Edward later said of the abdication to the royal biographer, James Pope-Hennessy: “People can say what they like for it or against it, I don’t care; but one thing is certain: I acted in good faith. And I was treated bloody shabbily.”70
The duke had assumed that after a suitable cooling-off period, he would be allowed to return to England and live a life with Wallis typical of genteel aristocracy. He wanted to support his brother as king and hoped that he might be given some sort of official role, alongside which he could take up a leisurely life of house parties and shooting parties, while maintaining his social status as son and brother of a sovereign. The shock for him was that his family closed ranks, forcing him to accept that he was now an outsider. His widespread popularity and the fact that most of his former subjects still adored Edward meant that George VI and his courtiers felt threatened by the prospect of the duke’s return. “There appears to have been jealousy of his charm and popularity, not bestowed by fate on other members of his family,” said Diana Mosley.71 Owen Morshead, the royal librarian at Windsor Castle, spent Christmas 1936 at Sandringham with the new king and queen. He recalled that “the only topic of conversation was the new Duke of Windsor.” While the queen praised his “unique talents,” she was concerned that if he and Mrs. Simpson did stay together, “it would be dangerous to have such a powerful personality, so magnetic, hanging about doing nothing.”72
“You see, you can’t have two Kings,” Queen Elizabeth, Bertie’s wife and Edward’s sister-in-law, explained years later.73 A huge endeavor was undertaken by the palace and courtiers, aided by the government and sections of the press, to create King George VI in the image of his father: safe, dignified, old-fashioned, and a paragon of responsibility and domestic virtue. Against this was a campaign of obliteration aimed at the Duke of Windsor. Newsreel companies wiped him from cinema screens and gramophone records of the abdication broadcast were prevented from going on sale.74
On January 3, 1937, a perceptive Wallis wrote to Edward: “I realize that it is the politicians whose game it is to have you forgotten and to build up the puppet they have placed on the throne. And they can succeed, because just as they had for months organized a campaign to remove you—and how cleverly they worked—so have they to prove that they were right in what they did and the first step is to eliminate you from the minds of the people. I was the convenient tool in their hands to get rid of you and how they used it.”75
Initially unaware that his exile was to be permanent, Edward bombarded his brother with telephone calls, offering unwanted advice, pestering him over money and constantly beseeching the royal family to accept Wallis into the royal circle. The real charge against Wallis came from the two queens, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, who pressured the nervous Bertie. Backed by courtiers, they persuaded him that accepting Wallis would further dishonor the monarchy. Painfully, in the end, Bertie stopped accepting his brother’s telephone calls. Edward was shocked to discover that the king had instructed telephone operators at Buckingham Palace not to automatically put the duke’s calls through. After much wrangling back and forth, it was agreed by the king that the duke could have an annual allowance of £25,000 with the strict proviso that he would lose this should he decide to visit Britain without the king’s permission. The duke fired off a furious seven-page letter to the prime minister, describing this as “tantamount to my accepting payment for remaining in exile.”76 According to John Julius Norwich: “All the duke wanted was to live in a nice country house in Hertfordshire—he had accepted that perhaps the Fort was too close to Windsor and royal life. He just wanted somewhere suitable where he could have invited his friends, shot, played golf and he would have been happy as cricket.”77
Chips Channon witnessed the campaign. Of Queen Mary, he wrote: “Certainly she and the Court group hate Wallis Simpson to the point of hysteria, and are taking the wrong attitude: why persecute her now that it is all over? Why not let the Duke of Windsor, who has given up so much, be happy? They would be better advised to be civil if it is beyond their courage to be cordial.”78
In January Wallis wrote an undated letter to Edward: “something must be done to put it out of people’s mind in England that your family are against us. I can’t stand up against this system of trying to make me an outcast in the world.”79 Wallis, attuned to the forces against the couple, vented her despair that the government and the palace had prevented Edward’s brothers from visiting him in Austria, and that “it is this Government that is trying to squash you with your country.”80 Her feeling of impotence seeps from the page, as she is aware that it is only public acceptance by the palace that would confer on them any respectability. As Edward slowly realized what was happening to him, his main reaction was one of hurt bewilderment.
