Wallis Simpson’s Fairy Tale Turned Into A Nightmare

Wallis Simpson’s Fairy Tale Turned Into A Nightmare

It’s hard for us to imagine now, but during a certain era, people thought of Wallace Simpson as the woman who nearly brought down the British Monarchy singlehandedly. Had Edward VIII not fallen for this scandalous American divorcee, the world would surely be a different place. So, how did Simpson come to change the course of history? Let’s find out. For a period in the 1930s, Wallace Simpson reportedly received a fragrant bouquet full of 17 carnations to her doorstep each and every day. These beautifully romantic gestures, however, hid a disturbing history. These blooms were decidedly not from her husband, the former King Edward VIII, but from her lover, Joachim, and the intrigue didn’t end there. Joachim boasted an even darker past.

Wallace Simpson’s privileged yet controversial life began with a scandal surrounding her birth, as her parents married just seven months before she was born in 1895. The uncertainty of her conception led Simpson to keep the information secret, often claiming her parents wed earlier. Tragedy struck when her father died of tuberculosis when she was only five months old, leaving her and her mother, Alice, in a precarious situation. Alice, from an old-money family, had to rely on her deceased husband’s new-money relatives, who treated them as charity cases. Despite being housed by her father’s family, rumors of a romantic relationship between Alice and her uncle Soul led to their abrupt eviction. Wallace, however, attended the most expensive girl school, displaying decisiveness and ambition, earning her admiration and preparing for a future where she would stop at nothing to achieve her desires.

Aware of her tenuous position in Baltimore society, she sought security by choosing the right husband through high-society norms, such as debuting and hosting a coming-out ball. But unfortunately, her timing was less than ideal. Wallace Simpson’s romantic journey began at a family-arranged lunch where she fell in love with a charismatic Navy pilot, Earl Winfield Spencer Jr. Despite his departure from Baltimore high-society norms, their summer in Pensacola led to a November 1916 wedding and an initially blissful honeymoon. However, Wallace discovered Spencer’s alarming drinking habits in West Virginia, and the marriage took a dark turn. Spencer’s jealousy clashed with Wallace’s flirtatious nature, and he exhibited increasingly controlling behavior. His dangerous drinking culminated in a plane crash, making a horrifying turn for Wallace.

Frequent relocations disguised their marital issues, but in Washington D.C., Wallace’s affair with an Argentine dignitary unfolded. Their toxic cycle continued through separations and reconciliations until Wallace’s ill-fated move to Hong Kong marked the irreversible end, leaving a trail of scandalous exploits in China. For the next two years, Wallace traveled around China, going to parties and making friends who put her up in their lavish homes. While in Beijing, Simpson met an Italian diplomat and began a whirlwind affair. Soon, she discovered she was pregnant. Fearing scandal, she sought out an abortion, but there was a devastating twist that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Many of her biographers have postulated that the doctor she went to see botched the procedure, leaving Wallace infertile.

She returned to the US heartbroken, but absolutely certain about what she wanted to do next. Wallace Simpson returned stateside and broke the news to her family that she wanted a divorce. They were utterly scandalized, but she ignored the protests. It wasn’t easy for a woman to seek out a divorce in those days, so she did her research and came up with a plan. She could get one in Virginia if she was a resident there for a year. Wallace hunkered down in a hotel and waited it out. During one of her visits to friends, Simpson got over her ex and met her next target, a man named Ernest Aldrich Simpson. There was just one problem when they met: Simpson was married, and his wife was not happy, to say the least. Within weeks of Ernest Simpson’s divorce, he tied the knot with Wallace. She’d been single all of seven months.

With her new, much wealthier husband, she settled in London. There, her sister-in-law gave her a crash course on how to fit in with the aristocracy, especially emphasizing that she should know every royal, no matter how distantly related to the king and queen, on sight. Of course, this would serve her well later on. Wallace and her second husband, Ernest Simpson, had one important thing in common: they were both die-hard social climbers, and they worked their way up the ladder of London society. But the good times couldn’t last forever. As Wallace continued to rise through the ranks, Ernest was overspending in order to keep up appearances. They were on diverging paths, and something was about to drive a wedge between them.

