Bride and GLOOM: Inside the miserable wedding of Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII – with tragic eyes caught on camera amid speculation American socialite ‘was not in love with the former King’
- Edward and Wallis married at Chateau de Cande at Monts on June 3 – 86 years ago today
- The former King gave up the Crown for love – but his wife did not love him
- READ MORE: How Edward VIII helped Nazis bomb Buckingham Palace in WWII
Held in a French chateau that was more used to wealth than royalty, it was a low-key ceremony that was boycotted by the Royal Family and all respectable priests.
With eyes that were described by royal photographer Cecil Beaton as ‘essentially sad’, the former King Edward VIII, 42, tied the knot with Wallis Simpson, 40, on June 3, 1937.
Soon afterwards, Wallis – the woman whom the Duke had given up the Crown for in December 1936 – would embark on her first post-marital affair and did not even love her husband, according to royal biographers.
This fact was hinted at by Beaton, who guessed after talking to her the day before her wedding that whilst she had ‘tremendous admiration’ for the Duke and was ‘determined’ to love him, she was not ‘in love’ with him.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor pose for a portrait after their wedding at the Chateau de Cande, in Monts, France, on June 3, 1937
Just a month before her wedding, when her second divorce was finalised the Duchess changed her name to Wallis Warfield – the name she was born with
This was in contrast to the Duke’s devotion to her, a fact demonstrated in his abdication speech, when he said he had found it ‘impossible’ to discharge his duties ‘without the help and support of the woman I love’.
Among the guests at the Chateau de Cande at Monts were Edward’s best man, Major Edward ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe, along with his chauffeur and equerry, but none of his family were present.
Also there was businessman Hermann Rogers, whom Wallis fell in love with and had hoped to marry.
The understated wedding was a spectacular fall from grace for a man who, just months before, had been the King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India and had been set to enjoy a spectacular coronation in Westminster Abbey.
Instead, it was his brother Prince Albert – King George VI – who was crowned in his place and won the adulation of the British people.
In the weeks leading up to his wedding, the Duke had been left furious by King George’s refusal to grant Wallis the status of Her Royal Highness.
Edward bitterly joked that it was a ‘nice wedding present’.
When his mother, Queen Mary, did not send him an actual gift, he told her that he was ‘bitterly hurt and disappointed that you virtually ignored the most important event in my life.’
A Faberge box that was sent as a gift by his younger brother Prince George, the Duke of Kent, was rejected by Edward, on the basis that his sibling had not showed any desire to deviate from the family’s official stance towards him.
Edward and Wallis’s choice of wedding venue was owned by millionaire Charles Bedaux, who was later frowned upon by the British and French intelligence services.
The Duke and Duchess are seen on their wedding day alongside Edward’s best man, Edward ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe (right) and businessman Hermann Rogers, whom Wallis later had an affair with
The couple looked less than jolly in the official photos that were taken to mark their wedding
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor gaze from a balcony at the Chateau de Cande, in Monts, on their wedding day
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor walk down steps at the Chateau de Cande on their wedding day
Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor pose in a window at the Chateau de Cande on their wedding day
The chateau boasted modern comforts that included a pipe organ costing $40,000 and a $15,000 telephone system.
On the day itself, Wallis wore a blue wedding gown which she twinned with silk gloves made from the same material and a straw hat.
CLICK TO READ MORE: How abdicated Edward VIII helped the Nazis bomb Buckingham Palace at the height of the Blitz by passing ‘inside information’ to the Germans, royal archives reveal
At her throat she wore an impressive diamond and sapphire brooch and also showed off sapphire earrings and a glittering sapphire wristband.
Her second divorce – from shipbroker Ernest Aldrich Simpson – had only been finalised the month before.
The Duke had originally wanted a royal chaplain to officiate at his wedding, but this desire was rapidly torpedoed by his brother the King.
His second choice had been the Reverend Martin Andrews, who presided over a parish in the Duchy of Cornwall.
But the priest refused on the grounds that ‘it would be letting the church down, and as long as I hold office in the church I must keep the rules, however cruel they may seem.’
In the end, the Reverend J.A. Jardine – a priest from Darlington who was described as ‘turbulent’ by Edward’s biographer Philip Ziegler – stepped in and offered his services.
This was in defiance of the Church of England, which ruled until 2002 that it would not perform weddings of rulers to divorcees who had living former spouses.
Jardine would later be stripped of his duties when he returned to the UK. He went on to officiate at a church called the ‘Windsor Cathedral’ in Hollywood, before dying suddenly in 1950.
Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang – who had been instrumental in sealing Edward’s abdication – described Jardine as a ‘seeker of notoriety’.
He questioned how Edward – who had been King of England just months before – could have ‘lost his dignity’ to the extent that he asked ‘a man of this sort to celebrate his marriage’.
Whilst Edward believed that in Jardine he had chosen well, this idea was somewhat punctured by the priest’s subsequent tour of the United States, where he revealed all about the ceremony.
The altar was what Ziegler described as a ‘bogus renaissance chest adorned with plum caryatids’.
Beaton took official photographs of the couple after they tied the knot.
In his diary he described Edward’s expression when his photo was taken as ‘essentially sad, tragic eyes belied by impertinent tilt of nose.’