A frank letter from Queen Mary to Edward eighteen months later, in July 1938, illustrated the queen’s position towards her son and explained why the acceptance he craved from his family would never be forthcoming. Far from time softening the monarchy’s resolve, distance had strengthened it. “You will remember how miserable I was when you informed me of your intended marriage and abdication and how I implored you not to do so for our sake and the sake of the country. You did not seem able to take in any point of view but your own,” Queen Mary wrote. “I do not think you have ever realised the shock which the attitude you took up caused your family and the whole Nation. It seemed inconceivable to those who had made such sacrifices during the war that you, as their King, refused a lesser sacrifice. . . . My feelings for you as your Mother remain the same, and our being parted and the cause of it, grieve me beyond words. After all, all my life I have put my Country before everything else, and I simply can not change now.”81
Wallis wrote to Edward on Sunday, February 7, 1937: “The Telegraph also adds that you are not expected back in England for some considerable time. I blame it on the wife [Elizabeth]—who hates us both. All my love and of course we will meet in March now, Wallis.”82
By the end of February, the strain of separation and the constant pain of exclusion—not just familial but on the world stage—had, unsurprisingly, eroded Wallis’s resolve. She told Edward that the previous night she had cried herself to sleep. “I really can’t continue to carry on with all of England taking cracks at me and no decent society speaking to me,” she wrote. “What have I done to deserve this treatment? I have never had a word said in my defense or kind word in the press. Surely your brother can protect me a bit—not to be the butt of musical comedy jokes on the radio etc. If they knew your family approved our wedding when free, things would be so different for me. I do feel utterly down. It has been a lone game against the world for me and a woman always pays the most—and you my sweet haven’t been able to protect me.”83 Her last line must have stung the duke considerably, who never failed in his letters to declare his deep and everlasting love for her.
On February 18, he wrote: “Know that I 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 stay. Still I say it.”84
* * *
The couple decided to marry at the Château de Candé, in the Touraine region of France, which had been offered to them fully staffed and free of charge by Charles and Fern Bedaux, friends of the Rogerses. This sixteenth-century castle had been transformed by its French-born American multimillionaire owner, Charles Bedaux, with a $15,000 telephone system and state-of-the art American-style plumbing. Cecil Beaton, who stayed there, said that the modern comforts of the château would make “a Long Island millionaire envious.” Overall, however, Beaton thought Candé “feudal and rather ugly, with high towers, pointed turrets and heavily embellished Gothic doorways.” Outside, “tall poplars and willows grow in platoons.”85
By 1934, Charles Bedaux had become the fifth richest man in America through the success of his Bedaux worker efficiency system, a controversial time-and-motion study that he applied to industry. During the thirties, Bedaux had begun to work closely with the
Nazi government in Germany, which he believed represented “the wave of the future” and the best defense against international communism and labor unrest.86 The Duke of Windsor, unaware that Bedaux was anxious to use his royal connections to forge closer links with the leadership in Germany, thought the château’s location more suitable for his marriage than the French Riviera, with its playboy associations.
