Wallis, Duchess of Windsor

Infobox British Royalty|none
name = Wallis
title = Duchess of Windsor


imgw = 200
caption = The Duchess of Windsor in 1970
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 [After her marriage to the Duke of Windsor, Wallis probably had no surname—if she did have one, it was his family name, Windsor] (née Warfield)
titles = "Her Grace" The Duchess of Windsor
royal house = House of Windsor
father = Teackle Wallis Warfield
mother = Alice Montague
date of birth = birth date|1895|6|19|df=y or 1896
place of birth = Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania
date of death = Death date and age|1986|4|24|1895|6|19|df=yes
place of death = Bois de Boulogne, Paris
place of burial = Frogmore, Windsor
occupation = Socialite|

Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Spencer, then Simpson; 19 June 1895 or 1896 – 24 April 1986) was an American socialite who married, as her third husband, Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII.

Growing up, Wallis 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 and a reputation as an opportunist 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". [cite book|last=Windsor|first=The Duke of|authorlink=Edward VIII of the United Kingdom|publisher=Cassell and Co Ltd|location=London|title=A King's Story|year=1951|pages=p.413 ] 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 his 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.

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.cite book|first=Alison|last=Weir|authorlink=Alison Weir (historian)|title=Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy Revised edition |publisher=Random House|year=1995|pages=p.328|isbn=0-7126-7448-9] 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. She was born either in 1895 (according to the 1900 census returns)cite book|first=Charles |last=Higham|authorlink=Charles Higham|title=Mrs Simpson|publisher=Pan Books|year=2005|pages=p.4|isbn=0-330-42678-8] or in 1896. [cite book|first=Greg|last=King|authorlink=Greg King (author)|title=The Duchess of Windsor|publisher=Citadel Press|year=1999|pages=p.11|isbn=1-55972-471-4
*Greg King, notes that, though Charles 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".] Her parents were married on either 19 November 1895King, p.13.] or the same day of the following year. Her father died of tuberculosis on either 15 November 1896, or the same day of the following year. 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. [Higham, p.5]

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"." [Higham, p.7] Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well. [Higham, p.8]

In 1908, Wallis's mother, Alice, married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin. On 17 April 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Protestant Episcopal Christ Church, Baltimore, even though there are no contemporaneous records of her ever being baptised. 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. [Higham, pp.12–13]

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. [Higham, p.18] It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a life-long fear of flying. [Higham, p.20] On 8 November 1916, the couple married at Christ Church. Win, as her husband was known, was an alcoholic. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed. [Higham, pp.23–24] 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. [Higham, pp.26–28] In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego but he and Wallis never met. [Higham, p.29] 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.citation|last=Ziegler|first=Philip|authorlink=Philip Ziegler|title=Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)|journal=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/38277 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/38277|accessdate=2007-03-09] In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin, [cite book|last=Bloch|first=Michael|title=The Duchess of Windsor|year=1996|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson|location=London|pages=p.22|isbn=0297835904] 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. [Higham, p.38]

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." [Higham, p.46] According to Hui-lan Koo, the second wife of the Chinese diplomat Wellington Koo, the only Mandarin phrase that Wallis learned during her sojourn in Asia was "Boy, pass me the Champagne" (男孩，通過我香賓). [cite book|last=Koo|first=Madame Wellington|title=Hui-Lan Koo: An Autobiography as told to Mary van Rensselaer Thayer|location=New York|publisher=Dial Press|year=1943] [citation|first=Catherine|last=Maher|title=Madame Wellington Koo's Life Story|journal=New York Times|date=31 October 1943|pages=p.BR7]

Wallis toured China, and stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain long-term friends, while in Beijing. [Higham, p.47] 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. [Higham, p.50.] By September 1925, Wallis and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart. [Higham, pp.50–51] They divorced on 10 December 1927.

econd 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. [Higham, pp.53–54] He divorced his first wife, the former Dorothea Parsons Dechert (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis Spencer on 21 July 1928 at the Chelsea Register Office, London. Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes where she was staying with her friends, Mr and Mrs Rogers. [Higham, p.58]

