Before Wallis

by Rachel Trethewey

  One of the reasons that the idea of the legendary love affair grew up around the prince’s relationship with Mrs Simpson was because the public was largely unaware of the heir to the throne’s romance with Mrs Dudley Ward. Freda was discreet and, although their affair was known about in society circles, it did not appear in the press. This book explores in detail the complicated relationship that developed between Edward and Freda. It shows that not only was Freda married, she also had another long-term lover, Michael Herbert, who was as deeply in love with her as the prince. Throughout the 1920s they were caught in a toxic circle in which neither Freda, Michael nor the prince had the commitment they needed to feel secure nor the strength required to end their affairs. It is probable that this frustrating experience affected Edward’s relationship with Wallis Simpson. It seems likely that, having adored Freda and having wanted to marry her, he was not going to make the same mistake again and fail to make a commitment to the woman he now loved. His relationship with Freda may partly explain why he acted so decisively in his relationship with Wallis.

  The third woman in this book is Thelma Furness. Although a less serious mistress than Freda, she shared the prince’s life for almost five years. She was unlikely to have ever become a permanent partner because she lacked the wisdom and wit of Rosemary, Freda and Wallis. She was also too in awe of Edward and did not have the strength of character to dominate him, which her predecessors and successor did possess. By encouraging the prince’s more frivolous side, she prepared the path that led Edward to Mrs Simpson. She will go down in history as the woman who introduced the prince to Wallis. By going on a trip to America and having a fling with Aly Khan, she created a vacancy in the heir to the throne’s life that his new mistress enthusiastically filled.

  As well as telling the stories of the prince’s romances with Rosemary, Freda and Thelma, Part Two examines what happened to these women once their affairs with the prince were over. It seems that returning to normal life after being the centre of attention was not easy for any of them. Although they had other relationships, none of the women found lasting romantic fulfilment after their intense experience with the heir to the throne.

  In their later lives, both Freda and Rosemary showed qualities that suggest they would have been admirable partners for the prince. Rosemary was a supportive political wife who also had the potential to become an able politician in her own right. Like her mother, she worked tirelessly for medical charities until a series of tragedies culminated in her premature death.

  Once Freda’s relationship with the prince was over, she found herself thrown into the glamorous world of the movies. Her second husband Bobby, Marquis de Casa Maury, owned the chic Curzon Cinema, while her eldest daughter, Penelope, became a film star. However, Freda was not just a stylish socialite, she was also a respected charity worker. With the prince’s encouragement, she set up the Feathers Clubs to help some of the most deprived people in society. After her relationship with him ended, she continued to work for the charity for more than thirty years. She showed a genuine commitment to social work and in so doing she won the admiration of prime ministers and clients alike. She lived a very full and long life, adored by her daughters, grandchildren and many friends.

  Shortly after her affair with the prince ended, Thelma found herself supporting her twin sister Gloria through a custody battle, which had the potential to embarrass the royal family if she had still been involved with the heir to the throne. However, like the other women in this book, Thelma developed more as a person in her own right once she was out of the prince’s sphere. She transformed herself from the social butterfly of her youth into a businesswoman. She tried her hand at various ventures with Gloria – some were more successful than others. Although both sisters had other relationships, it seems that their true soulmates were each other. The twins lived together in America until Gloria’s death.

  The story of the prince’s love life is told using the diaries, memoirs, biographies and autobiographies of Edward and many of his family and friends. This book also draws on hundreds of letters which have never been published before. Many of the prince’s letters to Freda were published by Rupert Godfrey in 1998 but, as well as these, Before Wallis uses information from several hundred more letters written by Edward to his lover which are owned by Freda’s grandson, Max Reed. The book also gives a new perspective on what happened in the relationship between Freda and the prince by examining the hundreds of letters written by Freda’s other lover, Michael Herbert, which are in Freda’s granddaughter Martha Milinaric’s collection and Swindon Archives. Unfortunately, Freda’s letters to the prince do not survive but we get an idea of her side of the story from an interview she gave to J. Bryan III and Charles J.V. Murphy for their book The Windsor Story and from her co-operation in Frances Donaldson and Philip Ziegler’s biographies of Edward VIII.

