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 On this day one hundred and fourteen years ago
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| Group picture of Edward VII, Queen Alexandra and family at Sandringham. Seated, Mary, Duchess of York, with Prince Edward of York (later Duke of Windsor), Queen Alexandra (with Prince Henry, later Duke of Gloucester) and King Edward VII. The Duke of York, later King George V, is standing behind his mother and wife. |
On this day one hundred and fourteen years ago, June 23, in 1894, Prince Edward of York was born at White Lodge Richard Park, London, great-grandson of the still reigning Queen Victoria, grandson of Albert Edward and Alexandra, Prince and Princess of Wales, and son of George and Mary, the Duke and Duchess of York. He was named Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, would hold the titles of Prince Edward of York, Prince Edward of York and Cornwall, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, and Prince of Wales (all with the style Royal Highness), and would always be known by his family and those closest to him as David.
His birth was the first time that three direct heirs to the throne were living under a reigning monarch. A few days later, his 75-year-old great-grandmother Queen Victoria made a special trip form Windsor Castle to see the infant who would be her adored great-grandson on until her death eight years later. |
| Edward, Prince of Wales as Midshipman aboard the HMS Hindustan, 1911 (age 17). |
The young Prince and his dog. |
Now largely forgotten a century later, the little Prince by the time he reached puberty was the most celebrated individual in the United Kingdom, and indeed perhaps on the planet, as the fair-haired boy, the man who would one day be King of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions beyond the Seas and Emperor of India.
But not for long. In 1931, the 37-year-old heir to the throne, at a house party in Melton Mowbray, given by his married American mistress (Lady Thelma Furness – aunt of little Gloria Vanderbilt) was introduced to an American couple, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Simpson. Three years later Mrs. Simpson and the Prince began an affair that rocked the Empire and stunned the world. By 1935, it was the talk of the world although the British press was forbidden to make any references to it so that the British people had little or no idea what was going on.
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| Edward, Prince of Wales as Colonel-in-Chief of the Welsh Guards, London, 1935 (age 41). |
Edward, Prince of Wales, King George V, and the Duke of York (later George VI), 1935. |
| Portrait of the prince, now King Edward VIII as Sovereign of the Order of the Garter, 1936, by John St. Helier Lander (British, born 1869). |
Edward VIII at Windsor on December 10th, 1936 when he announced his abdication by radio to the British nation and the world. |
King George V died in late January 1936 and David, the Prince of Wales succeeded his father to the throne. However, before the Coronation could be carried out, the affair with Mrs. Simpson became a matter of State. It was decided that since she was a divorcee (with living ex-husbands), not to mention an American and a “commoner,” the King could not marry her and remain king. Copious biographies since have speculated on the possibility of her marrying the King and him making her his consort and Queen, but that was not going to be. On December 11, 1936, at Windsor Castle, less than a year after the Prince had succeeded his late father George V as King, Edward VIII broadcast his message to the world, abdicating the throne “for the woman I love.”
Mrs. Simpson’s divorce from Ernest Simpson became final in May 1937 and a month later the couple married at the Chateau de Candé in Moins, France, lent to them by Charles Bedaux who later worked for the Nazis in World War II. No members of the British Royal Family were in attendance. The former king had been given a new title, HRH, the Duke of Windsor. Much to the Duke’s eternal chagrin, his wife was not formally recognized as Her Royal Highness but simply like those duchesses and princesses who followed her, Diana and Sarah Ferguson, as duchess.
The changes for a boy who had been groomed since birth to be king of what was then the most powerful nation on earth, were not easy. He had been disallowed visiting Britain with his wife unless formally invited by his brother, George VI (although they did, in time, travel to England privately). He had been shut out. In short time, as the events of a second World War were unfolding, the Duke and Duchess were guests of Adolf Hitler in Germany.
In 1939, the Duke as given a military post in the British Army stationed in France although his duchess continued to entertain friends associated with the fascist movement and is said to have leaked details of military defenses that she learned from the Duke. When the Germans bombed France and Britain in 1940, she told an American journalist: “I can’t say I feel sorry for them.” As the German advanced on Paris, however, the Duke and Duchess fled to Spain and then Portugal.
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The Duke and the Duchess are greeted by Adolf Hitler on their visit to Germany in 1937. |
In August 1940, the Duke was assigned to become the Royal Governor of the Bahamas and a royal warship was dispatched to transport them to their new home in Nassau.
The Duchess’ fury at her husband’s family and the British establishment for not accepting her remained a topic of discussion for many years afterwards and gave rise to the belief that Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) loathed the woman for the damage she had done to the throne (and Elizabeth’s husband who succeeded his brother, George VI).
