Read The Duchess Of Windsor Online
Authors: Greg King
The Duchess Of Windsor (23 page)
12
The Passing of the King
I
N MAY 1935, KING GEORGE V
celebrated his silver jubilee, marking twenty-five years on the British throne. The Prince of Wales was desperate to include Wallis on the guest lists for official functions. So great was this desire that he sought out an audience with his father and raised the subject of invitations for the Simpsons himself. At first, the old King was adamant, declaring that he could not possibly invite his son’s mistress to any official affairs. But David would not be put off so easily. He insisted that relations between himself and Wallis were absolutely proper. Unwilling to argue the point, George V relented.
N MAY 1935, KING GEORGE V
celebrated his silver jubilee, marking twenty-five years on the British throne. The Prince of Wales was desperate to include Wallis on the guest lists for official functions. So great was this desire that he sought out an audience with his father and raised the subject of invitations for the Simpsons himself. At first, the old King was adamant, declaring that he could not possibly invite his son’s mistress to any official affairs. But David would not be put off so easily. He insisted that relations between himself and Wallis were absolutely proper. Unwilling to argue the point, George V relented.
Hearing of this decision, the King’s private secretary, Clive, Lord Wigram, wrote that he himself had learned of Mrs. Simpson’s adultery with the Prince from members of the staff at Fort Belvedere. “Apart from actually seeing H.R.H. and Mrs. S. in bed together,” he declared, “they had positive proof that H.R.H. lived with her.”
1
But Wigram could do little; the King had agreed, and the invitation was duly dispatched.
1
But Wigram could do little; the King had agreed, and the invitation was duly dispatched.
The Jubilee Ball took place at Buckingham Palace on May 14. Wallis and Ernest joined the other well-turned-out guests as they ascended the grand staircase to the state apartments. By tradition, the Prince of Wales opened the ball by dancing with his mother. As soon as this dance had come to an end, however, he quickly sought out Wallis and led her to the middle of the ballroom. They waltzed past the enthroned King and Queen, sitting silent and curious on the crimson dais at one end of the room. As they danced, the magnificent diamond clips on Wallis’s gown—a gift from David—sparkled in the soft light. “I thought I felt the King’s eyes rest searchingly on me,” Wallis recalled. “Something in his look made me feel that all this graciousness and pageantry were but the glittering tip of an iceberg that extended down into unseen depths I could never plumb, depths filled with an icy menace for such as me.... In that moment I knew that between David’s world and mine lay an abyss that I could never cross, one he could never bridge for me.”
2
2
Like a besotted schoolboy, David was determined to show off Wallis to his family and friends. He cornered his cousin Prince Christopher of Greece, saying, “I want you to meet Mrs. Simpson.”
“Mrs. Simpson, who is she?” Christopher asked.
“An American,” David said with a wide smile. “She’s wonderful.” The impression was immediate. “Those two words,” Christopher recalled, “told me everything. It was as though he had said: ‘She is the only woman in the world.’” After meeting Wallis and observing his cousin, Christopher knew without a doubt that the Prince of Wales was lost to Thelma. “He was in love as it is given to men and women to love only once in a lifetime,” he said.
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3
The closer David drew to Wallis, the more alienated he became from his family. One of the great myths of the abdication crisis, however, is that the then king, Edward VIII, sprang Wallis on a completely unsuspecting Royal Family, which was suddenly confronted with what they considered a highly unsuitable relationship. The truth is that not only was the Royal Family aware of Wallis and her position for several years before the abdication but that there was much talk among themselves and with officials concerning the possible outcome of the relationship.
King George V, though rarely a man to share his private thoughts, spoke at length with Cosmo Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the spring of 1935 about his eldest son’s liaison. One of Queen Mary’s ladies-in-waiting, Mabell, Lady Airlie, also confided to the Archbishop that the Prince’s mother had discussed the affair with her. “I said,” Lady Airlie told Lang, “that the Prince had had previous friendships, like most young men, especially those who had grown up during the war years.”
“That is what I told His Majesty,” the Archbishop answered. “But he believes that this affair is much more serious than the others. That is what worries him.”
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4
The Royal Family came to view Wallis as an adventuress. They believed that she dominated David, acted purposely to keep him away from his family and old friends, and deliberately schemed for power and prestige. That she was also an American—and, by extension, unfamiliar with the traditional role of a mistress—was a source of constant worry. Freda Dudley Ward, for instance, had known better than to appear with David in public or covered with his expensive gifts of jewelry; Wallis, on the other hand, seemed to positively delight in her newfound fame. The family could not see beyond these limited views and refused to believe that Wallis’s influence was anything but pernicious. By blaming Wallis for David’s own actions, they ignored his own streak of stubborn determination, a characteristic which was becoming increasingly obvious.