The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair. [Higham, p.64] 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. [Higham, p.67]

Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Lady Furness, the then-mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. [Higham, p.68] On 10 January 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince. [Bloch, "The Duchess of Windsor", p.37] 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. [Higham, pp.73–80]

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". [Diary of Clive Wigram, 1st Baron Wigram quoted in cite book|last=Bradford|first=Sarah|year=1989|title=George VI|location=London|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson|pages=pp.145–147|isbn=0297796674] Wallis soon ousted Lady Furness, and distanced the Prince from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward. [cite book|last=Ziegler|first=Philip|authorlink=Philip Ziegler|title=King Edward VIII: The official biography|location=New York|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|year=1991|isbn=0-394-57730-2|pages=pp.227–228]

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. At an evening party in Buckingham Palace, he introduced her to his mother—his father was outraged, [Ziegler, p.231] primarily on account of her marital history (divorced people were excluded from court). [cite book|last=Beaverbrook|first=Lord|authorlink=Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook|title=The Abdication of King Edward VIII|coauthors=Edited by A. J. P. Taylor|publisher=Hamish Hamilton |location=London|year=1966 |pages=p.111] Edward showered Wallis with money and jewels, [Ziegler, p.238] and in February 1935, and again later in the year, he holidayed with her in Europe. [Higham, p.113 and p.125 ff] His courtiers became increasingly alarmed as the affair began to interfere with his official duties. [Bloch, "The Duchess of Windsor", pp.58 and 71]

In 1935, Special Branch detectives reported that Wallis was also secretly having a love affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, an engineer who was "said to be employed by the Ford Motor Company". Captain Val Bailey, who knew Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades, has cast considerable doubts on these claims.citation|first=James|last=Fox|title=The Oddest Couple|journal=Vanity Fair|issue=517|pages=276–291|date=1 September 2003|issn=07338899]

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. [The Duke of Windsor, p.265] It was becoming apparent to Court and Government circles that Edward meant to marry her. [Ziegler, pp.277–278] 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. [Ziegler, pp.289–292] Although the pre-war media in the UK remained deferential to the Monarchy, and no stories of the affair were reported in the domestic press, foreign media widely reported their relationship. [cite book|last=Broad |first=Lewis|title=The Abdication|publisher=Frederick Muller Ltd|location=London|year=1961|pages=p.44]

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. [cite web|url=http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/papers/mcad/|title=Marriage in Church After a Divorce|publisher=The Church of England|accessdate=2007-02-26] 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). [Beaverbrook, pp.39–44 and p.122] 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.Ziegler, pp.305–307] She was perceived by many in the British Empire as a woman of "limitless ambition", [Sir Horace Wilson writing to Neville Chamberlain quoted in Higham, p.191] who was pursuing the King because of his wealth and position. [Ziegler, p.234 and p.312]

Wallis had already filed for divorce from her second husband and the decree nisi was granted on 27 October 1936.cite book|first=Mike|last=Ashley|title=The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens|publisher=Robinson|location=London|year=1998|pages=p.701|isbn=1-84119-096-9] 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. [The Duke of Windsor, p.359]

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. If the King were to marry Wallis against Baldwin's advice, the Government would be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis. [Beaverbrook, p.57]

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. [cite book|first=Adrian|last=Tinniswood|title=Belton House|publisher=The National Trust|year=1992|pages=p.34|isbn=0707801133] 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. [cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,191136,00.html |title=Edward and Mrs Simpson cast in new light|last=Norton-Taylor|first=Richard|coauthors=Evans, Rob|date=2 March 2000|publisher=The Guardian|accessdate=2007-02-28]

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 Commonwealth Realms 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." [The Duke of Windsor, p.413]

Afterwards, Prince Edward left the UK 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. [Higham, p.224]

Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor

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 Château de Candé, lent to them by Charles Bedaux, who later worked actively for Nazi Germany in World War II. [cite book|first=Patrick|last=Howarth|title=George VI|publisher=Hutchinson|year=1987|pages=p.73|isbn=0091710006] No member of the 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, [Diary of Neville Chamberlain quoted in Bradford, p.243] 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. [cite web|url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/releases/2003/january30/edward_duke.htm|title=Home Office memo on the Duke and Duchess's title|publisher=National Archives|accessdate=2007-02-28] At first, the British 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 has been seen by some as a factor in George VI's early death), [Higham, p.437] and for prematurely behaving as Edward's consort when she was his mistress. [Bradford, p.172] But these claims are 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." [cite book|last=Hogg|first=James|coauthors=Mortimer, Michael|title=The Queen Mother Remembered|publisher=BBC books|year=2002|isbn=0-563-36214-6|pages=pp.84–85] 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. [cite book|last=Bloch|first=Michael|title=The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor|year=1988|publisher=Bantam Books|location=London|isbn=059301667X|pages=p.259] 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. [See also, cite book|last=Bloch|first=Michael (ed.)|title=Wallis and Edward: Letters 1931–1937|publisher=Summit Books|year=1986|isbn=0-671-61209-3|pages=pp.231, 233 Cited in Bradford, p.232] However, within the household of the Duke and Duchess, the style "Her Royal Highness" was used by those who were close to the couple. [Higham, p.232]

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." [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.]

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." [cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/freedom/Story/0,2763,885183,00.html |first=Owen|last=Bowcott|coauthors=Bates, Stephen|title=Fear that Windsors would 'flit' to Germany|publisher=The Guardian|date=30 January 2003|accessdate=2007-02-28] The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent, a claim that she acknowledged (but denied) in her letters to the Duke. [Higham, p.203] 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. [cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4451107,00.html|first=Rob|last=Evans|coauthors=Hencke, David|title=Wallis Simpson, the Nazi minister, the telltale monk and an FBI plot|publisher=The Guardian|date=29 June 2002|accessdate=2007-02-28] There were even rather improbable reports during World War II that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table, [cite book|first=Michael |last=Bloch|title=The Duke of Windsor's War|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson|location=London|year=1982|pages=p.355|isbn=0297779478] and had continued to pass details to him even during the invasion of France. [Higham, p.317]

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. [Higham, p.305] 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." [Higham, p.313] 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". [Higham, p.323] 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. [Bloch, "The Duke of Windsor's War", p.102] In August, a British warship dispatched the pair to the Bahamas and the Duke was installed as Governor.

Wallis competently performed her role as the Governor's lady for five years. However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena", in a reference to Napoleon Bonaparte's final place of exile. [Higham, p.330 and Bloch, "The Duchess of Windsor", pp.153 and 159] She was heavily criticised for her extravagant shopping trips to the United States, undertaken when Britain was under rationing and blackout. Her racist attitudes towards the local population (she called them "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt), reflected her upbringing. [Bloch, "The Duchess of Windsor", p.165] [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] 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. [Howarth, p.130] 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. [Howarth, p.113] After the war, the couple returned to France and retirement.

Later life and death

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. [cite book|last=Menkes|first=Suzy|authorlink=Suzy Menkes|title=The Windsor Style|publisher=Grafton Books|location=London|year=1987|pages=pp.192–193|isbn=0246132124]

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." [Higham, p.443] 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. [Menkes, pp.11–48] They bought a second home in the country, where they soon became close friends with their neighbours, Oswald and Diana Mosley. [Higham, p.449 and Ziegler, p.545] 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. [Higham, p.450] 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." [Higham, pp.259–260]

In 1965, when the Duke and Duchess visited London as the Duke required eye surgery, the Queen and Princess Marina 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. [Higham, pp.466–469] 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. [Higham, p.473 and Bloch, "The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor", p.299]

