by Anne Sebba
There are others whom I woul had like to thank publicly for enormous generosity and concern for historical accuracy but who have requested anonymity. They know who they are.
I have consulted a number of libraries and archives in the hunt for new material and would particularly like to thank the Master, Fellows and Scholars of Churchill College, Cambridge and the staff of the Churchill Archives Centre especially its Director, Allen Packwood, Natalie Adams, Andrew Riley, Sophie Bridges and Katharine Thomson for their unfailing help and cooperation, especially in trying to ferret out unpublished material, newly released documents or helping me locate those due for reclassification through Freedom of Information requests while I was writing this book. For permission to quote from the Spears Papers, housed at Churchill College, I thank Patrick Aylmer and for permission to quote from the Lascelles Papers also held at Churchill College I thank the Hon. Caroline Erskine.
I also owe a debt to the staff at the National Archives in Kew who made my work more pleasant in innumerable ways and would like especially to mention Mark Dunton who, seeing my dismay at the prospect of consulting endless files on microfilm – so dispiriting for all researchers – encouraged me to seek permission for original documents to be brought up from the vaults including the evocative, leather-bound Cabinet Office minutes and Conclusions to Cabinet Meetings. Seeing the originals in this way adds enormously to any author’s ‘feel’ for the period and an understanding of the drama of events as they unfolded.
The London Library is, as ever, a most wonderful resource and again, its staff have found books that eluded me or books kept on special reserve, as did also the helpful team at the British Library. My days at the Bodleian always seemed to be accompanied by freezing weather and snow, especially testing as the collection was being moved from its permanent home to a temporary building demanding permanently open doors. But here too I encountered warmth from helpful librarians, especially Colin Harris, Helen Langley and Rebecca Wall. At Balliol College, which owns copyright for some of the Monckton Papers, my thanks go to Anna Sander. I must also mention the Highland Park Historical Society, in particular Jean Sogin and Julia Marshall, while Dorothy Hordubay, Joan Jermakian and Judy Smith are just three among the thoughtful and kind staff at Oldfields School, Baltimore, where Gentleness and Courtesy are still the rule. At the Maryland District Historical Society, Marc Thomas has been most helpful. Lambeth Palace Archives have been a delight to discover and my thanks go to the efficient and helpful staff there too. Thanks to the Radcliffe-Schlesinger library for permission to quote from the Hollingsworth-Kirk family archive and to the Osbert Sitwell estate for permission to quote the poem Rat Week. My thanks to Miss Pamela Clark at the Royal Archives for permission to quote from a letter and memorandum from King George VI. In New York I was privileged to meet Kirk Hollingsworth, nephew of Mary Kirk, who cast his mind back many years on my account, went to great trouble to ferret out unpublished material for me (Notes for Lady Donaldson) and grant me permission to publish that for which he owned copyright while pointing out that some comments ascribed to Wallis in these notes were Buckie’s memory of what Wallis wrote but that he believed her memory was usually accurate. I have made strenuous attempts to contact all other copyright holders and if there are any I have inadvertently missed I will rectify this in any subsequent editions.