Wallis’s meetings with members of the Royal Family had been, with the exception of Prince George and his wife, Marina, rather infrequent and, in the case of David’s parents, formal. She had met the Duke and Duchess of York from time to time, usually at the Fort; at first, relations had been casual, and Bertie and Elizabeth had treated Wallis in the same accepting and jovial fashion in which they had welcomed Thelma Furness. But the deeper David’s relationship with Wallis became, the colder their thoughts and actions toward his mistress.
An incident early in 1935 did little to endear Wallis to the Duchess. One day, as Wallis stood in the drawing room of the Fort, she decided to entertain the guests gathered there with a mocking rendition of the high-pitched, clipped voice of the Duchess of York. She was in the midst of this comedic impersonation when suddenly the faces before her went blank. She turned around, only to discover the real Duchess standing silently in the doorway, staring at her. Before Wallis could say a word, Elizabeth turned on her heels and left the Fort.
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5
If the incident described actually took place, it is doubtful that Wallis was acting maliciously. Unfortunately, her biting sense of humor often expressed itself in the most inopportune ways and at the worst possible times. No matter her intention, she succeeded not only in making her room of guests laugh but also in making of the Duchess of York her implacable enemy. Not that Elizabeth herself was above such behavior. “Mrs. Simpson did not go down well with the Duchess of York,” writes Anne Morrow, “who to this day makes jokes at her expense, doing her excellent imitation of an American accent.”
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The Royal Family refused to recognize the favorable effect of Wallis’s influence on David. He was a changed man with Wallis around, happier than he had ever been before. Winston Churchill wrote: “He delighted in her company, and found in her qualities as necessary to his happiness as the air he breathed. Those who knew him well and watched him closely noticed that many little tricks and fidgetings of nervousness fell away from him. He was a completed being instead of a sick and harassed soul. This experience which happens to a great many people in the flower of their youth came late in life to him, and was all the more precious and compulsive for that fact.”
7
And Chips Channon recorded: “Mrs. Simpson has enormously improved the Prince.”
8
7
And Chips Channon recorded: “Mrs. Simpson has enormously improved the Prince.”
8
Caught in the middle and unable and unwilling to make a choice, Wallis quickly found herself under considerable strain. Increasingly, Ernest absented himself completely, preferring business trips to America to weekends at the Fort. For a year, Wallis had sincerely believed— and repeatedly reassured Ernest—that their marriage was in no danger because of her relationship with the Prince; now, for the first time, she came to accept the possibility that by pursuing whatever brief happiness she might have with the heir to the throne at the expense of her bond with Ernest, she might lose both men. And yet, propelled by her taste for these royal holidays, ceremonial occasions, showers of jewels, and it must be said, by a steadily growing feeling of love for David, she plunged ahead into the unknown.
That summer, the Prince of Wales decided to go to Cannes for his holiday. Although he issued an invitation to both the Simpsons, Ernest conveniently excused himself by saying that he had to conduct business in America. David rented a villa from the Marquess of Cholmondeley and, accompanied by Wallis, Lord Perry and Lady Brownlow, Helen Fitzgerald, Lord Sefton, the Buists, and John Aird, set off for the South of France. They managed to commandeer the Duke of Westminster’s yacht
Cutty Sark
for a cruise to Corsica, followed by another cruise on a yacht belonging to Daisy Fellowes, which took them along the coast, stopping at secluded coves and small resorts, where they dined ashore each evening.
Cutty Sark
for a cruise to Corsica, followed by another cruise on a yacht belonging to Daisy Fellowes, which took them along the coast, stopping at secluded coves and small resorts, where they dined ashore each evening.
David again wished to visit Vienna and Budapest, and so the royal party made a detour from Cannes to Austria and Hungary. Before returning to England, they spent four days in the remote Alpine village of St. Wolfgang, near Salzburg. Later, the Prince would commemorate this brief stay with gifts of jewelry, and it seems likely—whether or not he discussed the idea with Wallis—that it was during the visit to St. Wolfgang that he firmly made up his mind that he would one day marry Wallis. “The hope formed,” he later wrote, “that one day I might be able to share my life with her.... It was all quite vague but none the less vivid, the dream of being able to bring into my life what for so long had been lacking, without which my service to the State would seem an empty thing.... I could not discount the possibility of having to withdraw altogether from the line of succession if my hope were ever to be fulfilled. However, I took comfort from the fact that my brother Bertie, to whom the succession would pass, was in outlook and temperament very like my father. . . .”
9
If nothing else, this seems to indicate that David had thought of abdication, even before the beginning of his reign, as a possible solution to the alternative of life without Wallis.
9
If nothing else, this seems to indicate that David had thought of abdication, even before the beginning of his reign, as a possible solution to the alternative of life without Wallis.
He would later confide to Walter Monckton that his decision to marry Wallis had indeed been reached during this trip. “To him,” Monckton wrote, “she was the perfect woman. She insisted that he should be at his best and do his best at all times, and he regarded her as his inspiration. It is a great mistake to assume that he was merely in love with her in the ordinary physical sense of the term. There was an intellectual companionship, and there is no doubt that his lonely nature found in her a spiritual comradeship.... He felt that he and Mrs. Simpson were made for one another and there was no other honest way of meeting the situation than marrying her. The easy view is that she should have made him give her up. But I never knew any man whom it would have been harder to get rid of.”
