Yes, that is a lobster on her dress.
At the beginning of 1937, Wallis Warfield Simpson was probably the most controversial woman in the world. Time Magazine had named her their "Man of the Year" for 1936, and everyone had an opinion. While the words "slut" and "whore" were only whispered in private, other terms like "adventuress" and "scarlet woman" (Molly Weasley's term of choice) were perfectly acceptable judgments. Not that everyone was against her: she had a fan club in the Midwest as well as a group of women who wanted to kill her in Scotland. But even the people who liked her (or were indifferent to her) speculated about her past, her personal life, her sexuality, her politics, and even her gender.
Meanwhile, in England, George VI and Queen Elizabeth were preparing to move into Buckingham Palace. George VI had spent most of his life as Prince Albert (Bertie to friends and family), he chose to reign as George because apparently the royal family didn't think five (two of whom were ridiculously unpopular) were enough. Edward VIII had become the Duke of Windsor, and Bertie was King now. And he wasn't all that happy about it. Now, his wife, Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) despite her protests probably did want to be Queen very badly and seemed to enjoy the title when she got it. But Bertie was not interested in the throne, and he was pissed at his older brother for giving it to him. Though they had been close as children, there was always some level of inequality between them and David didn't always treat Bertie right. Let me put it this way, if David was Bart, Bertie was Milhouse and as adults they weren't that close. He had health problems both as a child and adult, and was born left handed. For turn-of-the-century royals, the solution for left-handedness involved beating it out of you. Fun fact for all my fellow lefties out there: Queen Victoria was left-handed and it's a common trait among royalty. The current Queen and her grandson Prince William are lefties.
Bertie was also pissed at his brother for misrepresenting how much money he had in order to get a royal allowance. He thought David intentionally lied to him. I'd say it was more likely David didn't know exactly how much money he had. I don't think I've ever heard of a royal who kept good track of how much they were worth. In general, they only find out how much money they've got when they run out. Despite usually knowing very little about their own finances or finance in general, members of the British royal family always think they're poor. Anyway, David's family were pissed at him. His mother, Bertie, and Elizabeth were the most angry. His brother George (not to be confused with Bertie) and sister Mary were actually on his side, or at least sympathetic to him, but were too afraid of pissing off their mom to defend him. Mary visited him for Christmas 1936, with news (not good) from the family. George met with him in winter 1937 for some skiing.
David was staying Austria with Wallis's friend Kitty, Baroness Rothschild (of those Rothschilds). Wallis had written to Kitty on December 18th 1936 to "be kind to him. He is honest and good and really worthy of affection." But apparent after reading a harmless fact in this article: [www.time.com]
"The Duke of Windsor, as midnight tolled in the Year 1937, clapped Baron Rothschild warmly around the shoulder, kissed the Baroness ("Kitty") Rothschild heartily and ran off to ring up Mrs. Simpson in Cannes."
Wallis became convinced that Kitty Rothschild was beingtoo kind and giving David too much affection and convinced herself they were engaged in some kind of torrid affair. It is again worth noting that David had only a few weeks earlier renounced a throne to be with Wallis. Kitty, for her part, quickly became fed up with David and considered him aloof and selfish and wished she hadn't agreed to let him stay with her. But Wallis persisted in mentioning Kitty in her letters: "I can only pray to God that in your loneliness you haven't flirted with her. I suspect that."
Supposedly, during their telephone calls and in conversations with friends, Wallis indicated that she suspected he was doing a lot more than flirting with her and apparently that idea distressed her greatly. Even more than her fiancé's family and the international press. To be clear, during his first few months in Austria David had actually...
1. Decided that people were being way too mean to the Jews (they were; it was the '30's) and setting out to write a book defending them. He got about ten pages in before he saw something shiny and was distracted.
2. Found Jesus. He started going to the local Anglican church in Vienna and praying for himself and Wallis constantly. This lasted until a Church official helpfully explained to him that he was an "everlastingly damned sinner" and as such Jesus was not interested in him. Said Church official then suggested Satan as a viable alternative.
