Page 43 - All About History - Issue 34-16

The women before Wallis

serious effort to interrupt a relationship that was
Edward and Wallis visited
conducted, by his wife at any rate, with exemplary Austria in February 1935
discretion. Left to himself, the prince might not before they were married
have been so temperate. “Fredie darling,” he wrote
to her, “I love you now beyond all understanding
and all I can say is bless you, bless you for being
so sweet and divine and tender and sympathique
to your David last night and for saving him, mon
amour!” Freda, however, knew the rules and stuck
to them. The king and queen regretted the fact that
their elder son was not doing his duty by marrying
an eligible princess and producing further heirs to
the throne, but at least while Freda was maitresse
en titre, they could be sure that the affair would be
conducted without any overt scandal. The situation
was to change dramatically for the worse when,
early in 1931, at a house party in Lady Furness’s
country home near Melton Mowbray, the prince
met Wallis Simpson.
Mrs Simpson has been the victim of much
lurid gossip. At times she was accused of being
illegitimate, of being both a lesbian and a
nymphomaniac, a spy for the Nazis and probably “It would have been a striking
the KGB, she had been Joachim von Ribbentrop’s
mistress and had a child by Count Ciano; she breakthrough for the heir to marry
learned her sexual techniques in the brothels of
Hong Kong, or was it perhaps Shanghai? A little of someone not of royal blood”
this may have been true; nearly all of it was fantasy.
Her ambition and her determination were both
formidable, otherwise she was a rather ordinary hair was straight when the laws of compensation in inordinate quantity was that mysterious and
woman. She was a member of a respectable family might at least have provided curls.” Her assets indefinable attribute: sex appeal. She understood
from Baltimore and was brought up in a world to were fine eyes, a radiant complexion, an excellent men – not necessarily what they thought or
which it was generally admitted that she belonged, figure and a sense of style that was refined with believed but what they wanted – and much of what
but in which she was very much a poor relation. time but apparent from the moment she first took they wanted she knew she was well equipped
The result was that she was imbued by a hunger for responsibility for her own appearance. Above all, to give them. A graphologist was once given a
security and a belief that it could only be attained she had a confidence in her own attractions that sample of her handwriting without any indication
by accumulating large amounts of money or readily convinced people she was a beauty even though of her identity. The writer, concluded the expert,
realisable assets. Physically, she did not seem to she had slight claims to such a description. was: “A woman with a strong male inclination in
carry the guns that would make this ambition easy She was shrewd and quick-witted; inadequately the sense of activity, vitality and initiative, she
to fulfil. “Nobody ever called me beautiful or even educated and with no interest in intellectual must dominate, she must have authority, and
pretty,” she wrote in her memoirs. “…my jaw was questions but more than capable of holding her without sufficient scope for her powers can become
clearly too big and too pointed to be classic. My own at the dinner table. What she possessed disagreeable… She is ambitious and demands above
all that her undertakings should be noticed and
valued. In the physical sense of the word sadistic,
cold, over-bearing, vain.”
From their first meeting, Mrs Simpson seemed
to have decided that the Prince of Wales was her
natural prey. He proved an easy victim. He found
in her something that he had never encountered
among the upper-class British ladies with whom he
had so far consorted – disrespect, even contempt.
He loved it and he loved her.
It was a passion that never faded. From time
to time in Paris I found myself lunching at the
Windsors’ table. On one occasion, Wallis, for some
reason, murmured something to the guest sitting
next to her, rose and left the table. For a moment
or two Edward went on talking in a distracted
way, then he rose and followed her. He could not
bear not to know what had become of her, why
she had gone away. She snubbed him ruthlessly
Wallis and Edward pose for a and he loved it. Once at a dinner party Edward
photo while on a Mediterranean unthinkingly asked the butler to give the chauffeur
holiday in 1936
a message about his needs the following day.
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