Having many rich, high-society friends in London landed Wallace Simpson squarely in the social circle of Edward, the heir apparent to the throne. But it wasn’t as though they immediately began a torrid affair. In fact, Edward was already having an alliance with the very married Thelma, Lady Furness, and she wasn’t his only mistress. The thought of becoming king still seemed like a distant possibility, and Edward was sowing his wild oats, to say the least. It came to be known as one of the great romances of the 20th century, but it’s impossible to pinpoint when exactly things turned romantic for Edward and Wallace. One thing is sure: Wallace made an unforgettable mark on the prince. In 1931, Wallace Simpson was presented at court to King George V and his wife, Queen Consort Mary.

It was an unusual honor for a divorced woman, and one she had in common with another woman in her social circle, Thelma Furness, Edward’s mistress. Peculiar coincidence, maybe? Either way, Wallace Simpson and her husband were now in the highest reaches of the social stratosphere in England. They were frequent guests at the prince’s home. When his mistress went on a long trip, he took to calling Wallace and showing up at her home to talk. Edward became such a fixture in the Simpson household that people began to whisper, and before long, it was even getting to Ernest Simpson. When Thelma Furness returned to England, she made a chilling realization: Edward was giving her the cold shoulder. And when she watched him interact with her close friend Wallace, she knew that he was in love with her.

Thelma immediately packed her bags and left. That’s one partner down, one to go. From then on, Edward and Wallace were joined at the proverbial hip, and everyone began to notice. Ernest Simpson seemed oblivious to it all, as did Edward’s mother. While Edward and Wallace were constantly together, they never so much as touched in public, but that didn’t stop people from whispering that she was his new mistress. However, there was other evidence, and it was damning. When Edward’s grandmother had passed on, she’d left him all her jewels, and keen observers noted that they were all slowly making their way to Wallace’s neck, head, and wrist. Something had to give, and finally, it did in January of 1936. King George V passed away. Immediately, Prince Edward became King Edward VIII. And where was Wallace? Right by his side.

In fact, she was even with him at St. James’s Palace when they made the royal proclamation. While British media had refrained from covering Edward and Wallace’s relationship, they knew about it, as did basically everyone else in the world. The only ones in the dark were English commoners, and soon enough, they had no choice but to find out. In order to continue her love affair with Edward, Wallace Simpson had to find a way out of her marriage. How convenient, then, that Ernest Simpson ostensibly began an affair with Mary Raffray, one of Wallace‘s oldest friends. Back then, the Church of England only accepted adultery as grounds for divorce, and so Ernest Simpson was conveniently caught getting a hotel room with Raffray, who was also conveniently in the middle of a divorce.

Soon, the scandal over their relationship and the crown and parliament’s unwillingness to let the union happen reached a fever pitch. For his part, Edward did his best to integrate Wallace into his new life as king, and she went along with it, despite the fact that his family resented her and called her “that woman.” He pushed to solidify the relationship and even began to talk about marriage. And there is one part of their story that’s often misunderstood: he totally could. Under the British constitution, he could basically marry whoever he wanted. Still, if he were to pick someone that the parliament didn’t like, it could lead to a constitutional crisis the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the 17th century. As the new king, it was important for Edward to tread lightly, but of course, he had a flair for the dramatic.

Edward VIII needed a solution where he could find a way to wed his beloved Wallace. The prime minister begrudgingly proposed that he try something called a morganatic marriage, where Edward and Wallace could tie the knot, but she would not be given a title. He presented this to the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and South Africa, who flat-out rejected him. Edward continued to push for hasty solutions to this problem. It was about to blow up in his face, spectacularly at that. The British press had spent years judiciously covering the throne while remaining silent about Edward’s very public outings with Wallace, but this job of selective secret-keeping was growing increasingly hard, especially with US papers blasting headlines like “King Will Wed Wally.”

Finally, on a cold December morning, English newspapers emblazoned with the headline “Grave Constitutional Crisis” were printed. Their pages were filled with stories about Wallace Simpson, the twice-divorced American who captured the king’s heart. The reaction was chilling. The middle and working class, who were just hearing about this, were both deluged with information and furious about it in equal measure. There were violent protests outside Simpson’s home and even threats on her life. She wasn’t prepared for it at all, despite the fact that she had the protection of royal guards. Things got so bad that Wallace Simpson feared for her life, so she enacted a daring escape plan. Working with one of the king’s old friends, Lord Brownlow, they plotted their route to Cannes, France, where she would stay with old friends.