After 1940, the couple spent a good deal of their time in Palm Beach, New York and Paris. In Palm Beach they house guested. In New York, they had a suite at the Waldorf Towers and in Paris they lived in a grand house in the Bois de Boulogne.
It was a vagabond life of luxury and idleness, populated by international socialites, parties and the Best Dressed List. The little influence that the Duke had was thwarted by bad luck and bad decisions. In the Bahamas, for example, Sir Harry Oakes, a Canadian gold tycoon and the richest man in the islands, was murdered. There was a cover-up in which the Duke was believed by many to have participated in.
The murder was never solved. In 1955 in Long Island, the couple were guests of honor at a dinner party, after which one of the guests, Ann Woodward shot and killed her husband, banking heir William E. Woodward Jr. in a case that was also never really solved until 20 years later when Truman Capote wrote a piece for Esquire called “Cote Basque 1965” in which it was revealed that killing was not an accident but deliberate (Mrs. Woodward committed suicide after the piece was written), and the story was later made into a best-selling novel by Dominick Dunne.
Later in the 1950s, the Duchess became involved in a liaison which some saw as a romance with Jimmy Donahue, the Woolworth heir who was a notorious figure in the New York-Palm Beach axis and openly and flamboyantly homosexual. Donahue flaunted the relationship and the Duchess went along, often leaving parties with her “lover” without telling the Duke she was going so that he’d spend the rest of the evening searching for (and never finding) her.
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| The Duke and Duchess in Palm Beach, in Alsace shooting, and in Paris from 1947 through 1968. |
Years after their deaths it was revealed that the British government was aware that while Mrs. Simpson, later the Duchess was having her affair with the Prince/King, she was also having affairs with others such a married car salesman named Guy Trundle and the Duke of Leinster. The FBI also believed that during that time she was also having an affair with Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s ambassador to London.
On September 1940, an FBI officer sent a memo to J. Edgar Hoover stating that: "An agent has established conclusively that the Duchess of Windsor has recently been in touch with Joachim von Ribbentrop and was maintaining constant contact and communication with him. Because of their high official position, the duchess was obtaining a variety of information concerning the British and French official activities that she was passing on to the Germans.”
It was also after the government learned of Hitler’s plans to make the Duke a puppet king of England if the Germans won the war, that Winston Churchill arranged to have the Duke made governor of the Bahamas and got him out of Europe.
As time passed all of these intrigues fell into the dustbin of history and the Duke and Duchess enjoyed a very special place in international society as a fashion couple, both commanders of the Best Dressed List. The Duke was arguably the most fashionable dresser of his age whose style set the pace. He was a very small, slender man, always perfectly groomed.
He introduced the use of brown suede shoes with day suits and midnight blue dinner jackets. He loved bold plaids and checks, and double-breasted jackets (which were made in England, with the pants made in America), including a full cut (baggy in today’s parlance) cuffed trouser. |
| The Duke and Duchess with their pugs in the drawing room of the Moulin de la Tuilerie, their country house, in 1967, photographed by Patrick Lichfield. |
In the salon of the house in Paris, The Abdication Desk, a George III mahogany library table circa 1775. Seated at this table at For Belvedere, King Edward VIII signed the Instrument of Abdication at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, December 10, 1936, witnessed by his brothers, Prince Albert, Duke of York (soon to be King George VI), Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and Prince George, Duke of Kent. |
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H.M. Queen Elizabeth II, HRH Prince Philip, and HRH Prince Charles with the Duchess of Windsor on the steps of the Windsors' residence in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, May 18th, 1972 after a brief reunion and visit with the Duke who passed away ten days later. |
He was also an aficionado of fine jewelry for his wife – when he proposed he gave her a 19.77 carat rectangular emerald ring -- and over time she accumulated, thanks to him, one of the greatest collections of jewels in the world, including some pieces that had belonged to the Royal Family.
After the Duchess’ death, her jewels were auctioned off for more than $55 million, the proceeds of which were given to the Pasteur Institute for treatment and research of AIDS.
Political upheavals, family rejections and extra-marital affairs aside, the couple stayed together and remained one of the Great Love Stories – fodder for copious best-selling biographies – until his death thirty-six years after their marriage, in Paris, at age 78.
It was just before his death that he was reconciled with his family, having been paid a visit on May 18th in Paris by Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Prince Charles. Ten days later, the Duke died of throat cancer.
The Duchess lived another fourteen years, although in greatly declining health, dying in April 24, 1986 in Paris. The couple are buried together at the Royal Burial ground at Windsor. |
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