Many others have contributed to my understanding of this complex woman whose story is set against a critical period of world history or have helped me in other ways with my work. Iithted should like to thank Diana Hutchins Angulo, Vicki Anstey, Andrew Barber, Damian Barr, Philp Baty, Francis Beckett, Chris Beetles, Jeremy Bigwood, Xandra Bingley, Marcus Binney, William Boyd, Piers Brendon, Victoria Buresch, Julia Cook, Stephen Cretney, The Lord Crathorne, Guiseppe D’Anna, Andrew Davies, Spencer Doddington, John Entwistle, Jonathan Fenby, Susan Fox, Mark Gaulding, Sir Martin Gilbert, Laura Gillott, Vicky Ginther, Tim Godfray, Veronica Franklin Gould, Vanessa Hall Smith, Fred Hauptfuhrer, Nicholas Haslam, Angela Holdsworth, Dr Christopher Inglefield, Tess Johnston, Hans Jorgensen, Hector Kerr-Smiley, Dixie de Koning, Lee Langley, the late Walter Lees, Jonathan Leiserach, Richard and Midge Levy, Mary S Lovell, Andrew Lownie, Paul Masai, Neil McKenna, Linda Mortimer, David Metcalfe, Shelagh Montague Brown, Charlotte Mosley, Margan Mulvihill, Pamela Norris, Dr Iain Oswald, John Carleton Paget, Lady Camilla Jessel Panufnik, Della Pascoe, Martin Pick, Michina Ponzone-Pope, Lucy Popescu, David Prest, David Pryce Jones, Jane Ridley, Susan Ronald, Dr Domenico de Sceglie, David Seidler, Harriet Sergeant, William Shawcross, Polly Schomberg, Brian Smouha, Rory Sutherland, Professor Miles Taylor, John Toler, Rose Tremain, Bernard Wasserstein, Esther Weiner, Alison Weir, Kenneth Wolfe, Lindy Woodhead, Philip Ziegler.
A special mention must go to the Ritz hotel, Wallis’s favourite haunt and the setting for many important unrecorded conversations in this story. Here I am indebted to Stephen Boxall and Amber Aldred for allowing us to film in their wonderful rooms and of course my thanks to John Stoddart for several terrific photos at the Ritz.
As ever, I owe gratitude to my dynamic agent, Clare Alexander, who always understood what a rewarding project I would find immersing myself in this examination of a woman and period in history. Her colleagues, especially Leah Middleton, Lesley Thorne and Cassie Metcalfe-Slovo, have all looked after me with concern and interest. Simon Berthon, too, has been excited by this story from the outset and immediately recognised the significance of the
new material which was both heartening and stimulating. I have benefited enormously from discussions with him about That Woman over the past years and months. Peter James, my copy editor, deserves a special thank you for his unrivalled clarity of vision and for nobly giving up his weekends for That Woman. I am fortunate that once again Douglas Matthews has been prepared to offer his matchless indexing skills, and I thank him for this. At Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Alan Samson, Martha Ashby and Elizabeth Allen have displayed equal amounts of enthusiasm, inspiration and dedication, which have made working on the f
inal stages of That Woman the sort of pleasure and delight which have made me the envy of my colleagues.
At the risk of embarrassing my family I must thank them all publicly for assistance of many kinds, especially technical. My children – Adam, Amy and Imogen – all have full lives and there have been times when my absence for research has been less than helpful. But above all heartfelt thanks to my husband, Mark Sebba, who, in addition to constant emotional support, has given me the key to open many doors into the world of fashion which Wallis would have relished.
In spite of freely acknowledging all the help I have received from those named above, any errors in the following pages are of course my own.