3. Gone skiing. Wallis told him to be careful and informed him that if he died in a skiing accident she would be really mad at him.
4. Rudely ignored his hostess because he was afraid that if he spent any time alone with her Wallis would consider that cheating and dump him.
5. Called his brother to give him helpful "advice" on how to be King. This ended when Bertie had mutual friends inform him that he was not helping and Bertie was not going to be answering his calls from then on.
6. Discovered there were these horrible things called taxes that non-royals have to pay and set about finding a way to get out of having to pay them.
7. Cried on the phone to Wallis about how mean his family was and listened to her cry about what a cheating bastard he was.
8. Done some needlepoint.
Wallis, meanwhile, spent most of her days inside crying and trying to avoid the press. By March, Kitty Rothschild had left Austria and Wallis's complaints turned more to the royal family. David and Wallis had nicknames for Bertie and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Cookie, or Mrs. Temple, and Bertie was Mr. Temple or "your feebleminded brother". The Mr. and Mrs. Temple came from Wallis's feeling that Elizabeth in particular used her children for attention whoring, like a stage mother. The then Princess Elizabeth was Shirley Temple. Elizabeth, for her part, hated Wallis even more than Wallis hated her. There were a variety of issues at work (a whole book was written about why Wallis and Elizabeth didn't get along) but the main conflict started when, before David was King, Elizabeth had walked in on Wallis doing an impersonation of her at a party at Fort Belvedere.
As the separation went on despite their mutual stress and all of the sex David was(n't) having with Kitty Rothschild, there letters were mostly affectionate:
Wallis to David, January 1: "I couldn't bear hearing you cry-you who have been through so much and are so brave. My baby it is because I long to be with you so intensely everything becomes so magnified. Darling I love you. Come to me soon."
David to Wallis, January 27: "God bless WE my sweetheart and hold tight. I love you so dearly and want you desperately."
Wallis to David, February 6th: "Darling-I want to leave here I want to see you touch you I want to run my own house I want to be married and to you." (she didn't like commas or other forms of punctuation very much)
David to Wallis, February 18th: : "I'll write again quickly and till then know that I love you love you Wallis always more and more. I know that I can make you happy for all time my sweetheart and that is a terribly big thing to say. Still I say it."
Most of the letters are kind of sappy (particularly his) and rather immature, but I have read so many historical letters that were down right creepy that there's no point commenting much on it. They had nicknames for everyone (rather like the Bushes) and tons of their own words. Wallis called David "lightening brain" because he was kind of disty and forgetful.
In early April, Wallis and David's beloved dog, Slipper, was bitten by a snake and died. Wallis totally lost her marbles, and insisted a priest be brought in and a funeral held. She considered it the crowning cherry on the shit sundae that 1937 had been so far. David, though distraught over losing his dog and missing Wallis was a lot less miserable. He seemed to alter from stress and pain, to joy and happiness. He wrote that he had been happy for the first time in his life and felt in many ways as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. But he missed his family and home country. He had been told he would be able to come back and move into Fort Belvedere in a few years (not going to happen) and was trying to figure out what to do until then. Wallis's divorce was granted on May 3, and she immediately called up David, and he got on the first train to France. Queen Mary was very upset he had done that; by running to stay with his newly single girlfriend he was allowing the public to speculate that they were having pre-marital sex, which anyone who's studied British royal history knows isn't something royals have ever done ever.
Wallis and David put off their wedding until after the coronation on May 12, and decided to wait until June 3 since Wallis thought May weddings were bad luck. June 3 was on a Thursday, which is unusual for a wedding. It was also George V's birthday and exactly three and a half years from December 3, 1933 (see part three) so the date had significance. Current royal watchers know that June 3, 2010 is the date when Will and Kate are rumored to be announcing their engagement. I don't know, but whenever I see June 3 I remember it because it was the day my grandmother died and certain dates (positive and negative) that are relevant in your own life tend to stand out when you see them in regards to someone else's life.