Upon the Duke's death from cancer in 1972, the increasingly senile and frail Duchess travelled to England to attend his funeral, [Conducted by William Launcelot Scott Fleming, Dean of Windsor (former Bishop of Portsmouth; and Norwich) "The Times", Monday, 5 June 1972; pg. 2; Issue 58496; col. E] staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit. [Higham, pp.477–479] The Duchess lived the remainder of her life as a recluse, supported by both her husband's estate and an allowance from the Queen. [Ziegler, p.555] 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." [Higham, pp.487–488] After her husband's death, the Duchess gave her legal authority to her French lawyer, Suzanne Blum. [Higham, p.490 and Menkes, p.199] 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. [cite book|title=The Last of the Duchess|last=Blackwood|first=Lady Caroline|publisher=Pantheon|isbn=0679439706|year=1995] In 1980, the Duchess lost the power of speech. [Bloch, "The Duchess of Windsor", p.222] Towards 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. Her funeral was held at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by her surviving sisters-in-law Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, 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".cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/29/newsid_2500000/2500427.stm|publisher=BBC|title=Simple funeral rites for Duchess|date=29 April 1998|accessdate=2007-02-28]

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. [Menkes, p.200] 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. [cite book|title=The Jewels of The Duchess of Windsor|last=Culme|first=John|coauthors=Rayner, Nicholas|publisher=Vendome Press|location=New York|year=1987|pages=p.7] 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. [Menkes, pp.198, 206 and 207] 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.

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. [cite book|first=Christopher |last=Wilson|title=Dancing With the Devil: the Windsors and Jimmy Donahue|publisher=HarperCollins|location=London|year=2001|isbn=0-00-653159-8] 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. [Higham, p.119 and Ziegler, p.224] 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, [Bloch, "The Duchess of Windsor", pp.10, 13, and 230] seem improbable, if not impossible, given her operation for cancer of the womb in 1951. [Ziegler, p.533 and Higham, p.496]

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". [Higham, pp.452–453] 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." [Bloch, "The Duchess of Windsor", p.231] 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." [citation|last=Weintraub|first=Stanley|authorlink=Stanley Weintraub|journal=Washington Post|date=8 June 1986|pages=p.X05] 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." [Wilson, p.179]

In popular culture

"The Woman I Love" (1972, made-for-TV movie) focused on Edward VIII's love affair with Wallis Simpson. Wallis was portrayed by Faye Dunaway; Richard Chamberlain played Edward. [cite web|title=The Woman I Love|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069511/|publisher=Internet Movie Database, Inc|accessdate=2007-04-23] "Edward & Mrs. Simpson" (1978, seven-part miniseries) was based on Frances Donaldson's 1974 biography, "Edward VIII". The focus was on both the romance and the constitutional crisis that triggered the abdication. Cynthia Harris played Wallis, and Edward Fox, Edward. "The Woman He Loved" (1988, made-for-TV movie) starred Jane Seymour as Wallis and Anthony Andrews as Edward. [cite web|title=The Woman He Loved|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096460/|publisher=Internet Movie Database, Inc|accessdate=2007-04-23] "Bertie and Elizabeth" (2002, made-for-TV movie) tells the story from the point of view of Edward's brother Bertie, who was to become George VI after the abdication. [cite web|title=Bertie and Elizabeth|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310733/fullcredits#cast/|publisher=Internet Movie Database, Inc|accessdate=2008-08-19] "Wallis & Edward" (2005, made-for-TV movie) was billed as the first scripted account of the romance from Wallis Simpson's point of view. [cite web|url=http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/191/index.jsp|title=Wallis & Edward|publisher=BBC Worldwide Americas Inc|accessdate=2007-04-04] Joely Richardson played Wallis, and Steven Campbell Moore, Edward. [cite web|title=Wallis & Edward|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451265/|publisher=Internet Movie Database, Inc|accessdate=2007-04-23]

In his 1981 novel "Famous Last Words", award-winning Canadian author Timothy Findley concocts his plot around several World War II-era prominent characters, and the Duchess—referred to throughout as Mrs Simpson—is an important character, a friend of the narrator depicted as manipulative yet also tragic. There is also a short story by Rose Tremain called "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson".