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When Wallis returned to London in early October, Ernest was still in New York. “I had the feeling that more than business was now drawing him back to America,” Wallis wrote. “We were both going our separate ways; the core of our marriage had dissolved; only a shell remained—a façade to show the outer world.”
11
The marriage was indeed over in all but name. During this trip, Ernest had an affair with Wallis’s friend Mary Kirk Raffray; whether he told Wallis of this or not upon his return is not known.
11
The marriage was indeed over in all but name. During this trip, Ernest had an affair with Wallis’s friend Mary Kirk Raffray; whether he told Wallis of this or not upon his return is not known.
“Though nothing about Mrs. Simpson appears in the English papers,” wrote Cecil Beaton in the autumn of 1935, “her name seems never to be off people’s lips. For those who enjoy gossip she is a particular treat. The sound of her name implies secrecy, royalty, and being in the know. As a topic she has become a mania, so much so that her name is banned in many houses to allow breathing space for other topics.”
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The one exception to this came in November, when Paris dressmakers named Wallis one of the twenty best-dressed women in the world. The accompanying story cautiously noted that she was ”often seen with the Prince of Wales.”
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The one exception to this came in November, when Paris dressmakers named Wallis one of the twenty best-dressed women in the world. The accompanying story cautiously noted that she was ”often seen with the Prince of Wales.”
13
David continued to shower Wallis with jewels, often engraved with little messages of love and marked by their joint initials,
WE
. After one evening at the Fort, Diana Cooper telephoned Chips Channon and promptly reported, “Mrs. Simpson was glittering, and dripped in new jewels and clothes.”
14
This jewel collection caused a riot of interest among these social circles. Marie Belloc Lowndes recalled one weekend house party given by Sir Philip Sassoon at Trent Park in January 1936. She was sitting with the rest of the party in the drawing room when Mr. and Mrs. Simpson were announced. “Most of the people... did not know them and we all felt a very real sense of thrill, of interest and of curiosity. I was at once impressed by Mrs. Simpson’s perfect figure. She was of medium height, and beautifully dressed in the French way, that is, very unobtrusively. I did not think her in the least pretty. She was very much made up with what I would call a Red Indian colouring, that is, yellow and brick-red. Her hair appeared at night very dark, and was cut much shorter than was just then the fashion among Englishwomen. She had an intelligent but in no sense remarkable face.” At dinner, Marie was placed next to Ernest and across the table from Wallis. On Wallis’s ensemble, she reported: ”She was wearing a plain dress, high at the throat, but with bare arms. She wore a very great deal of jewelry, which I thought must be what is called ‘dressmaker‘s‘ jewels, so large were the emeralds in her bracelets and so striking and peculiar a necklace.” After the party had broken up and the Simpsons left, Mrs. Lowndes sat talking with some of the other guests. She commented that Mrs. Simpson had surprised her by wearing so many obviously fake jewels. “At that,” she remembered, “they all screamed with laughter, explaining that all the jewels were real, that the then Prince of Wales had given her fifty thousand pounds’ worth at Christmas, following it up with sixty thousand pounds’ worth of jewels a week later at the New Year.”
15
WE
. After one evening at the Fort, Diana Cooper telephoned Chips Channon and promptly reported, “Mrs. Simpson was glittering, and dripped in new jewels and clothes.”
14
This jewel collection caused a riot of interest among these social circles. Marie Belloc Lowndes recalled one weekend house party given by Sir Philip Sassoon at Trent Park in January 1936. She was sitting with the rest of the party in the drawing room when Mr. and Mrs. Simpson were announced. “Most of the people... did not know them and we all felt a very real sense of thrill, of interest and of curiosity. I was at once impressed by Mrs. Simpson’s perfect figure. She was of medium height, and beautifully dressed in the French way, that is, very unobtrusively. I did not think her in the least pretty. She was very much made up with what I would call a Red Indian colouring, that is, yellow and brick-red. Her hair appeared at night very dark, and was cut much shorter than was just then the fashion among Englishwomen. She had an intelligent but in no sense remarkable face.” At dinner, Marie was placed next to Ernest and across the table from Wallis. On Wallis’s ensemble, she reported: ”She was wearing a plain dress, high at the throat, but with bare arms. She wore a very great deal of jewelry, which I thought must be what is called ‘dressmaker‘s‘ jewels, so large were the emeralds in her bracelets and so striking and peculiar a necklace.” After the party had broken up and the Simpsons left, Mrs. Lowndes sat talking with some of the other guests. She commented that Mrs. Simpson had surprised her by wearing so many obviously fake jewels. “At that,” she remembered, “they all screamed with laughter, explaining that all the jewels were real, that the then Prince of Wales had given her fifty thousand pounds’ worth at Christmas, following it up with sixty thousand pounds’ worth of jewels a week later at the New Year.”
15
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