By the same author:
Samplers: 003Five Centuries of a Gentle Craft
Enid Bagnold: A Life
Laura Ashley: A Life By Design
Battling for News: Women Reporters from the Risorgimento to
Tiananmen Square
Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image
The Exiled Collector: William Bankes and the Making of an English
Country House
Jennie Churchill: Winston’s American Mother
Notes
Abbreviations
AB: Aunt Bessie
Baldwin Papers: Philip Williamson and Edward Baldwin (eds), The Baldwin Papers: A Conservative Statesman 1908 – 47
Bodl. Lib.: Bodleian Library, Oxford
EP: Prince Edward
EAS: Ernest Simpson
DoW: Duke of Windsor
FDW: Freda Dudley Ward
HHR: Wallis Windsor, The Heart Has its Reasons
LAM: Lady Alexandra Metcalfe
LFP: Rupert Godfrey (ed.), Letters from a Prince
MHS: Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore
MKR: Mary Kirk Raffray
NA PRO: The National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew
NLD: Notes for Lady Donaldson
TLS: Times Literary Supplement
TOMS: An
ne Kirk Cooke and Elizabeth Lightfoot, The Other Mrs Simpson
W: Wallis
WM: Walter Monckton
WSC: Winston S. Churchill
Chapter 1: Becoming Wallis
4 entered a room: Nicholas Haslam, Redeeming Features, Jonathan Cape 2010, pp. 191 – 6
6 ‘church in Baltimore’: Wallis Windsor, The Heart Has its Reasons, Michael Joseph 1956 (hereafter HHR), p. 20
6 ‘of several friends’: Nellie W. Jones, A School for Bishops: A History of the Church of Baltimore, City Publications 1952, p. 37
6 ‘alone the clock’: HHR p. 130
7 ‘above two others’: Alastair Forbes, Times Literary Supplement (hereafter TLS), 1 Nov. 1974
9 ‘be like you’: HHR p. 19
10 ‘to the moon’: ibid., p. 24
10 ‘touch the chair’: ibid., p. 22
10 ‘“just a minute?”’: ibid., p. 23
11 ‘cover the rent’: ibid., p. 28
11 ‘thrown much together’: ibid., p. 25
11 ‘and disturbing barrier’: ibid., p. 27
12 ‘give me things’: WW to Aunt Bessie (hereafter AB), 18 Nov. 1935, Michael Bloch (ed.), Wallis and Edward: Letters 1931 – 1937: The Intimate Correspondence of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1986, p. 143
12 ‘my Baltimore obscurity’: quoted in Jehanne Wake, Sisters of Fortune, Chatto & Windus 2010, p. 51
13 ‘in every setting’: HHR p. 35
14 ‘for being forbidden’: Ralph Martin, The Woman He Loved, W. H. Allen 1974, p. 29
15 ‘of the kimonos’: Mary McPherson, A History of Oldfields 1867 – 1989: A Feeling of Family, privately printed n.d., p. 45
15 under a pseudonym: Edwina Wilson, Her Name was Wallis Warfield, New York, E. P. Dutton 1957, p. 5
16 ‘those days) cowardice’: Anne Kirk Cooke and Elizabeth Lightfoot, The Other Mrs Simpson: Postscript to the Love Story of the Century, New York, Vantage Press 1976 (hereafter TOMS), p. 10
16 ‘made it entertaining’: unpublished memo by E. B. Kirk, Notes for Lady Donaldson (hereafter NLD), 1979
16 ‘boys in droves’: NLD
17 ‘of our parents’: TOMS, p. 8
17 ‘anyone except YOU!’: ibid.
17 ‘Oldfields went to college’: HHR p. 50
18 ‘did indeed continue’: ibid., p. 48
18 ‘did not say’: NLD
19 ‘my heart broke’: HHR p. 47
19 ‘outside of Maryland’: Martin, The Woman He Loved, p. 11
21 ‘most fascinating aviator’: HHR p. 59
21 ‘struck me instantly’: ibid., p. 61
21 ‘in a tight place’: ibid.
22 ‘waiting too long’: HHR p. 65
23 ‘cause of the nation’: Chicago Tribune, 20 Aug. 1917
23 ‘assemblage of guests’: Baltimore Sun, 9 Nov. 1916
24 ‘wife of Major General Barnett USMC’: ibid.
24 ‘or his hand’: HHR p. 74
Chapter 2: Understanding Wallis
26 ‘opposite was true’: HHR p. 20
26 ‘was safely past’: ibid., p. 76
27 ‘out of curiosity’: ibid., p. 64
27 globally per annum: 2006 Survey by the Scottish Audit of Genital Anomalies
28 ‘use the word’: Dr Jonathan Hutchinson, Archives of Surgery, 1896, pp. 64 – 6
29 ‘woman at all’: Michael Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1996, p. 11
30 ‘cold, overbearing, vain’: Nancy Dugdale, wife of Thomas Dugdale MP, PPS to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, unpublished diary of the constitutional crisis occasioned by the Abdication of the King, Crathorne Papers
30 ‘all of a piece’: Christopher Inglefield FRCS, Conversation with author, 14 Jan. 2010
31 ‘changed her appearance’: ibid.
