So when the end came, it was an even bigger shock. King Edward VIII has renounced the Throne, and will be succeeded by the Duke of York. See, as King, Edward was the head of the Church of England, which did not look well upon divorcees and saw it as nothing short of sacrilege that Edward wanted to make Simpson Queen. As he wrote to her, “This poor boy had become more of an animal than anything else.” Edward was also so savage to his mother about her loss that he later apologized for being “a cold-hearted and unsympathetic swine.”, Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, Bloody Facts About King Richard the Lionheart, Stabbed In The Back: These Real-Life Betrayals Are Straight Up Brutal, Call The Burn Unit: These Epic Comebacks Are Deadly, Tragic Facts About Queen Victoria, The Widow Of Windsor. The Prince of Wales decided to introduce Wallis to his traditional mother in the middle of a formal Buckingham Palace function, even though the stuffy palace didn’t usually invite divorcees inside. In the late 1940s, George VI’s health was ailing, and the Duke of Windsor took full advantage. Grab a copy of our NEW encyclopedia for Kids! The Duke’s letters from around this time reveal a disturbing truth: He wanted to take back his crown. The new royal flew from Sandringham to London for his Accession Council, becoming the first monarch of the British Empire to do so. For the next two years the duke and duchess lived mainly in France and visited various other European countries, including Germany (October 1937), where the duke was honoured by Nazi officials and had an interview with Adolf Hitler. Visit Insider's homepage for more stories. It would be far from his last controversy. Please let us know if a fact we’ve published is inaccurate (or even if you just suspect it’s inaccurate) by reaching out to us at contribute@factinate.com. He loved playing polo with his friends on the university grounds instead of hitting the books, and when he left Oxford after just eight terms, he had almost no academic qualifications. Well…. So although Edward’s official name was Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, his parents and close friends just lovingly called him “David.” Soon, though, those family dynamics would turn dark. When WWI broke out in 1914, Edward was a virile, hot-blooded young man. Short visits to England followed in succeeding years—notably, to attend the funerals of his brother King George VI (1952) and their mother, Queen Mary (1953)—but it was not until 1967 that, for the first time, the duke and duchess were invited to attend an official public ceremony with other members of the royal family—initially, the unveiling of a plaque to Queen Mary at Marlborough House. Within only a year of their relationship, Edward was already, in the words of his biographer, “slavishly dependent” on Simpson. The heartless act only made Edward all the more determined to marry her. Instead, his parents expected him to get an academic education at Oxford, and enroled him immediately. Members of a private circle of friends, the Simpsons were frequently in the company of the prince, and by 1934 he was deeply in love with Wallis. It didn’t work, but people obviously knew what side he was really on during WWII. The eldest child of George, duke of York (later King George V), and Princess Mary of Teck (later Queen Mary), he became heir to the throne on the accession of his father (May 6, 1910). Many people in England felt that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s anti-British leanings had partly to do with revenge. Once his father ascended as King, however, those plans turned to dust. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Although Edward and Marguerite flamed out after year, she returned into the Prince’s life with a vengeance. After the war and through the early 1920s, he undertook extensive goodwill tours of the British Empire, and, after an illness that his father suffered in 1928, the prince took an increasing interest in national affairs. This is the incredible inside story of the abdication and subsequent life of King Edward VIII and American socialite Wallis Simpson and the reign that never was. These disturbing traits led Edward’s own father to remark, “After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months.” He wasn’t wrong. For example, Edward had a “Wallis Collection,” of images of Wallis on almost every surface of the house, most of them just heavily retouched photos. He worked arduously in the garden and woodlands, becoming in the 1930s something of an authority on horticulture, especially on the growing of roses. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. That same day, Edward, now known as Duke of Windsor, entered into an agreement with his younger brother and successor, King George VI, that secured him £25,000 annually for the rest of … This caused a … Even when Edward proposed a “morganatic marriage” that wouldn’t give her the title of “Queen,” parliament and the Church said no. He referred to John’s passing as “little more than a regrettable nuisance.” And that wasn’t all. With Horrible Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies? Christine Tran is a history buff(ette) and media scholar. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Wallis' marriage to King Edward VIII in 1937 meant he became the first-ever monarch to abdicate, changing the path of history - and eventually leading to Queen Elizabeth II … The Church of England still refused to have anything to do with their marriage, so they had to get a small-town clergyman to perform the ceremony. After that fateful day on December 1936, Edward’s brother Albert succeeded him to the throne as King George VI. He soon began to regard the Fort as a refuge from the official world that he increasingly disliked. Nonetheless, it seemed like a heartwarming act of love for his soulmate Wallis—but Edward’s scandalous history was just getting started. Factinate is a fact website that is dedicated to finding and sharing fun facts about science, history, animals, films, people, and much more. When new coins are struck in the monarch’s honor, the tradition is that they face the opposite direction of their predecessor. Of course, as soon as Edward confessed the horrific treatment, the nanny was fired. In November he opened Parliament and then toured distressed areas in South Wales. Thanks for your time! Well, even that has holes in it. (Winston Churchill, then out of power, was his only notable ally.) In late 1971, he then found out that he had throat cancer after a lifetime as a smoker. From petty paybacks to insane acts of karma, these bitter people somehow found the most ingenious ways…. Even in the early days of his reign, Edward proved how flippant he could be. Not content to just flaunt Wallis in front of parliament, Edward also had to flaunt his skills as a pilot when it came time to ascend as king. The former Mrs. Wallis Simpson outlived her infamous royal lover by over a decade, but she chose to be with him when the end of her life came, too. It had become clear that Edward planned to marry Wallis as soon as she divorced Simpson. John, who was 11 years younger, passed in January 1919 from a severe seizure at just 13 years old. None! Edward’s name wasn’t what you think it was. When his niece Queen Elizabeth II visited in 1972 while she was on state business in France, she managed to speak to her uncle for 15 minutes, but only Wallis was feeling well enough to accompany Elizabeth for a photo opportunity while the ailing Edward stayed inside. For his first act as king, George wanted to grant his older brother the title of the Duke of Windsor. It was doomed by being somewhat hurriedly and forcibly put to the dominions and by the explosion of the whole matter in the press and Parliament on December 3. It was the number of times that the two had slept together during their affair. This distaste was personal as well as professional: George once said he hoped Edward would never have children so “nothing will come between…Lilibet and the throne.” No wonder Edward turned out how he did. We’re always looking for your input! But that wasn’t the only way Ribbentrop humiliated Edward…. Government and the court are aware of Edward’s liaison with a twice-married American. However, in order to marry the woman he loved, King Edward was willing to give up the British throne—and he did, on Dec. 10, 1936. Orwell moved to the Hertfordshire village of Wallington -- model for ANIMAL FARM -- in the third month of the reign of King Edward VIII who abdicated the throne eight months later on December 10, 1936. As the most commanding mistress in the French court, she bettered the lives of many and became a beloved figure…. While in France, Edward’s friends introduced him to the high-class courtesan Marguerite Alibert, who he immediately fell into lust with and struck up a passionate affair. Our credibility is the turbo-charged engine of our success. Your suggestions can be as general or specific as you like, from “Life” to “Compact Cars and Trucks” to “A Subspecies of Capybara Called Hydrochoerus Isthmius.” We’ll get our writers on it because we want to create articles on the topics you’re interested in. While there, Edward took up with a bevy of married women, from English socialite Freda Dudley Ward to the American beauty Thelma Furness. Even after his grand gesture, Edward and Wallis couldn’t run into each other’s arms and be free and clear. He didn’t even attend the coronation, claiming that it wasn’t proper for a foreign sovereign to be there. But as it turns out, he and Wallis were being pretty cruel themselves. History has romanticized Edward VIII as the king of hearts, the man who gave up the throne for the love of an American … And, well, daddy issues…. Bitter that Wallis had never become queen and that he hadn’t remained King, Edward turned on the country he once ruled and ran straight into the arms of her enemies. There he entertained a private circle of friends not drawn from the conventional aristocracy and perhaps better characterized as part of the “high society” of the time. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin attempted to impress upon the king the peril to the integrity of the monarchy caused by the private friendship with a divorcée. Yet when it came to his own nanny, Edward was hiding a dark secret. The Fort, as he always called it, gave him privacy and the sense of making a home that was entirely his own. For all that the royal family weren’t so hot on them, Edward and Wallis made famous friends wherever they went, and were prominent members of Paris’s café society at the time. Before long, the connection came back to haunt him. The outbreak of World War II failed to close the breach between the duke and his family, and after visiting London he accepted a position as liaison officer with the French. Edward’s father George V not only preferred Edward’s younger brother, he even preferred George VI’s own daughter, the future Elizabeth II. Preparations had already begun and souvenirs were on sale when Edward VIII decided to abdicate on 11 December 1936, and his coronation was cancelled. In … It turned from a lavish palace into a den of sin. Before he became the heir, Edward wanted to join the Navy. On July 16, 1936, less than half a year after he was crowned King, Edward’s life almost ended in one violent act. Both Markle and Simpson found themselves at the center of constant scrutiny from the British press. Corrections? While all this was going on, King Edward and the government were pulling a fast one on the British people. In May 1910, his father ascended to the throne as George V, and he gave his son the title a little over a month later, along with the royal designation of the “Earl of Chester.” Sadly, all the official names in the world couldn’t hide one unsettling fact. Ice cold…but also maybe a little understandable. Both Edward and Wallis felt this slight for the rest of their lives, and Edward never managed to forgive his brother for the cruelty. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Catherine of Aragon is now infamous as King Henry VIII’s rejected queen—but few people know her even darker history. Around this time, the Prince of Wales became an international sensation. In 1923, Marguerite shot and killed her husband at the swanky Savoy Hotel in London, and Edward’s PR department had to go into white-knuckle overtime to make sure his name never came up in the trial. Not only would the new King shirk his duty and barely look at them, many were afraid that Wallis Simpson and her fun-time friends would take a peek at them and expose government secrets. Edward and Wallis take a Mediterranean cruise aboard the Nahlin. Plain and simply, the new Prince of Wales was woefully unprepared for his responsibilities. His affair with Simpson evoked much lurid comment in American and continental European newspapers and journals, but, until nearly the end of his kingship, it was kept out of the British press through governmental persuasions and pressures. But some say the damage was done…. By most accounts, the Duke and Duchess lived a bittersweet life in France, and their turn away from the monarchy and toward self-absorption only grew more pronounced. When they did finally get together, the couple tried to keep it hush-hush for as long as possible, but as we all know, the truth always comes out…. Edward was born on 23 June 1894 in Richmond, Surrey, the eldest child of the duke of York. Instead of celebrating his brother’s big day, King George VI banned all the royal family members from attending the ceremony, including Edward’s closest friends. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. She became Duchess of Windsor in … The next day, he announced to the world via radio that he had surrendered his title, saying, “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility…as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.” For all these pretty words, it wasn’t smooth sailing from there. And then he picked up a more scandalous habit from the soldiering life…. Discussions of a morganatic marriage were pursued, but on December 2 Baldwin assured him that this was impracticable. The best revenge might be living well, but that doesn't mean we can always turn the other cheek. Strap in, though: Edward’s hard-living ways only got worse. Edward VIII – The Coinage That Never Was. When he reached Lisbon, Prime Minister Churchill offered him the governorship of The Bahamas, then a British colony in the West Indies, and he remained there for the duration of the war (1940–45). And oh, the circus show was just getting started. His dalliance with Furness would end in betrayal and infamy. Madame de Pompadour didn't just share King Louis XV's bed, she also shared his power. In 1940, the British government was so appalled with Edward and Wallis, they sent the Duke of Windsor over to Nassau to be the “Governor of the Bahamas,” a position that he hated and a populace he disdained with a vicious contempt. The title of “Duke” specifically gave Edward zero political power, neutralizing him on the playing field. Edward VIII announcing his abdication by radio over the BBC, December 11, 1936. Only there was a selfish motive behind this act. The Queen, positively indignant over her son’s abdication, once huffed, “To give up all this for that.”