month after her second divorce was final. As part of his wedding gift to his bride, Edward gave Wallis a diamond coronet, a poor substitute for a crown. Edwardâs brother, now King George VI, gave them the honorary titles of duke and duchess of Windsor. But the royal family would snub Wallis until the end of her days, never receiving her into the family and never allowing her to be called a Royal Highness. It is likely that the bitterness of the royal family toward Wallis was intensified by their knowledge of her philandering with the car salesman. But the duke insisted that until his wife was received and allowed the title, he would stay clear of Great Britain.
Though the marriage caused a constitutional crisis for the British monarchy, Edwardâs abdication saved Britain from havinga supporter of Nazi Germany on the throne during World War II. Edward, a fan of all things German and fluent in the language, was frequently seen to give a limp Nazi salute on the streets of London throughout the 1930s. When Hitler heard of the abdication he groaned, âIâve lost a friend to my cause!â 8
In 1937 the newly minted duke and duchess of Windsor visited the Führer for fourteen days, greeting the crowds with âHeil Hitler!â and scandalizing George VI and the British people. There is indeed some documentation that indicates Hitler was planning, once he conquered Britain, to install Edward and Wallis as puppet king and queen, dancing to Nazi commands.
After a stint as governor of the Bahamas during World War IIâwhere Edward had been placed to keep him as far away as possible from his Nazi friendsâthe duke and duchess set off on a lifetime of meaningless wandering: shopping in Paris, fashion shows in New York, August in the south of France, winters in Palm Beach. Wallisâs famed charm congealed behind a hard mask of disappointment, and the duke became more doddering than ever, playing the bagpipes drunk in the middle of the night, or speaking only German for hours at a party where no one could understand him. The desiccated pair seemed glued to each other at the hip, each holding a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Like cracked and peeling portraits of their former selves, they became yellowed by tobacco, dried up by alcohol.
In Ernest Simpson, Wallis had given up a highly intelligent, hardworking husband and replaced him with a thickheaded man with nothing to do, a millstone of a mate she could only divorce to shrieks of laughter echoing across the world. At one party when the duke had left the room, his wife informed her guests, âNo one will ever know how hard I work to try to make the little man feel busy!â 9 At social events she would often remind him, âDonât forget, darling, youâre not king anymore!â 10
In 1972 the duke died in Paris. The duchess soon slipped into senility, drank even more heavily to calm the phantoms of the past, and was down to eighty-five pounds by 1977. And yet she lived until 1986, stubbornly clinging to life, even as her bodyshriveled and her mind wandered. As she lay there, immobile, was she haunted by visions of crowns and scepters? Of thrones and coronation robes and the glory that might have been?
Charles and Camilla
Nearly seventy years after Edward VIIIâs decision to marry his mistress, the same weighty question hangs over the head of a controversial prince.
As a girl, Camilla Shand, the great-granddaughter of Edward VIIâs last mistress, Alice Keppel, loved to hear Granny Alice stories and always laughed at her famous statement, âMy job is to curtsy firstâ¦and then jump into bed!â 11 Little did Camilla know that she would have her own chance to curtsy and jump.
She met Prince Charles in 1970, as a pouring rain lashed the Windsor polo fields. Wearing a pair of muddy Wellington boots, twenty-three-year-old Camilla marched up to the twenty-two-year-old prince and introduced herself.
Though the marriage caused a constitutional crisis for the British monarchy, Edwardâs abdication saved Britain from havinga supporter of Nazi Germany on the throne during World War II. Edward, a fan of all things German and fluent in the language, was frequently seen to give a limp Nazi salute on the streets of London throughout the 1930s. When Hitler heard of the abdication he groaned, âIâve lost a friend to my cause!â 8
In 1937 the newly minted duke and duchess of Windsor visited the Führer for fourteen days, greeting the crowds with âHeil Hitler!â and scandalizing George VI and the British people. There is indeed some documentation that indicates Hitler was planning, once he conquered Britain, to install Edward and Wallis as puppet king and queen, dancing to Nazi commands.
After a stint as governor of the Bahamas during World War IIâwhere Edward had been placed to keep him as far away as possible from his Nazi friendsâthe duke and duchess set off on a lifetime of meaningless wandering: shopping in Paris, fashion shows in New York, August in the south of France, winters in Palm Beach. Wallisâs famed charm congealed behind a hard mask of disappointment, and the duke became more doddering than ever, playing the bagpipes drunk in the middle of the night, or speaking only German for hours at a party where no one could understand him. The desiccated pair seemed glued to each other at the hip, each holding a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Like cracked and peeling portraits of their former selves, they became yellowed by tobacco, dried up by alcohol.
In Ernest Simpson, Wallis had given up a highly intelligent, hardworking husband and replaced him with a thickheaded man with nothing to do, a millstone of a mate she could only divorce to shrieks of laughter echoing across the world. At one party when the duke had left the room, his wife informed her guests, âNo one will ever know how hard I work to try to make the little man feel busy!â 9 At social events she would often remind him, âDonât forget, darling, youâre not king anymore!â 10
In 1972 the duke died in Paris. The duchess soon slipped into senility, drank even more heavily to calm the phantoms of the past, and was down to eighty-five pounds by 1977. And yet she lived until 1986, stubbornly clinging to life, even as her bodyshriveled and her mind wandered. As she lay there, immobile, was she haunted by visions of crowns and scepters? Of thrones and coronation robes and the glory that might have been?
Charles and Camilla
Nearly seventy years after Edward VIIIâs decision to marry his mistress, the same weighty question hangs over the head of a controversial prince.
As a girl, Camilla Shand, the great-granddaughter of Edward VIIâs last mistress, Alice Keppel, loved to hear Granny Alice stories and always laughed at her famous statement, âMy job is to curtsy firstâ¦and then jump into bed!â 11 Little did Camilla know that she would have her own chance to curtsy and jump.
She met Prince Charles in 1970, as a pouring rain lashed the Windsor polo fields. Wearing a pair of muddy Wellington boots, twenty-three-year-old Camilla marched up to the twenty-two-year-old prince and introduced herself.
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