He added that the former King had ‘common hands – like a mechanic – weather-beaten and rather scaly and one thumb-nail is disfigured.’
Beaton had talked to Wallis at length and decided that she was a ‘strong force’, and ‘intelligent within her vast limitations’.
‘She has obviously a tremendous admiration for the Duke and considers him one of the greatest brains… of our times.
Edward and Wallis pose together on their wedding day at the Chateau de Cande
Reverend J.A. Jardine – a priest from Darlington – officiated at the Duke of Windsor’s wedding. He went on to emigrate to the US, where he officiated at the ‘Windsor Cathedral’ chapel in Hollywood
Wallis Simpson is seen in 1936 posing with her Cartier emerald engagement ring and a diamond and sapphire bracelet that was a gift from Edward
Edward VIII giving his abdication broadcast to the nation and the Empire, December 11, 1936
The abdication notice signed by Edward VIII at his Fort Belvedere home. His brothers Albert, Henry and George also signed the document
‘She admires his character, his vitality and is determined to love him, though I feel she is not in love with him.’
As well as his best man, chauffeur and equerry, guests also included the Duke’s hairdresser Charles Topper and Mrs Buchanan Merryman, Wallis’s aunt.
The service itself was composed of a French civil ceremony and then an Anglican counterpart conducted by Reverend Jardine was carried out ten minutes later.
In both versions, Wallis promised to obey her husband.
Incredibly, the Duke failed to kiss his bride in either the civil or religious ceremony, although there were tears in his eyes when he put his Wallis’s ring on her finger.
The couple then posed for the small number of photographers who were present before indulging in a wedding breakfast of lobster, cold meats, strawberries and champagne.
Their wedding cake, which the Duke and Duchess cut together, was made up of six tiers that rose three feet into the air.
But, despite the act of togetherness at the ceremony, Wallis’s biographer, Andrew Morton told how she ‘put on an act’ in their marriage, after realising that Edward ‘had given up the throne of the greatest empire in order to marry a twice-divorced American.
‘If she kicked him to the curb, she’d be the most reviled woman in British history,’ he said when his book, Wallis in Love: The Untold Life of the Duchess of Windsor, The Woman Who Changed the Monarchy, was published in 2018.
The Duke and Duchess received more than 3,000 telegrams and 30,000 letters of good wishes after their wedding.
In a statement, the Duke said: ‘The Duchess and I would like to thank all those who have so kindly sent us presents and good wishes on the occasion of our wedding.
‘We shall never forget their friendly messages, which mean so much to us on this day.’
He added that they would look forward to a ‘happy’ private life and a ‘measure of peace’ that they hoped would be given to them.
However, historian Andrew Lownie revealed in his book Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that, beneath the surface, their life was far from happy.
He detailed how Wallis embarked on an affair with the US ambassador to France, William Bullitt, soon after their wedding.
Detailing the liaisons, Eleanor Tydings Ditzen, the daughter of close friends of the Windsors, claimed that British security services knew about them but did not tell Edward.
‘The Duke would escort his wife to one of the dress designers for fittings and return for her after an hour or two,’ she said.
‘Wallis would slip out the back door for a rendezvous with the ambassador.
‘As the British Secret Service was guarding both Windsors, this affair was reported to their government.
‘The British were afraid that the Prince [Duke of Windsor] might find out, and there would be a great scandal again.
‘So the Secret Service was protecting Wallis’s transgressions from the Duke!’
Mr Lownie said it it is ‘doubtful’ that Wallis ever loved Edward and had wanted to end her relationship with him when he became King.
‘But by then he was so obsessed with her that he threatened to kill himself if she left him,’ he said.
Wallis had listened to Edward’s abdication speech on the radio, before spending the following day in bed feeling depressed.
Her friend Constance Coolidge, who also listened to the broadcast, later said: ‘Can you imagine a more terrible fate than to have to live up publicly to the legend of a love you don’t feel? To have to face, morning, noon and night, a middle-aged boy with no other purpose in life than a possessive passion for you?’
In 1938, Wallis had another affair, this time with a used car salesman called Guy Trundle.
When they attended Hermann Rogers’ wedding in 1950, Wallis tellingly told his bride Lucy Wann: ‘I’ll hold you responsible if anything happens to Hermann. He’s the only man I’ve ever loved.’
It prompted the other woman to reply: ‘How nice for the Duke.’
Wallis also had a long-running affair with the much younger Jimmy Donahue, the heir to the Woolworth fortune.
She was joined by the Duke on several occasions when she went clubbing with Donahue, before telling her husband to ‘buzz off’ at midnight.
The Daily Mail covered the marriage of the Duke of Windsor extensively
Their affair came to an end in 1954, when the younger man had joined Wallis and the Duke on a yachting holiday.
After Donahue kicked the Duchess under the table over dinner, the Duke told him: ‘We’ve had enough of you, Jimmy. Get out!’
On the subject of Wallis’s feelings towards her husband, his confidant Kenneth de Courcy had a damning verdict.
‘Did she love the Duke of Windsor?’ he said.
‘I am afraid the sad answer is that she did not… I think he knew it and it was that which induced him to concede his very innermost person to her authority in the hope that love would come.’
Source: Read Full Article