She didn’t know it at the time, but it would be nearly three years before she set foot on English soil again. Exhausted and finally ensconced at Cannes, Lord Brownlow talked to Wallace about her options. He told her that there was only one way for Edward VIII to stay on the throne, and that she’d have to make that decision for him. They sent out an announcement from Cannes stating that she’d withdraw from the situation if it caused too much of a problem. While the papers printed headlines insinuating the crisis was over, that was far from the truth. Edward didn’t even need to wait for Wallace’s statement, because immediately after she left, he began setting the wheels in motion to what would become the scandal of the century. Edward said that he was going to abdicate the throne and give up the crown in order to be with the woman he loved, Wallace Simpson.

His younger brother would ascend to the throne as George VI. It was a completely unprecedented moment in history, and things would only get more outrageous from there. The die had been cast, and Edward had chosen his happily ever after with Wallace. But their bliss soon turned into a nightmare. Wallace and Edward didn’t exactly sail off into the sunset. They had been at the center of the biggest scandal the century had seen, and after being subject to the intense scrutiny of it all, they were deeply distrustful of those around them. They isolated themselves, fearing that old friends would sell their secrets to the highest bidder. Wallace began to plan a lavish wedding and ordered more than 50 different outfits for her bridal trousseau. At the same time, Edward was a pesky and spoiled houseguest at the Rothschilds.

Anytime someone presented him with a bill, he was shocked. He was learning for the first time that things don’t just magically pay for themselves, especially not when you have the expensive taste of a former king. While Edward’s family had given him the title of Duke, that was basically all they’d given him. He was in a dire struggle to get the money he had thought he was entitled to, and it was not going well. This problem, in one form or another, would haunt both Edward and Wallace in the coming years. The new King George VI helped select a venue for his brother’s scandalous wedding: a French chateau owned by a stranger, but one with a diabolical plan. The day after the courts finalized Wallace’s divorce from her second husband, he joined her at the chateau. They’d been apart for nearly five months since their dire escape from England.

They set a date for June 3rd, just weeks after their reunion. Sure, it was hasty, but they’d come this far. Despite the fact that none of Edward’s family attended, the wedding went off without a hitch, and the public went gaga for Wallace’s choice of a slim blue tailored dress. Wallace Simpson had made it into the family, but they didn’t exactly welcome her with open arms. King George VI allowed her to be called the Duchess of Windsor, but refused her the title of Her Royal Highness. The royal family also refused to receive Edward and Wallace as visitors. While Edward could occasionally get a non-formal visit, Wallace was persona non grata at Buckingham Palace. The royal family’s treatment of Edward, both before and after the abdication, made Wallace furious.

One of her subtle ways of standing up for herself was to make her servants refer to her as Her Royal Highness at home. Okay, maybe not so subtle. Without their London social circle, Wallace and Edward sought out new friends in the time around their wedding, and to say they stepped in with a bad crowd would be an understatement. First, their host at the chateau, Charles Bedaux, ingratiated himself with the couple. He was an avowed fascist and showed budding interest in the activities of a certain upstart political leader over in Germany. When it was time for Wallace and Edward’s honeymoon, they boarded a train at the Italian border. The train’s owner? Benito Mussolini. And that was just the beginning. While in Italy, Edward not only performed the fascist salute, but he did it on camera.

Then, their old host, Charles Bedaux, arranged for them to make an official visit to the US, all on his dime. Wallace was excited to return home, but it immediately backfired. In the US, people took one look at Bedaux’s track record and protested the trip vehemently. The president’s wife refused to host them, and the British ambassador insisted that they cancel. Wallace and Edward were utterly adrift. In fact, they remained adrift for much of the rest of their lives together. Edward couldn’t get any appointments or assignments from his family, and the lingering scandal of the union left them basically unemployable. While they mostly resided in France, they went from holiday to holiday, friend’s house to friend’s house, without much of a purpose.

After they canceled their trip to the US, their friend Charles Bedaux then encouraged them to take a different one: to visit the German Reich and meet the chancellor, Adolf Hitler. And they said yes. Edward had shown a fondness for Germany’s leadership and air force and had a habit of performing the Nazi salute every now and again. Of course, he was interested in this all-expenses-paid trip, and as his new wife, Wallace went along with it. When they met Hitler, he carried on a conversation with Edward in German, while Wallace smiled along with everyone. She didn’t speak any German and later said that she had no idea what the men were talking about. Or did she? The English royal family, who obviously already had their problems with the couple, were absolutely horrified.