32 ‘of my own’: HHR p. 367
33 ‘a special gift’: Dr Domenico di Ceglie, Conversation with author, 24 Feb. 2010
33 ‘opposite was true’: HHR p. 20
33 their parents indicate: Duke and Duchess of Windsor Historical Society quarterly issue 409, p. 21
34 ‘take his place’: Chicago Tribune, 30 Jan. 1918
34 brutal, a cad: Kirk Hollingsworth, Conversation with author, 1 Nov. 2009
34 ‘at a party’: HHR p. 83
34 ‘the same interests,’ ibid., p. 84
35 ‘I certainly did’: ibid., p. 83
35 ‘personal Mason – Dixon line’: Donald Spoto, Dynasty: The Turbulent Saga of the Royal Family from Victoria to Diana, Simon & Schuster 1995, p. 223
36 ‘received by the Prince … ’: Baltimore Sun, 12 Nov. 1936
36 ‘presented to her’: Baltimore News-Post, July 1953
36 ‘at Del Monte’: all the above quoted by Professor Benjamin Sacks, Journal of San Diego History, 1988, vol. 34, no. 1, www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/88winter/duchess.htm
36 ‘with ball and mallet’: ibid.
37 ‘near unto cwying’: Prince Edward (hereafter E) to Freda Dudley Ward (hereafter FDW), 8 April 1920, Rupert Godfrey (ed.), Letters from a Prince, March 1918 – January 1921, Warner Books 1998 (hereafter LFP), p. 334
37 ‘deal of unhappiness’: Ethel Spencer, Chicago Tribune, 4 Dec. 1936
">37 ‘like a tonic’: Mrs E. Clarence Moore, charity ball souvenir programme, quoted by Professor Sacks in Journal of San Diego History, 1988, vol. 34, no. 1
38 ‘took to the bottle’: HHR p. 87
38 ‘mixed-up neurotic’: ibid.
38 ‘myself in check’: ibid.
39 ‘disgrace upon us’: ibid., p. 91
Chapter 3: Wallis in Wonderland
40 ‘and my emotions’: HHR p. 94
42 ‘all its aspects’: ibid., p. 97
42 ‘bubbled like champagne’: Martin, The Woman He Loved, p. 70
44 ‘of a plane’: HHR p. 106
45 one biographer claims: Greg King, The Duchess of Windsor: The Uncommon Life of Wallis Simpson, Aurum Press 1999, p. 61
45 ‘over the girls’: HHR p. 107
45 ‘her lotus year’: ibid., p. 112
49 guise of relief: FO 148, marked ‘Secret evidence of Bolshevik activity in the Far East’, National Archives, Public Record Office (hereafter NA PRO)
49 ‘as pornographic material’: Harriet Sergeant, Shanghai, Jonathan Cape 1991, p. 340
50 ‘him as “Robbie”’: HHR p. 108
50 ‘even more pleasant’: ibid.
50 ‘then predominantly British’: ibid.
51 ‘of quasi-independence’: ibid., p. 109
52 ‘responsible for me’: ibid., p. 110
53 ‘of an athlete’: ibid., p. 112
53 ‘stay with them’: ibid., p. 113
53 ‘expect to know’: ibid., p. 114
53 ‘whole long roll’: NLD
53 ‘in her heart’: HHR p. 115
54 ‘have different meanings’: Martin, The Woman He Loved, p. 79
55 ‘of her forehead’: Alberto Da Zara, Pelle d’Ammiraglio, Milan, Mondadori 1948, p. 183
55 ‘among adoring males’: Diana Hutchins Angulo, Peking Sun, Shanghai Moon: A China Memoir, ed. Tess Johnston, Hong Kong, Old China Hand Press 2008, p. 27
55 ‘complimentary than women’: Diana Hutchins Angulo, Correspondence with author, July 2010