The only member of either family to attend the wedding was Wallis's Aunt Bessie. Prince George and Princess Mary had wanted to come (George was going to be Best Man) but didn't come after their mother told them not to. David's former best friend and cousin Louis Mountbatten had switched sides during the abdication crisis and was now claiming to be Bertie's best friend. He originally wanted to come to the wedding but backed out last minute out of fear for alienating the royals back at home. He spent the rest of his life claiming he hadn't been invited.
The wedding took place at Chateau de Cande, the fancy French home of Herman Rogers's friend Charles Bedaux (who was not a nice person) which Wallis and David had been able to get on short notice. The wedding feast consisted of cake, lobster, and fried chicken served on a picnic table.
A few days before the wedding, David and Wallis received a "rotten wedding present" from Bertie. He informed them that Wallis would not get the title of H.R.H. and would not be royal. Traditionally, if a woman marries a man who is an H.R.H., she becomes an H.R.H. too. But not Wallis, because she was not suitable to marry into the British royal family. What's interesting is that her not receiving the same title as her husband makes their marriage kind of a morganatic marriage, where a royal man marries a commoner woman and she doesn't get the same title as him. When David was on the throne, he was told that he couldn't have a morganatic marriage (where he married Wallis and she wouldn't be Queen) because no such thing existed for British royalty. What's also interesting is their reasoning for not giving Wallis an H.R.H. (beyond not liking her) was that as a divorced woman she might do it again and they didn't want her divorcing David and running around Europe still calling herself H.R.H. because it's not like they could just take it away once she got it. Except where they could; when Princess Diana divorced Prince Charles she lost her H.R.H. and the same thing happened when Andrew and Fergie got divorced.
An interesting fact is that before their wedding Wallis and David signed a pre-nuptial agreement (royals don't normally do that) so she wouldn't get his money if they got divorced. It was her idea (he was naive enough that if she had been a golddigger she could have taken him for all he was worth) because she was sick of people calling her a golddigger. People still did, though. Right after the wedding, Wallis and David took off on a train to Italy and Austria for their honeymoon.
I suppose I have covered a fairly short time period for such a long post, but there was a lot going on. Next time we will get to the war and then their later years.
Meanwhile, in England, George VI and Queen Elizabeth were preparing to move into Buckingham Palace. George VI had spent most of his life as Prince Albert (Bertie to friends and family), he chose to reign as George because apparently the royal family didn't think five (two of whom were ridiculously unpopular) were enough. Edward VIII had become the Duke of Windsor, and Bertie was King now. And he wasn't all that happy about it. Now, his wife, Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) despite her protests probably did want to be Queen very badly and seemed to enjoy the title when she got it. But Bertie was not interested in the throne, and he was pissed at his older brother for giving it to him. Though they had been close as children, there was always some level of inequality between them and David didn't always treat Bertie right. Let me put it this way, if David was Bart, Bertie was Milhouse and as adults they weren't that close. He had health problems both as a child and adult, and was born left handed. For turn-of-the-century royals, the solution for left-handedness involved beating it out of you. Fun fact for all my fellow lefties out there: Queen Victoria was left-handed and it's a common trait among royalty. The current Queen and her grandson Prince William are lefties.
Bertie was also pissed at his brother for misrepresenting how much money he had in order to get a royal allowance. He thought David intentionally lied to him. I'd say it was more likely David didn't know exactly how much money he had. I don't think I've ever heard of a royal who kept good track of how much they were worth. In general, they only find out how much money they've got when they run out. Despite usually knowing very little about their own finances or finance in general, members of the British royal family always think they're poor. Anyway, David's family were pissed at him. His mother, Bertie, and Elizabeth were the most angry. His brother George (not to be confused with Bertie) and sister Mary were actually on his side, or at least sympathetic to him, but were too afraid of pissing off their mom to defend him. Mary visited him for Christmas 1936, with news (not good) from the family. George met with him in winter 1937 for some skiing.