Wallis wrote to Fern Bedaux, a woman she had never met, on March 1 from Lou Viei. “Dear Mrs. Bedaux, It is frightfully difficult to convey even one tenth of what I feel about your and Mr. Bedaux’s kindness and generosity to the Duke of Windsor and myself.”87 She gently warned Mrs. Bedaux about the press intrusion. “We are so used to it here that it has ceased to be upsetting—but the first encounter is a shock. Anyway the answer is always the same—‘you don’t know anything.’ ” Wallis ended her letter saying: “I am looking forward to running house once again. It is the thing I adore most, so you can feel that Candé is in interested hands. Again my most grateful thanks and appreciation. Yours Sincerely, Wallis Simpson.”88
Soon afterwards, Wallis left Cannes for Candé, accompanied by Katherine and Herman Rogers, two personal maids, and two French detectives who had been assigned by the French government for Wallis’s protection. Wallis’s first view of the château—“grey walls and slim turrets in the slanting rain”89—was pleasing. She could not speak highly enough of Mrs. Bedaux, complimenting not only her beauty but her kind and generous spirit. Wallis was later convinced that if Charles Bedaux had another motive in loaning them the castle, his wife was “innocent of any ulterior purpose.”90
Tactfully, without asking any questions about the wedding, Mrs. Bedaux showed Wallis around the château, only to announce that she would be leaving the following day. The bride-to-be decided that a small, pretty salon off the spacious, high-ceilinged drawing room would be perfect for the wedding ceremony. There was a guest apartment adjoining the main house that would be ideal for the duke to stay in until their wedding day. Wallis was allowed to use Fern Bedaux’s suite of rooms, including a lovely bedroom with cream boiserie and expansive views of the grounds.
“At Lou Viei I had been in a state of semi-paralysis,” Wallis recalled. “At Candé I gradually came alive again.”91 Despite the ever-present guard of press at the front gates, the grounds afforded some privacy. Wallis walked in the woodland and around the private golf course. She wrote to Aunt Bessie back in the States that she had “never tasted such lovely food. One eats too much, that’s the trouble.”92 The chef used to work for the Duke of Alba. Amid the spacious luxury, Wallis’s nerves began to settle. She wrote again to Fern Bedaux on March 15: “I can’t help but write you a few lines to tell you how happy I am here. It is the first time I have been able to write that word since December.”93
In Austria, the duke was joined by his old private secretary, Sir Godfrey Thomas. A week later, Thomas wrote to George Allen about his visit: “All well here: like those who have preceded me at Enzesfeld, I haven’t for many years known my host in such good form, or so easy from every point of view. But it is tragic to see the petty activities to which he has recourse, just to fill the time. Still, whether it is counting the wine in the cellar, superintending the plucking of his dog, or examining the house books, it keeps him going till it’s the hour for his next telephone connection with Tours.”94
One evening, Edward telephoned to say that he was sending Slipper back to Wallis, to accompany her on her walks. Two days later, the cairn terrier arrived with Chief Inspector Storrier of Scotland Yard, who had been assigned to the duke in Austria. “The dog’s joyous recognition was like a signal to me that, along with Slipper, David had sent a part of himself,” Wallis said.95 She wrote to Aunt Bessie that it was “divine” to have Slipper back with her.
But as ever with Wallis, her peace of mind and happiness would be fleeting. The next day, on Wallis’s first walk with Slipper, he ran off into the woods, excitedly chasing a rabbit. In the undergrowth, he was bitten by a viper. Wallis found him, limp on the grass, in spasms of acute pain. He was rushed to a local veterinary surgery in Tours but died that evening. It seemed horrifically cruel and unfair. All Wallis’s strength and grit were floored by the shock of this tragedy, releasing months of pent-up strain and grief. “His loss on the eve of my reunion with David seemed to me a frightful omen,” she wrote later. “He had been our companion in joy and trouble; now he was gone. Was everything that I loved to be destroyed?”96 She poured out her sorrow in a letter to Edward on April 7:
My darling—
I have just given Herman Mr. Loo’s rug to wrap his little body in before Herman buries him. Even God seems to have forgotten WE for surely this is an unnecessary sorrow for us. He was our dog—not yours or mine but ours—and he loved us both so. Now the principal guest at the Wedding is no more. I can’t stop crying and must be brave and suffer these next three weeks. You see we have had so much to bear for so many months that our resistance is low—so we must watch carefully and try and save our nerves. We are both feeling the strain—I heard it in your beloved voice—that defeated sound. . . . I love you my darling and this agony of separation is so immense.