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

*19 June 1895 – 8 November 1916: "Miss" Bessie Wallis Warfield
*8 November 1916 – 10 December 1927: "Mrs" Earl Winfield Spencer
*10 December 1927 – 21 July 1928: "Mrs" Wallis Warfield Spencer [It is established American social custom for divorcées to link their maiden and married surnames]
*21 July 1928 – May 1937: "Mrs" Ernest Aldrich Simpson
*May 1937: "Mrs" Wallis Warfield Simpson
*May – 3 June 1937: "Mrs" Wallis Warfield [Wallis resumed her maiden name by deed poll prior to the wedding]
*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's ancestors in three generations [cite web|url=http://gsteinbe.intrasun.tcnj.edu/royalty/ahnenreihe/Simpson.html|title=European Royalty during World War II: Genealogical Tables. Ahnenreihe of Bessie Wallis, Duchess of Windsor|last=Steinberg|first=Glenn A|accessdate=2008-08-29]

Footnotes and sources

References

*cite book|title=The Last of the Duchess|last=Blackwood|first=Lady Caroline|authorlink=Caroline Blackwood|publisher=Pantheon|isbn=0-679-43970-6 |year=1995
*cite book|last=Bloch|first=Michael|title=The Duchess of Windsor|year=1996|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson|location=London|isbn=0-297-83590-4
*cite book|first=Michael|last=Bloch|title=The Duke of Windsor's War|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson|location=London|year=1982|isbn=0-297-77947-8
*cite book|last=Bloch|first=Michael|title=The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor|year=1988|publisher=Bantam Books|location=London|isbn=0-593-01667-X
*cite book |last=Bloch |first=Michael (ed.)|title=Wallis and Edward: Letters 1931–1937|publisher=Summit Books|year=1986|isbn=0-671-61209-3
*cite book|last=Bradford|first=Sarah|year=1989|title=George VI|location=London|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson|isbn=0-297-79667-4
*cite book|last=Culme|first=John|title=The Jewels of the Duchess of Windsor|publisher=Vendome Press|location=New York|year=1987|isbn=0-865-60896-1
*cite book|first=Charles|last=Higham|authorlink=Charles Higham (biographer)|title=Mrs Simpson|publisher=Pan Books|year=2005|isbn=0-330-42678-8
*cite book|first=Greg|last=King|authorlink=Greg King (author)|title=The Duchess of Windsor|publisher=Citadel Press|year=1999|isbn=1-55972-471-4
*cite book|last=Menkes|first=Suzy|authorlink=Suzy Menkes|title=The Windsor Style|publisher=Grafton Books|location=London|year=1987|isbn=0-246-13212-4
*cite book|first=Christopher|last=Wilson|title=Dancing With the Devil: the Windsors and Jimmy Donahue|publisher=HarperCollins|location=London|year=2001|isbn=0-00-653159-8
*cite book|last=Windsor|first=HRH The Duke of|title=A King's Story|year=1951|publisher=Cassell and Co|location=London
*cite book|last=Ziegler|first=Philip|authorlink=Philip Ziegler|title=King Edward VIII: The official biography|year=1991|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|location=New York|isbn=0-394-57730-2
*citation|last=Ziegler|first=Philip|title=Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)|journal=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/38277 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/38277|accessdate=2007-03-09 (Subscription required)

Further reading

*cite book|last=Gabbay|first=Tom|title=The Lisbon Crossing|publisher=Morrow|year=2007
*cite book|last=Windsor|first=The Duchess of|title=The Heart has its Reasons: The Memoirs of the Duchess of Windsor|location=New York|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|year=1956
*cite book|last=Ziegler|first=Philip|title=Mountbatten: the official biography|publisher=Collins|year=1985

External links

* [http://www.ddows.org The Duke & Duchess of Windsor Society: an international affinity group dedicated to the historical importance of the lives of the Duke & Duchess]

Persondata
NAME=Wallis, Duchess of Windsor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Windsor, Bessie Wallis; Warfield, Bessie Wallis
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Wife of Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
DATE OF BIRTH=19 June 1895/1896
PLACE OF BIRTH=Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH=24 April 1986
PLACE OF DEATH=Paris, France