  The Royal Archives have kindly allowed me to see the Prince of Wales’s diaries, which give a new insight into his early love affairs with Portia Stanley and Marion Coke. They have also permitted me to see the letters between the Prince of Wales and his mother Queen Mary, written during the First World War. They challenge the traditional image of Queen Mary as a cold, distant mother who could not express her affection. These letters show that during the war mother and son developed a warm and loving relationship which was very important to them both.

  A crucial source for telling Thelma Furness’s story was her joint memoir with her twin sister Gloria, Double Exposure. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor also wrote their memoirs. At times, the three accounts contradict each other about the timing of meetings and the denouement of events; where relevant I have pointed out these contradictions. For later events in Thelma’s life the autobiographical books of her niece Gloria Vanderbilt have been an enlightening source.

  The prince epitomised his era. In the aftermath of the war the younger generation tried to put the horrors they had witnessed behind them in the pursuit of pleasure. The generation gap between the prince’s contemporaries and their parents was a chasm. Cynical about conventions, Edward represented a youth culture which rejected the rules of the past. The prince and his friends were determined to have fun, whether that was dancing till the early hours of the morning in nightclubs, playing polo or golfing. This book tries to recreate the atmosphere of the period: the early chapters on Rosemary give an insight into the nihilistic experience of living through the First World War, while later chapters provide a stark contrast as they delve into the decadent world of the jazz age. To capture the spirit of the times, as well as drawing on books about the era, this study draws on hundreds of contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts.

  By studying the women before Wallis, this book gives an insight into how Mrs Simpson gained such power over the heir to the throne. It reveals that he had shown similar patterns in his earlier relationships. In each love affair, he behaved like a cross between a little boy lost and a spoilt child. The women who were most successful with him showed a dominant streak which would be even stronger in Mrs Simpson. This book shows that Wallis was certainly not the only woman Edward ever truly loved or wanted to marry. If he had married Rosemary or Freda, either of them would have been a better influence on him than the woman he finally chose. As my research into their lives after Edward reveals, they would both have made good queens. If the Prince of Wales had been allowed to follow his heart earlier, it could have changed the course of history. Biographers have speculated about whether, if Edward VIII had married a different woman, he could have been a ‘good king’. When he was young he had great potential. He was charismatic, progressive and compassionate. He also had some fatal flaws as he was wilful, spoilt and insecure.12 Tommy Lascelles, who saw both sides of his complex character, concluded that as the years went on, the Hyde side of his dual personality would have predominated over the Jekyll. Lascelles wrote to his wife that nothing but the prince’s own will could have saved him, and that will was not there.13

  However, questions still lin
ger. With either Rosemary or Freda by his side, would he have matured in a different way and would his positive side have overwhelmed the negative? With their moderate political opinions and well-developed moral compasses, could he have avoided the political pitfalls he experienced in the 1930s? Could they have given him the vital strength and support to do his duty that Queen Mary gave George V and Queen Elizabeth gave George VI? By re-examining the Prince of Wales’s life from the perspective of these women’s influence on him, and telling their stories, we are able to explore one of the great ‘might have beens’ of history.

  1

  A WARTIME ROMANCE

  In the summer of 1917 a determined young Red Cross nurse was caring for a young wounded soldier who had been badly affected by shell shock. He was unable to speak but the nurse and his doctors were sure that if he could be encouraged to utter just one word then others would follow. The nurse dedicated herself to his care and sat with him for hours, telling him stories, pausing before words that were well known to him, praying that he would supply the blanks. She even acted out the words and flirted with him in the hope that he would say that vital first word.