David was staying Austria with Wallis's friend Kitty, Baroness Rothschild (of those Rothschilds). Wallis had written to Kitty on December 18th 1936 to "be kind to him. He is honest and good and really worthy of affection." But apparent after reading a harmless fact in this article: [www.time.com]
"The Duke of Windsor, as midnight tolled in the Year 1937, clapped Baron Rothschild warmly around the shoulder, kissed the Baroness ("Kitty") Rothschild heartily and ran off to ring up Mrs. Simpson in Cannes."
Wallis became convinced that Kitty Rothschild was beingtoo kind and giving David too much affection and convinced herself they were engaged in some kind of torrid affair. It is again worth noting that David had only a few weeks earlier renounced a throne to be with Wallis. Kitty, for her part, quickly became fed up with David and considered him aloof and selfish and wished she hadn't agreed to let him stay with her. But Wallis persisted in mentioning Kitty in her letters: "I can only pray to God that in your loneliness you haven't flirted with her. I suspect that."
Supposedly, during their telephone calls and in conversations with friends, Wallis indicated that she suspected he was doing a lot more than flirting with her and apparently that idea distressed her greatly. Even more than her fiancé's family and the international press. To be clear, during his first few months in Austria David had actually...
1. Decided that people were being way too mean to the Jews (they were; it was the '30's) and setting out to write a book defending them. He got about ten pages in before he saw something shiny and was distracted.
2. Found Jesus. He started going to the local Anglican church in Vienna and praying for himself and Wallis constantly. This lasted until a Church official helpfully explained to him that he was an "everlastingly damned sinner" and as such Jesus was not interested in him. Said Church official then suggested Satan as a viable alternative.
3. Gone skiing. Wallis told him to be careful and informed him that if he died in a skiing accident she would be really mad at him.
4. Rudely ignored his hostess because he was afraid that if he spent any time alone with her Wallis would consider that cheating and dump him.
5. Called his brother to give him helpful "advice" on how to be King. This ended when Bertie had mutual friends inform him that he was not helping and Bertie was not going to be answering his calls from then on.
6. Discovered there were these horrible things called taxes that non-royals have to pay and set about finding a way to get out of having to pay them.
7. Cried on the phone to Wallis about how mean his family was and listened to her cry about what a cheating bastard he was.
8. Done some needlepoint.
Wallis, meanwhile, spent most of her days inside crying and trying to avoid the press. By March, Kitty Rothschild had left Austria and Wallis's complaints turned more to the royal family. David and Wallis had nicknames for Bertie and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Cookie, or Mrs. Temple, and Bertie was Mr. Temple or "your feebleminded brother". The Mr. and Mrs. Temple came from Wallis's feeling that Elizabeth in particular used her children for attention whoring, like a stage mother. The then Princess Elizabeth was Shirley Temple. Elizabeth, for her part, hated Wallis even more than Wallis hated her. There were a variety of issues at work (a whole book was written about why Wallis and Elizabeth didn't get along) but the main conflict started when, before David was King, Elizabeth had walked in on Wallis doing an impersonation of her at a party at Fort Belvedere.
As the separation went on despite their mutual stress and all of the sex David was(n't) having with Kitty Rothschild, there letters were mostly affectionate:
Wallis to David, January 1: "I couldn't bear hearing you cry-you who have been through so much and are so brave. My baby it is because I long to be with you so intensely everything becomes so magnified. Darling I love you. Come to me soon."
David to Wallis, January 27: "God bless WE my sweetheart and hold tight. I love you so dearly and want you desperately."
Wallis to David, February 6th: "Darling-I want to leave here I want to see you touch you I want to run my own house I want to be married and to you." (she didn't like commas or other forms of punctuation very much)
David to Wallis, February 18th: : "I'll write again quickly and till then know that I love you love you Wallis always more and more. I know that I can make you happy for all time my sweetheart and that is a terribly big thing to say. Still I say it."