. King Edward VIII’s last act in his 326-day reign was signing his own abdication. American socialite Wallis Simpson (nee Bessie Wallis Warfield) (1896 - 1986) a week before King Edward VIII abdicated. When Simpson’s second divorce was granted in October, it became clear that Edward … No clan is left untouched, and even families that seem happy and normal on…. Wallis even had a golden notebook that the servants dubbed her “grumble book,” which she would set up next to her at dinners and write down the evening’s various successes and failures. Whatever Edward was thinking in public during this time, his private comments were much darker. Titled the Prince of Wales on his 16th birthday, Edward was crowned King of England in January 1936, but famously and scandalously abdicated his throne after less than a year in order to marry the American divorcee and socialite Wallis Simpson. Omissions? Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. It would be several long months before they could reunite. Edward, born in 1894, was the eldest son of King George V, who became the British sovereign in 1910. In 1932, after unemployment had reached unprecedented levels, he toured workingmen’s clubs throughout Britain and enlisted more than 200,000 men and women in occupational schemes. His caretaker was so possessive, she would pinch him just before he saw his parents, making him cry and sending him right back to her. Wallis even privately and snarkily nicknamed Elizabeth “Shirley Temple” for her stoutness and do-gooder ways. Still unmarried as he approached his 40th birthday, he socialized with the fashionable London society of the day. In 1997, Sotheby’s auctioned Edward and Wallis’ personal belongings, and one peculiar item made headlines for all the wrong reasons. In 1953, Edward received a crushing blow. March 1, 2015 | 7:00am. Why 17? It got so bad, George VI eventually ordered his people not to forward the ex-king’s calls. © Copyright 2021 by Factinate.com. That was the end of that. Eventually, Edward must have realized that marrying Wallis put him in a gilded cage. While campaigning for his wife’s titles, Edward would telephone his brother nearly every day, needling him and begging him to reconsider. In response, Edward apparently sniped that his opinion didn’t matter because “There were not many people in Australia.”. George V was facing left, but Edward insisted that his face also face left…all because it showed off the fetching part of his hair. Whenever Edward got leave, he bee-lined it right to Paris to party. Despite their dark pasts and infidelities, we still tend to see King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson as a love story for the ages. King Edward VIII did something that monarchs do not have the luxury of doing—he fell in love. In 1930 the prince’s friendship with Simpson began. She was King Edward VIII’s great love who inspired him to abdicate the throne in 1936 so he could marry the controversial American divorcee. Hitler liked Edward VIII, and thought that if his infamous abdication hadn’t happened, things could have been much different. In other words, Edward was now backed into a corner. To quote Hitler directly: “I am certain through him permanent friendly relations could have been achieved…His abdication was a severe loss for us.” This is not the guy you want in your corner. But no amount of smoke and mirrors could disguise the rot at the core of his reign. He was stripped of “His Royal Highness” status, and demoted to the … As king, Edward VIII set in motion drastic economies in the royal estates. The government went to desperate measures to save themselves from Edward’s tyranny. Edward VIII: The Plot To Topple A King will be screened on Channel 4 at 9pm on May 9. Well, he got his wish. A slice of cake from their wedding went for whopping $2,900 after a heated auction. On January 20, 1936, George V died, and Edward ascended the throne. That summer, his brother King George VI passed, turning his niece Elizabeth officially into Queen Elizabeth II, a title that must have rankled Edward to the bone. In endless glittering evenings, they rubbed elbows with the likes of Gore Vidal and socialite Gloria Guinness. He expected mommy to step up for him, and lashed out when that didn’t happen. The abandoned coronation of Edward VIII was due to take place at Westminster Abbey on 12 May 1937. In 1930 King George V gave him Fort Belvedere, an 18th-century house belonging to the crown, near Sunningdale, Berkshire. Although Edward and Wallis loved to be the injured party in all things, they weren’t blameless when it came to their wedding day. Edward’s father King George V passed on January 20, 1936, which meant that Edward—messy affair and all—was now King Edward VIII of England, and the head of the state. And as for his beloved Wallis? At Factinate, we’re dedicated to getting things right. Did any of that stop them? Edward VIII became king of the United Kingdom following the death of his father, George V, but ruled for less than a year. Catherine of Aragon was King Henry VIII’s first wife and longest-lasting Queen of England. Later that month, on May 28, 1972, the former King Edward VIII succumbed to throat cancer. Their relationship becomes public knowledge in Europe and the US. However, despite our best efforts, we sometimes miss the mark. 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