Wallis Part 3

In 1928, London was a great place to be. Ever seen the movie Bright Young Things? Or the last season of Upstairs, Downstairs? That was the kind of life Wallis wanted in London. So she set about getting it. Servants were a status symbol, so Wallis convinced Ernest to spring for a maid. She also wrote her Aunt Bessie with various sob stories in the hopes of getting some money. But her aunt wasn't exactly rolling in dough, either. But, money or no money, Wallis wanted to get involved with the upper-class. She had a great connection in Benny Thaw. Benny had been in the Navy with Win, and he and Wallis had been friends in California. Now he was living in London too, and he married Consuelo Morgan.

Consuelo had two younger sisters, identical twins, who were both famous in London society, Thelma and Gloria. Thelma was Lady Furness, married to a British lord, and Gloria was the widowed mother of Gloria Vanderbilt, who at the time was partying her way through Europe. Both had royal connections, Thelma was involved with the Prince of Wales, and Gloria was involved in a rather scandalous relationship(officially, they were just really good friends)with Nada Milford-Haven, an exiled Romanov married to one of Queen Victoria's great-grandsons. They also both hung out with a lot of those minor European princes. You know, the kind Barbara Hutton liked to marry.

Wallis immediately honed in on their social circle, and using all of her talents at charm and flattery, managed to get an invitation to Thelma's house for a party the Prince of Wales would be present at. The Prince of Wales was the oldest son of George V, known as Edward in public, and David in private. He had a lot of middle names (like six or seven) and even more titles. Thelma was, at the time, his favorite girlfriend. Because he totally had more than one. Like many royal men, he loved married women. I don't know what it is with royals, but whenever they fall deeply in love with someone one of the parties is either married or the wrong religion, or there's some other type of conflict. Victoria and Albert being the obvious exception. It's some subconscious thing, you know, always wanting what you can't have.

So, anyway, Wallis and David met at a party in 1931 at his girlfriend's house. Wallis was sick, but being a royal fan, went anyway. Accounts differ as to how much they actually said to each other during this meeting,(he said later that she had been obviously sick and kind of rude, too) but either way he remembered her. They did not see each other again for two more years, during which time Wallis tried to get further "in" with the Morgan sisters and their inner circle. Eventually, in 1933, she was invited to meet David again, and managed to get an invite to a weekend at his country house, Fort Belvedere. For the unaware, rich people in England in the 1920's and 30's always had country houses and loved inviting all their friends to stay over for weekends to show off how big and nice their place was and how much money they had. Usually, there was also lots of drinking involved.

Her first weekend at Fort Belvedere, Wallis walked into the wrong room and discovered David had a dark secret that few people knew about. He liked to do needlepoint. Instead of finding this feminine and weird, Wallis was intrigued by his love of needlepoint, and eventually tried to get him to make her stuff. The two of them actually had a lot in common. They both loved kitsch (when they were married they had a collection of tacky ceramic chickens), were nosy and gossipy, and hated commas. I mean really hated commas. I have a book of their letters and there's like one comma in the whole thing. Wallis was interesting in what it was like to be royal, and David was interesting in what it was like to not be royal.

Throughout the rest of 1933, Wallis and David became much closer, and Ernest was thrilled because apparently having your wife get involved with a royal is something to be proud of. I would think maybe he was just weird, but I have read about so many men who were married to royal mistresses and didn't seem to mind all that much. Though they later denied that there was any hanky-panky until after their marriage in 1937, we now know that was a lie. You see, there was a commemorative bracelet for the third anniversary of their first time. So we know they first had sex on December 3, 1933. And it was in a bathtub. The bracelet was very specific. So people can stop accusing her of playing the Anne Boleyn card, I guess.

Thelma was still in the picture, but she obviously didn't know what was going on. In January 1934, Thelma's sister Gloria had to go home to fight for custody of her child. Apparently her late husband's family did not approve of her and Nada's friendship. The whole case was quite the scandal at the time. Thelma decided to go to New York to support her sister. During the time she was gone, Thelma was paranoid about David hooking up with his other girlfriend, Freda Dudley Ward. So she invited Wallis out to lunch, and asked her to spend as much time with him as she could and make sure he wasn't off with Freda. Wallis was happy to do it.

Thelma didn't know what was going on until she got back several weeks later. She was invited to the Fort, and left early after noticing Wallis and David acting really close and whispering in each other's ears the whole time. Wallis even slapped his hand away when he tried to eat some lettuce with his hand. Not long after that, both Thelma and Freda were unceremoniously dropped. By summer 1934, Wallis and David were falling in love. They created their own words, and nicknames for each other and other people. They went on a trip together touring Europe and he started giving her lots of jewelry. Really nice stuff, we're talking about. And she tried to make Ernest pay to insure it.

People always wonder exactly what it was he saw in her. Basically, from what I've read, it had to do with her not treating him special. In fact, she was sometimes downright mean to him. But he was used to being fawned upon and treated different from other people, and under those circumstances it's hard for someone to believe anyone actually loves them. Wallis didn't do that and she called him on it when he did something stupid. They also had a lot of chemistry. Friends recalled how even decades into their marriage, they could stay up half the night just talking about different things. Now, on Wallis's part, I think she was genuinely charmed by him and loved him beyond the royal thing and beyond being a golddigger.

But she definitely loved the lifestyle, too. Her letters also seem to indicate she did not think their relationship would last or go anywhere. After all, he had had plenty of girlfriends before, and she was still married. She also hadn't had the best experiences with men in the past. She also thought David was kind of selfish and immature (like a lot of royals), not that she wasn't selfish too. She wrote to him "the lovely things you say to me aren't of much value unless they are backed up by equal actions" after he got drunk at her house or picked a fight with her husband or something. From the same letter "I am not writing a lecture only your behaviour last night made me realise how very alone I shall be some day."

As their relationship continued, Wallis's marriage to Ernest started to fall apart. He was out-of-town a lot anywhere, but even when he was in town, Wallis didn't want to spend much time with him. She wrote to her aunt about how difficult it was trying to make time for two men. As 1935 began, Wallis started receiving media attention in the United States. Britain at the time had an agreement with the press not to print personal stuff about the royal family. I can only imagine how much the current royals would love to bring that back.

Wallis starting getting calls and letters from pretty much everyone she ever knew back in the U.S. and they all wanted to know if the rumors were true. Of course, up until their engagement became public knowledge Wallis always denied to people who weren't close friends that there was anything going on. But with all the jewelry he bought her, and all the times they were seen publicly together, no one believed that.

Throughout 1935, Wallis was alternately thrilled and stressed, torn between loving her new lifestyle and despairing the fact that she was expecting everything to come crashing down any minute. There was also an entertaining story about her being involved with a third guy who sold used cars or something. It was in the files from the guy the royal family paid to follow her around. But all he seemed to have was that supposedly she knew this guy and he claimed (to someone, it's not specified who) that he and Wallis had a thing. Either way, no one seemed to have known or said anything about this at the time which make me think not much happened. Plus he supposedly said that Wallis bought him expensive gifts, which wasn't her style at all. She didn't even have that much money to throw around.

Things came to a head in January 1936 when King George died. He had been ill off and on for years, but his death wasn't entirely expected. He was kind of helped along, but that's a long story I already covered with my rant on Queen Mary. So George was dead and David was king, reigning as Edward VIII. Wallis wondered what was going to happen next and if she would still have a place in his life. Meanwhile, her marriage was all but over and her picture was in every magazine in the United States.