  Eventually he spoke: he pointed at his devoted carer and said, ‘Darling’, to demonstrate his appreciation.1 Another young man had been watching this poignant scene. As he observed the animated nurse nurturing her patient he was deeply moved by her care and felt he had to get to know her better. This bond, formed in the most harrowing of circumstances, was a story that was played out in countless similar scenarios during the First World War. However, this couple was different; the man who had been watching was Edward, Prince of Wales, and the nurse who showed such compassion was Rosemary Leveson-Gower, daughter of Cromartie, the 4th Duke of Sutherland and his flamboyant wife Millicent.2

  It was a meeting of the most eligible bachelor and one of the most alluring aristocrats of the era. He was 23 and she was just a year older. Photographs capture that fateful meeting: the slight, boyish prince, dressed in khaki uniform, looks slightly gauche, standing beside the poised young woman in a white nurse’s uniform. He has his head down as though he does not know what to say, while she stares ahead with her hand on her hip looking rather bored. Rosemary’s sangfroid had been evident earlier that morning before the prince arrived. The royal visit to Millicent, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland’s hospital in France coincided with the arrival of a particularly large number of casualties, which temporarily threw the wards into chaos. Several members of staff began to panic about how an inspection by the king and queen could take place in such conditions. Rosemary remained cool and calm. ‘Nonsense,’ she said, laughing happily. ‘Nothing at all to worry about. The king and queen will see our hospital at its best working at high pressure on a really hectic morning.’ Having reassured the rest of the staff, she rushed off to help her mother show the royal party around.3 Despite her busy schedule, as the photo reveals, it was the prince, not Rosemary, who felt uncomfortable. With a mother’s intuition, Queen Mary immediately detected there was an attraction between the young couple. She wrote to her son: ‘Have you seen the various photos of you “talking to nurses” with whom you seem on terms of great intimacy?’4

  Rosemary and the prince already knew each other, as their parents’ social circles had overlapped, but it was their wartime experiences that turned acquaintance into something deeper. The prince was already aware of the wonderful work Rosemary and her mother were doing. At the beginning of the war Millicent, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland had left for the continent to set up her military hospital, taking Rosemary with her to help to organise it. They ran their unit, which developed into a British Red Cross hospital, for the rest of the war. It started as a temporary hospital at Malo-les-Bains near Dunkirk, but as the shelling along the coastline increased they moved inland to Bourbourg. Life in ‘the hospital in the oat-field’ was captured by the French artist Victor Tardieu, who worked as a volunteer ambulance driver at the hospital for several months. The basic tents were made more attractive by adding coloured awnings borrowed from local hotels along the seafront. Millicent and Rosemary made the atmosphere as pleasant as possible for patients, filling vases made from empty shell cases with poppies picked near the camp and making the most of the sunlight available to boost the soldiers’ recovery. In his pictures, Tardieu portrayed the duchess bending over the beds in her pristine white uniform as a ministering angel to the wounded soldiers.5

  In October 1915 the hospital was moved again to Calais and became part of the British Red Cross. Nursing took place in huts between the sand dunes, a marsh full of yellow irises, and a copse. Thanks to Millicent and Rosemary’s dedication it became one of the best-equipped and organised hospitals in France. Special workshops were set up to manufacture splints and other surgical apparatus. The life-saving new Carrel–Dakin technique, which involved the rapid cleaning of wounds with antiseptic, was introduced to minimise infections such as gas gangrene. A barge was used as a floating ambulance to transport casualties from the front line by canal to Calais and the most up-to-date drugs were imported from England, often at Millicent’s personal expense.

  Before his official visit with his parents in July 1917, the prince had been to the hospital several times to see his friend, Eileen, Duchess of Sutherland, Rosemary’s sister-in-law. At this stage, although Eileen was married, Edward was more interested in her than Rosemary. He wrote in his diary: ‘Eileen is a dear and far too good for Geordie [her husband, the Duke of Sutherland].’6 In February 1916 Edward and his friends paid frequent visits to Eileen, Rosemary and Millicent at their villa, which he dubbed ‘Sutherland House’. They had dinner, went to the cinema and had lunch together in the mess tent. One afternoon the prince and the two younger women went for a ride on the beach, galloping along the sands at top speed. Two days later they went for a ride in a blizzard and had to take refuge in a farm. The trio had another adventure when they went in search of Rosemary’s brother Alastair Leveson-Gower at Le Touquet. After having lunch in a hotel their car got stuck fast in a sand dune and they only managed to move it a few yards at a time using planks by racing the engine and getting people to give it a shove.7 After one evening out together, the prince wrote: ‘Eileen is a dear and so is Lady Rosemary, tho I don’t know her so well.’8