Most of the letters are kind of sappy (particularly his) and rather immature, but I have read so many historical letters that were down right creepy that there's no point commenting much on it. They had nicknames for everyone (rather like the Bushes) and tons of their own words. Wallis called David "lightening brain" because he was kind of disty and forgetful.
In early April, Wallis and David's beloved dog, Slipper, was bitten by a snake and died. Wallis totally lost her marbles, and insisted a priest be brought in and a funeral held. She considered it the crowning cherry on the shit sundae that 1937 had been so far. David, though distraught over losing his dog and missing Wallis was a lot less miserable. He seemed to alter from stress and pain, to joy and happiness. He wrote that he had been happy for the first time in his life and felt in many ways as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. But he missed his family and home country. He had been told he would be able to come back and move into Fort Belvedere in a few years (not going to happen) and was trying to figure out what to do until then. Wallis's divorce was granted on May 3, and she immediately called up David, and he got on the first train to France. Queen Mary was very upset he had done that; by running to stay with his newly single girlfriend he was allowing the public to speculate that they were having pre-marital sex, which anyone who's studied British royal history knows isn't something royals have ever done ever.
Wallis and David put off their wedding until after the coronation on May 12, and decided to wait until June 3 since Wallis thought May weddings were bad luck. June 3 was on a Thursday, which is unusual for a wedding. It was also George V's birthday and exactly three and a half years from December 3, 1933 (see part three) so the date had significance. Current royal watchers know that June 3, 2010 is the date when Will and Kate are rumored to be announcing their engagement. I don't know, but whenever I see June 3 I remember it because it was the day my grandmother died and certain dates (positive and negative) that are relevant in your own life tend to stand out when you see them in regards to someone else's life.
The only member of either family to attend the wedding was Wallis's Aunt Bessie. Prince George and Princess Mary had wanted to come (George was going to be Best Man) but didn't come after their mother told them not to. David's former best friend and cousin Louis Mountbatten had switched sides during the abdication crisis and was now claiming to be Bertie's best friend. He originally wanted to come to the wedding but backed out last minute out of fear for alienating the royals back at home. He spent the rest of his life claiming he hadn't been invited.
The wedding took place at Chateau de Cande, the fancy French home of Herman Rogers's friend Charles Bedaux (who was not a nice person) which Wallis and David had been able to get on short notice. The wedding feast consisted of cake, lobster, and fried chicken served on a picnic table.
A few days before the wedding, David and Wallis received a "rotten wedding present" from Bertie. He informed them that Wallis would not get the title of H.R.H. and would not be royal. Traditionally, if a woman marries a man who is an H.R.H., she becomes an H.R.H. too. But not Wallis, because she was not suitable to marry into the British royal family. What's interesting is that her not receiving the same title as her husband makes their marriage kind of a morganatic marriage, where a royal man marries a commoner woman and she doesn't get the same title as him. When David was on the throne, he was told that he couldn't have a morganatic marriage (where he married Wallis and she wouldn't be Queen) because no such thing existed for British royalty. What's also interesting is their reasoning for not giving Wallis an H.R.H. (beyond not liking her) was that as a divorced woman she might do it again and they didn't want her divorcing David and running around Europe still calling herself H.R.H. because it's not like they could just take it away once she got it. Except where they could; when Princess Diana divorced Prince Charles she lost her H.R.H. and the same thing happened when Andrew and Fergie got divorced.
An interesting fact is that before their wedding Wallis and David signed a pre-nuptial agreement (royals don't normally do that) so she wouldn't get his money if they got divorced. It was her idea (he was naive enough that if she had been a golddigger she could have taken him for all he was worth) because she was sick of people calling her a golddigger. People still did, though. Right after the wedding, Wallis and David took off on a train to Italy and Austria for their honeymoon.
I suppose I have covered a fairly short time period for such a long post, but there was a lot going on. Next time we will get to the war and then their later years.
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