian, Suzanne Bloom, whose strict oversight isolated her from old friends and acquaintances.
Confined to bed, Wallace spent her days in silence in her Parisian mansion, attended only by her doctor and nurses. On 24th April 1986, Wallace Simpson died at her residence in Paris, aged 89. Her death marked the epilogue of one of the most notorious love stories and scandals of the 20th century by order of Queen Elizabeth II.
The body of the Duchess of Windsor was brought back to the United Kingdom. Her funeral was held discreetly in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the same setting for so many royal ceremonies, and was attended by the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles, and Princess Diana, as well as Wallace’s two surviving sisters-in-law, the Queen Mother and Princess Alice.
Wallace was buried beside Edward in the royal burial ground at Frogmore near the castle under a simple stone that reads, “Wallace, Duchess of Windsor.” Ironically, she was laid to rest in English soil within the royal family that had rejected her for so long. Much of her estate, including her fabulous collection of jewelry, was left to charitable institutions and auctioned for medical research, surprising those who had known her, for in life she had shown little interest in charitable work.
Thank you for staying with us until the end of the video. We hope you enjoyed it. If you have anything to add, please share it with us in the comments section. Give us a like and share this link with all your friends and family so that more people may learn about the story of Wallace, Duchess of Windsor. Thank you for following us.
And if you are not yet subscribed, we invite you to do so and activate the notification bell as we constantly upload historical content that will be of interest to you. We’ll see you in the next video.