  Just a few weeks later tragedy was to tear the group apart. The prince’s friend Lord Desmond Fitzgerald had also enjoyed socialising with Eileen and Rosemary during that hectic month. Desmond was one of the prince’s few contemporaries who was allowed to call him ‘Eddie’; he was also one of the only people who knew just the right thing to say to Edward when he went into one of his self-pitying moods.9 While they were both in France they met frequently to walk and talk. In his diary the prince wrote about Desmond joining him for a ‘cheery’ dinner with Rosemary and Eileen before ‘an amusing drive back to “Sutherland House”, a fearful squash in the car which no one minded!!’10

  In March 1916 Lord Desmond, who was commanding the 1st Battalion Irish Guards, was training with his regiment on a sandy beach near Calais. After watching some of the men throw their hand grenades, he encouraged the padre, Father Lane-Fox, to have a go. Lane-Fox pulled out the pin; the five-second time fuse was supposed to be activated as the grenade left his hand, but it turned out to be defective. The bomb exploded immediately, blowing out Father Lane-Fox’s right eye and fatally injuring Desmond in the head. He was rushed to the Duchess of Sutherland’s hospital where Millicent and her team did what they could to save him, but he died within an hour of the blast.11 The death of his best friend depressed the prince more than any previous experience in his life. His mother, Queen Mary, was sympathetic, writing to Edward: ‘I can’t say how much I grieve for you losing such a good kind friend.’12

  Afterwards, the prince wrote to the Duchess of Sutherland, thanking her for her care of Desmond and for writing to tell him what had happened. He explained: ‘It was one of the greatest shocks of my life for Desmond was my greatest friend: and to think of him being killed in such a rot
ten way […] of course poor Desmond will be lamented by all who knew him. He was so popular everywhere.’ Sensitive to the suffering of others, the prince thought about the effect Desmond’s death must have had on Rosemary and Millicent because they had also known him for most of his life and had seen him so recently. He added: ‘It must have been very painful for you both poor Desmond dying in your hospital; but to me it is such a relief to feel he did die in the hands of friends!!’13

  Rosemary had grown used to coping with emotionally challenging situations. Since going with her mother to France, she had taken her war work very seriously. She became a very good surgical nurse and at times worked so hard that she made herself ill. However, as the prince had witnessed, her joie de vivre was transformative. One contemporary wrote: ‘She was always smiling, always cheerful, whether she was scrubbing floors, rolling bandages, or holding sick bowls. She was beloved for her actual nursing, her cheery presence in the wards and the hundred and one little kindnesses she showed the men.’14 Rosemary’s unstinting work close to the firing line was recognised in January 1917 when she was mentioned in dispatches for distinguished service and devotion to duty. A photograph of her, looking composed and confident in a simple tunic and chunky beads, appeared in The Tatler to celebrate her honour.15

  The prince recognised in Rosemary a kindred spirit. Although, to his lasting frustration, his position as heir to the throne had limited the role he could play in the war, he did everything within his power to get as close to the front line as possible. He wanted to be treated just like his contemporaries and was willing to serve, suffer and if necessary die for his country. In the early days of the war he went to see the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, and said to him: ‘What does it matter if I am killed? I have four brothers.’16 However, Kitchener explained that the danger was not that he might be killed but that he could be taken prisoner. At this time, Lord Desmond Fitzgerald wrote to his friend saying that he fully realised how disappointed he was not to be able to fight in the war and he was very sorry for him.17 However, he told the prince that he should not be downhearted because everyone knew how brave he was and how he would much rather be an ordinary person doing ordinary duty.18