A malicious rumor about Wallace didn’t help matters. Some speculated that Wallace had been a secret German agent. According to some, she’d been planted in the US years ago and had always had a long-term plan to destroy the monarchy. Those weren’t the only rumors going around, but more on that later. As World War II broke out and the Germans advanced towards Paris, Wallace and Edward fled their home there, slowly making their way west until they wound up in Portugal. Then, Edward finally got the royal appointment he’d been waiting for when his brother made him governor of the Bahamas, which was a commonwealth. For once, they had a purpose. Wallace dutifully fulfilled her role as governor’s wife and took on charity work with the Red Cross.

But as the saying goes, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. She also had some choice, aka extremely offensive and racist, words for the Bahamian citizenry. At the same time, she made frequent trips to the US to shop at a time when Britons were rationing and performing blackouts. It was not a good look, but she was used to being the villain by this point. After the end of World War II, the pair left for the Bahamas and continued their aimless life in travel, shopping, and socializing with the cafe society set. While they’d lost their guaranteed position in the true aristocracy, they would always be welcomed by the wealthy leisure class who wiled away their time in cafes, restaurants, and parties. With them, they could commit faux pas as they pleased, and boy, oh boy, did they ever.

Before the abdication, people had always known Wallace Simpson to speak carefully and judiciously, but now all of her manners went out the window. Wallace and Edward’s ability to open their mouths and say exactly the wrong thing prevented Edward from getting any work. After a cat burglar made off with the majority of Wallace’s jewels one night, each made some typical clueless rich-person remarks about the situation. This drove a nail deeper into their ailing reputations. But that wasn’t the strangest part. After the grand jewel heist, which some estimated to be worth over 2 million dollars, Scotland Yard worked to recover the pieces, but there was a dark twist. One of Wallace’s friends recognized a piece at a jeweler’s shop, leading the man to quickly hide the bauble.

Many speculated that the royal family had actually been the ones behind the heist. People thought that they’d orchestrated it to get back what they thought was rightfully theirs, including Edward’s grandmother’s jewels, which he’d given to Wallace so many years before. At this point, Wallace and Edward were middle-aged, and they made a smooth transition from a life of leisure to a life of leisure, but with the title of retirement. The City of Paris offered to put them up in a stately villa in the Bois de Boulogne, France. Welcoming England? Not so much. The royal family continued to dodge Wallace even in a time of great upheaval. Due to the iciness of the relationship, Wallace and Edward missed a number of momentous events in England, including Elizabeth II’s marriage and George VI’s illness and eventual passing.

Yes, Edward actually outlived the younger brother who had taken the throne after his abdication, as did their mother, Mary of Teck. She in particular loathed Wallace. Mary’s resentment of Wallace had a long-lasting effect. When George VI passed on, the crown went to his daughter, Elizabeth II. But even though there was a new monarch on the throne, it didn’t mean that the family would welcome the duke or duchess back with open arms. While Edward did attend his brother’s funeral, he did it without Wallace. Then, when Mary passed on a year later, Wallace was again not in attendance. In fact, she wasn’t invited to a royal funeral until 1967, 14 years later. In the 1950s, with Edward holed up writing his book, Wallace visited New York City.

Soon after, dark rumors emerged. While she was there, a young man by the name of Jimmy Donahue had acted as her escort to multiple parties, and the pair appeared so close, despite their 25-year age difference, that people thought they were having an affair. Edward rushed to the Big Apple to check up on things, but he was in for a surprise. Wallace greeted him at the dock with a passionate kiss, and the photographers went wild. At some point, she must have explained the twist in her relationship with Jimmy: he was actually gay. Well, Edward’s time in New York set off another round of rumors. He dove straight into the party lifestyle that Wallace and Jimmy were already enjoying, only for people to say that they were all having an affair together. They couldn’t win.

Toward the end of the 1950s, both Wallace and Edward spent a lot of time in the hospital. While Edward’s health deteriorated, Wallace developed a taste for plastic surgery. And while Edward began to lose his memory and hearing, Wallace remained as enthusiastic and charming a party guest as ever. In 1972, Elizabeth II and her husband planned a state visit to France and included a royal visit with Wallace and Edward. Finally, there appeared to be a thaw. But there was a dark caveat: Edward had recently undergone surgery, and everyone knew that it was only a matter of time until he breathed his last. It was all that they could do to pray that the visit would go well and that Edward would hold on. And at first, he did.