Wallis97
The duke replied that he was also heartbroken. He had not slept and had cried copiously. He suggested that rather than be buried at Candé, Slipper should be embalmed, packed into a small lead box and taken back to be buried at Fort Belvedere. Clearly, at this point, Edward still felt that they would someday be able to return to England. The whole situation was agonizing. “I feel quite stunned,” wrote Edward, “and dread the remaining three weeks until I am with you never to be parted ever again my sweetheart . . . Your Sad David.”98
Finally, on the morning of May 3, Wallis’s decree absolute was granted. Edward left Austria immediately, traveling on the Orient Express, which passed through Salzburg that afternoon. The train stopped thirty miles short of Paris in order to avoid the press and the duke was taken on to Candé by car. He arrived at lunchtime on April 4, with his new equerry, Sir Dudley Forwood, who had replaced Sir Piers Legh. According to Sir Dudley, whom Edward had summoned to Schloss Enzesfeld because there were so many problems, Legh had been “horrified by the Abdication, not at all sympathetic to Mrs. Simpson and upset by the fact that he couldn’t speak German.”99
Running up the château steps two at a time, Edward’s first words to Wallis were “Darling, it’s been so long. I can hardly believe that this is you, and I’m here.”100
After lunch, the couple walked through the undulating grounds. Wallis later wrote: “It was wonderful to be together again. Before, we had been alone in the face of overwhelming trouble. Now we would meet it side by side.”101
* * *
I. The Duchess of York had come down with influenza, so was in bed while the instrument of abdication was being signed. This was an additional stress for the Duke of York, who was deprived of her comforting presence and was compelled to suffer the biggest ordeal of his life alone.
9
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Untitled
As the new king, George VI, would be crowned on May 12, Wallis and Edward decided that they would marry after this date, in June. The week before the duke’s arrival at Candé, Cecil Beaton turned up to take fresh photographs of Wallis prior to her wedding. Beaton arrived to find the bride-to-be’s already “incredibly narrow figure, narrower since the abdication.” After “cocktails, chatter” and a lively dinner with a “superb variety of wines,” followed by billiards and conversation, Katherine and Herman Rogers retired to bed at midnight, leaving Wallis and Beaton to talk “in full earnest” until dawn.1
Beaton was “struck by the clarity and vitality” of Wallis’s mind. “I got the impression that she has been taken as much by surprise by recent events as anyone else,” he later wrote. “Though her divorce proceedings had already begun, I don’t believe she had any clear intentions of marriage. Of the abdication, she told me she had known less than anybody. It had been impossible to talk
freely with the ex-King on the telephone as the wires were constantly tapped.”2
“It wasn’t just tactfulness, I am sure,” Beaton considered, “that prevented Wallis from airing any grievance she might have against Mr. Baldwin or the so-called friends who ‘welched’ on her when the situation altered.” Wallis told the esteemed photographer that the events had “only shown me who among my friends are my friends.” She told Beaton that she had been tempted to hang herself from the antlers adorning the château walls. Cecil Beaton concluded the evening impressed that Wallis “is bitter towards no one.”3
The following day, a manicurist and hairdresser arrived from Paris. Wallis bravely agreed to be photographed in the thick grass, even though, after Slipper’s death, she was terrified of treading on a viper. In her bedroom, where she changed her clothes, “jewellery was produced in unostentatious driblets.” Beaton was impressed by some of the historic stones, “including a pair of diamond pear-shaped clips the size of pigeons’ eggs.”4
The next morning, with the butler and footmen lined up to salute Mr. Beaton’s departure, he concluded that: “for Mrs. Simpson, events might have been worse. If she has not been fated to wear a crown, she is still loved by an abdicated king and will soon be married to him. It won’t be so bad to be called the Duchess of Windsor.”5
Before the duke’s arrival, friends from Paris regularly dropped in to see Wallis, who wrote to Edward that she was “running a hotel.” Mrs. Rex Benson, an American living in London, later recalled that during a long talk, Wallis told her: “You know, I never wanted this marriage.”6 Wallis certainly did not want the abdication on which the marriage was predicated. Yet during their months of separation and isolation, Wallis, in love with Edward, made up her mind that as far as it lay in her power, she would make the duke happy.
The Real Wallis Simpson: A New History of the American Divorcée Who Became the Duchess of Windsor Page 22
