Pressure on the king was now steadily applied. He was cornered and forced to make a choice. Delay, said the censorious Neville Chamberlain, chancellor of the exchequer, would be bad for the Christmas trade. The uncertainty could not drag on. Within 10 days of the story breaking, the king had abdicated. A late attempt to rally a loyalist party failed. Labour and the Liberals backed the government. Most national and regional newspapers and periodicals also supported the government.
Just why was Wallis Simpson regarded as an unsuitable consort? The chief difficulty in a more religiously observant time was the fact that she had already divorced one husband, left another and was now hoping to marry a man who was supreme governor of the Church of England.
There were also doubts about her faithfulness. Papers in the National Archives show that the Metropolitan Police was spying on her : a report detailed clandestine visits to a Ford car salesman called Guy Trundle.
There may also have been concerns that she was sympathetic to the Nazis. An FBI report released in claimed that she had been the lover of Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi German ambassador to London, but no conclusive evidence has been found to support this suggestion.
Anti-American prejudice was a factor, too. The lower class do not mind her being American but loathe the idea that she has had two husbands already.
The newly created Duke of Windsor was left to wrangle with his younger brother and successor, George VI , over money and the life tenancies of Balmoral and Sandringham. Simpson obtained a preliminary decree of divorce, presumably with the intent of marrying the king, which precipitated a major scandal. To the Church of England and most British politicians, an American woman twice divorced was unacceptable as a prospective British queen.
Winston Churchill, then a Conservative backbencher, was the only notable politician to support Edward. Despite the seemingly united front against him, Edward could not be dissuaded. He proposed a morganatic marriage, in which Wallis would be granted no rights of rank or property, but on December 2, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin rejected the suggestion as impractical.
The next day, the scandal broke on the front pages of British newspapers and was discussed openly in Parliament. With no resolution possible, the king renounced the throne on December The new king, George VI, made his older brother the duke of Windsor. For the next two years, the duke and duchess lived primarily in France but visited other European countries, including Germany, where the duke was honored by Nazi officials in October and met with Adolf Hitler.
After the outbreak of World War II , the duke accepted a position as liaison officer with the French. During this period, the Nazis concocted a scheme to kidnap Edward with the intention of returning him to the British throne as a puppet king.
The duke and duchess set sail from Lisbon on August 1, , narrowly escaping a Nazi SS team sent to seize them. In , the duke resigned his post, and the couple moved back to France. It was not until that the duke and duchess were invited by the royal family to attend an official public ceremony, the unveiling of a plaque dedicated to Queen Mary.
Thorns in the Crown Buy. The Duke Buy. Informally Royal Buy. Tea with Hitler Buy. Long Live the King Buy. King and Collector Buy. Princess Mary Buy. King and Saint Buy. Blood Roses Buy. The King Arthur Conspiracy Buy. King and Outlaw Buy. Before Wallis Buy. The prince met Simpson at the house of friends in early A few years removed from her divorce from U. Navy pilot Earl Winfield Spencer, she had resettled in London with her second husband, maritime broker Ernest Simpson. By his own account, the first meeting between the future lovebirds was wholly unremarkable: Hampered by a cold, Edward wrote in his memoir, "she was not feeling or looking her best," and their "stilted" conversation turned to the dreaded topic of the weather.
However, their social circles brought them together again, and by the time Simpson was presented to the court later that year, the prince found himself "struck by the grace of her carriage and the dignity of her movements," adding, "I looked upon her as the most independent woman I had ever met, and presently the hope formed that one day I might be able to share my life with her. Indeed, while Simpson wasn't considered a standard beauty, she had a quick wit and an undeniable magnetism, and Edward became obsessed with this worldly woman who was unafraid to challenge his whims.
On her end, here was the dashing Prince of Wales, the most eligible bachelor in the world, making her the center of his royal attention and Simpson was swept up in the romantic intrigue. By , after the prince's regular mistress departed on an extended trip, Edward began foregoing the usual airs of secrecy regarding their relationship. They vacationed together that summer, without her husband, and the following year Wallis began accompanying the prince to royal events.
George V and Queen Mary were not happy with the presence of "that woman," as Simpson was derisively known, but virtually everyone connected to the prince seemed to believe that his infatuation with the American would eventually pass, not grasping that he was determined to make her his wife.
With the death of George V on January 20, , the call to duty arrived for Edward. He immediately broke with tradition by watching the proclamation of his own accession, with Simpson by his side, and soon became the first British monarch to fly in a plane when he traveled to London for his Accession Council.
As feared by royal aides, Edward showed little interest in any sort of day-to-day governorship. He was mainly preoccupied with marrying Simpson, and from her husband, at least, there was no pushback, as the businessman agreed to let the king have his way.
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