Ten days after Elizabeth’s visit to his bedside, Edward VIII passed on at the age of 77. Not only was Wallace a widow, but she was alone for the first time in decades. It was only after his passing that the royal family afforded Wallace the welcome she’d never been given during his life. Queen Elizabeth sent a message of sympathy, arranged for Edward’s body to be flown to England, and invited Wallace to stay at Buckingham Palace during her visit to the UK for the funeral. Of course, Wallace was in no shape to enjoy these kindnesses, and it was immediately apparent that the loss of Edward had absolutely devastated her. She behaved erratically at the funeral, leading some to believe that she had been tranquilized beforehand.

After the ceremony, the prime minister approached her to offer his condolences. Still used to being the social butterfly, she thanked him and invited him to visit Paris, saying, “The Duke and I would so love to have you.” While they allowed Wallace to stay at Buckingham Palace, the whole royal family had actually left for Windsor immediately after she arrived. They left her alone for the entire weekend before her husband’s funeral. On top of that, their treatment of her after the funeral was absolutely coldblooded. Immediately after it ended, a senior staff member from the palace escorted her back to the airport to send her home. Remember how she was terrified of flying? Yeah. Despite their small allowances of kindness, the royal family was finally ready to wash their hands of Wallace Simpson.

It was as if time had rewound and she was back to being a girl with no power, no cachet, and no husband. That desperate sense of insecurity Wallace used to feel came back with a vengeance. She began selling properties and possessions and obsessively worried about money. However, Edward’s passing might not have been the only reason for this. A terrifying problem started to emerge: sometimes Wallace would forget the names of her friends, both old and new. Then things got worse. She either appeared confused or rambled on without much direction. Wallace was suffering from dementia, and it was taking over her life. Despite her confusion, there was one thing that still burned deep enough in Wallace Simpson’s being that she was able to articulate her resentment of the royal family and, in particular, her sister-in-law, the Queen Mother.

By 1978, Wallace was a shell of her former person. She’d once filled her days with travel and social engagements, but she was now completely bedridden. As a result, her lawyer, Susan Blum, held power of attorney over her. But Blum had a disturbing dark side. As a longtime representative of the duke and duchess, the litigious woman had spent the past decade attempting to sue just about anyone who even mentioned their names. With the duchess completely unaware, Blum first began to lie to the press about her charge’s possessions, claiming that Edward and Wallace had sold them off long before they’d even hired her. This provided a cover for her to sell those same baubles to her friends for far less than market value. By the time the mismanagement was uncovered, many of Wallace’s things were long gone.

After eight long years of being confined to her bed and six years after she was last able to speak, Wallace Simpson passed on in 1986 at the age of 89. The funeral would have surprised even Wallace. Not only did the Queen Mother attend, but so did the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, and Princess Diana. It was the type of royal family reunion that never occurred when she or Edward was alive. In the years after her passing, biographers and historians uncovered the untold aspects of Wallace’s story, and some were more disturbing than others. During the 1930s, some whispered that Wallace had cheated on Edward. The story was that she had a steamy affair with Joachim von Ribbentrop, a prominent figure in Nazi Germany.

Sustainably, somehow that wasn’t the most chilling part. After their affair ended, it was rumored that Von Ribbentrop would send 17 carnations to Simpson’s home each day. The number was significant because it was the number of times that the two had slept together during their affair in London, and the gesture was a way for Ribbentrop to remind Simpson about their time together. Many have compared the tale of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to the story of Wallace Simpson and Edward VIII, but while both caused a major scandal, the comparison can’t hold water. It’s impossible to overestimate Wallace Simpson’s impact on history. Without Wallace, the world would be an entirely different place. If Wallace Simpson hadn’t been in the right place at the right time, she and Edward might have never fallen in love.

He would have remained King of England, and his whole Nazi-sympathizing thing could have turned the tides when it came to the UK’s role in World War II. And if you keep following that line, well, things get murky. So until Meghan plays a major role in the potential downfall of Western civilization, perhaps hold the criticism. Well, that concludes the life of Wallace Simpson. Marked by complexity beyond societal norms, Simpson’s life stands as a testament to the enduring influence of personal choices, leaving a lasting legacy that fuels ongoing fascination and debate. If you’ve enjoyed these stories, don’t forget to show some love by hitting that like button and subscribing to our channel. Stay tuned, because we’ll be back with more incredible narratives soon. Thanks for joining us today, and until next time.