The Duchess Of Windsor Read Online Free PDF

enterprising reporters tracked him down a few weeks later; while he refused to comment on either of his two divorces, he was gracious where his first wife was concerned: “Wallis was one of the finest women I ever knew. My work did not allow me to partake of the social life which Wallis loved so dearly. Gradually we drifted apart. I suppose that is the price we pay for a career.... I wish her nothing but the best.” 16
    The American press gave the Simpson divorce enormous play. On October 26, the day before the divorce, the New York Journal-American wrote: “In all probability, in June 1937, one month after the ceremonies of the coronation, will follow the festivities of the marriage (of King Edward VIII) to the very charming and intelligent Mrs. Ernest Simpson, of Baltimore, Maryland, USA.” 17 Another American newspaper headlined the event famously, “ KING’S MOLL RENO’D IN WOLSEY’S HOME TOWN .” 18
    In England reaction was far more subdued, but critics were virulent and vocal. One man remarked, “The courts of law are open to all—like the Ritz Hotel.” Few acquainted with the facts of the case believed that there had been no collusion. George Buchanan, an MP from Glasgow, declared: “The whole law courts were set at defiance for this one man. A divorce case was heard when every one of you knows it was a breaking of the law. The law is desecrated. The courts are thrust aside.” 19
    “Uncensored copies of Time , the first publication to take notice of the scandal,” wrote Jessica Mitford, “were hard to come by. Only those lucky enough to know someone who received a subscription direct, from America, were able to follow the progress of the shocking affair week by week. All reference to it had been neatly scissored out of the news-stand copies.” 20
    The British Royal Family, especially the Duke and Duchess of York and Queen Mary, were highly suspicious of the Simpson divorce. All believed that there had been collusion. However, a subsequent investigation by Thomas Barnes, the King’s proctor, and Sir Donald Somervell, the attorney general, found that “the divorce—even if it had some collusive fact—e.g. the willingness of Mrs. S. that her husband should be unfaithful—was not a collusive divorce in the ordinary or any provable sense.” 21
    The day after the divorce, Harold Nicolson wrote: “There are very serious rumours that the King will make her Duchess of Edinburgh and marry. The point is whether he is so infatuated as to insist on her becoming Queen or whether the marriage will be purely morganatic.... I gather from other people that there is considerable danger.” 22

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    Last Years
     
    T WO YEARS AFTER the Duke of Windsor’s death in 1974, Frances Donaldson’s much-anticipated biography Edward VIII was published to great critical acclaim. However, Maître Suzanne Blum, the Duchess’s French lawyer, was greatly upset with the result; she was angry that although Donaldson had begun the book during the Duke’s lifetime, she had apparently made no attempt to consult either David or Wallis. The Windsors‘ friends were, for the most part, also neglected, and as a result, Donaldson had relied heavily on English sources. Not surprisingly, this biography thus tended to reflect the views of the Royal Family and the court.
    Blum claimed that “it would take a 400 page book” to answer the inaccuracies she alleged in Donaldson’s biography. 1 The situation did not improve a few years later when, in May 1978, Verity Lambert, director of drama at Thames TV, approached Blum and informed her that Simon Raven would be writing a television script based on Donaldson’s book. Blum immediately tried to intervene; if she could not halt production, she insisted that she have full script approval. Thames TV, however, was unwilling to comply with her demands, and the series, Edward and Mrs. Simpson , duly aired to large audiences that fall in England, with Cynthia Harris as Wallis, Edward Fox as