The Peoples King (7 page)

It seemed to Churchill that their 'association was psychical rather than sexual, and certainly not sensual except incidentally. Although branded with the stigma of a guilty love, no companionship could have appeared more natural, more free from impropriety or grossness.'
¹⁰
However, Edward's cousin Louis Mountbatten thought that the chem­istry between them was intensely physical. He observed that once their friendship had reached the point where they went to bed together, Edward lost all sense of reason.
³¹

Wallis understood some of the reasons why she had fallen under the Prince's spell. Beyond his warmth and charm, she explained in her memoirs years later,

he was the open sesame to a new and glittering world that excited me as nothing in my life had ever done before. For all his natural simplicity, his genuine abhorrence of ostentation, there was nevertheless about him - even in his most Robinson Crusoe clothes - an unmistakable aura of power and authority.
³²

This was an aura that had captivated many other women, too. 'He was the Golden Prince', said Diana Vreeland, a stylish fashion designer. 'You must understand', she added, 'that to be a woman of my generation in London -
any
woman - was to be in love with the Prince of Wales.'
³³

What Wallis understood less well than her own emotions was Edward's love for her. 'Searching my mind,' she said later,

I could find no good reason why this most glamorous of men should be seriously attracted to me. I certainly was no beauty, and he had the pick of the beautiful women of the world. I was certainly no longer very young. In fact, in my own country I would have been considered securely on the shelf.
³⁴

Edward evidently cared nothing about Wallis's age - it was simply irrelevant to him. But in any case, there is nothing so rejuvenating as the feeling of desire and of being desired. As the romance grew into love, Wallis bloomed and her eyes sparkled. Her previous anxieties about middle age - her dread of the last swan song - slipped away.

Edward looked upon Wallis as the most independent woman he had ever met. 'I admired her forthrightness', he wrote later, in his memoirs. 'If she disagreed with some point under discussion, she never failed to advance her own views with vigour and spirit. That side of her enchanted me.'
³⁵
She was also completely open and honest about her background and never pretended to be anything other than what she was. She never concealed - from Edward or from anyone else - the fact that her beloved Aunt Bessie worked as a paid companion to a rich American woman, even though she was well aware that the idea of working for pay was despised by the English elite. Wallis was never anything but proud of her aunt. In 1930 and again in 1934, Mrs Merryman came over from America to stay with Wallis and Ernest, and in 1936 she travelled once more to London to be at Wallis's side.

Edward was not bothered by Wallis's lack of titles and wealth. He was free of snobbery to a degree that was remarkable, given his background. He came to 'sit in my office and talk to me as an ordinary person would', said the head porter at Bryanston Court.
³⁶
He saw Wallis as an individual woman, not as a member of any particular social group. And she, in her turn, saw him as an individual man - not simply as a king. She was probably the only woman he had ever met, commented Diana Mosley, one of the Mitford girls who became Oswald Mosley's second wife, who

did not feel obliged to behave slightly differently because he was there to the way she would have with anyone else . . . She was always very polite, curtsying, calling him 'Sir', but she always spoke her mind. It must have made him feel that at long last here was someone who treated him as he would have wished. '
⁷

John Gunther, an American journalist who was a friend of Edward's, made the same point. 'She treated him', he said, 'like a man and a human being.'
³⁸

Edward and Wallis had many shared understandings in their ways of looking at the world. Like Edward, observed Lord Beaverbrook, the newspaper magnate, Wallis 'showed a liberal outlook, well main­tained in discussion, and based on a conception which was sound.'
³⁹
One evening, when Edward invited Wallis and a few friends to dinner at the Dorchester Hotel, the conversation turned to his interest in the new social service schemes for the unemployed. Only that afternoon, he wrote in his memoirs, 'I had returned from Yorkshire, where I had been visiting working-men's clubs in towns and villages.' In the female company to which he was accustomed, he added, the disclosure of such a chore would usually have provoked a response like, 'Oh! Sir, how boring for you. Aren't you terribly tired?' Wallis, however, wanted to know more. 'I told her what it was and what I was trying to do.' She was genuinely interested in how the Prince of Wales went about his job. In addition, said Edward, she was discriminating, with 'an intuitive understanding of the forces and ideas working in society. She was extraordinarily well informed about politics and current affairs.'
⁴⁰
Wallis admired Edward's concern about social problems, I am crazy to hear if you heard the King's broadcast and what you thought of it', she wrote proudly to her aunt,
⁴
' after he had given a speech on I March 1936 in which, departing from the text supplied by the Government, he declared his commitment to the welfare of his subjects:

I am better known to you as Prince of Wales - as a man who, during the war and since, has had the opportunity of getting to know the people of nearly every country of the world, under all conditions and circumstances. And, although I now speak to you as King, I am still that same man who has had that experience and whose constant effort it will be to continue to promote the well-being of his fellow-men .. ,
⁴²

They even shared a concern about their body weight. In 1932 Wallis told her aunt that she had recovered some of her 'pep' after an operation to remove her tonsils - 'and the 4 pounds in weight have improved my disposition if not my "behind".'
⁴³
She wrote with some satisfaction in February 1934 that, 'lam feeling very well but am quite thin not in the face but in the figure. Naturally worry over finances is not fat-making. I weigh 8 stone undressed but eat and drink as usual.'
⁴⁴
Edward, too, kept track of his weight, though he was always thin and light. Right from his teenage years he had worried that he was becom­ing fat, so he ate frugally and took frequent vigorous exercise. When Edward was nineteen, Winston Churchill wrote from Balmoral Castle to his wife that

He is so nice, & we have made rather friends. They are worried a little about him, as he has become so vy Spartan - rising at 6 & eating hardly anything. He requires to fall in love with a pretty cat, who will prevent him from getting too strenuous.
⁴⁵

Edward's size was a constant source of worry to his father, George V, who feared he might 'remain a sort of puny half-grown boy'.
⁴⁶
He never lost his obsession with weight and exercise. For a voyage to the Far East on HMS
Renown
in 1921, he had a squash court specially built in the ship. He was 'mad keen' on keeping fit, wrote his equerry Bruce Ogilvy, who had to play squash with him every morning.
⁴⁷
And in Wallis he had found someone with whom he could share this interest:

I'm longing for an eanum letter Wallis . . . Please don't over eat until we can again together or I'm there to say stop or you'll be quite ill I know . . . Oh! to be alone for ages and ages and then - ages and ages. God bless WE sweetheart but I'm sure he does - he must.

Your DAVID
⁴⁸

Edward and Wallis had both travelled to many distant and exotic parts of the world. He had visited practically all the major nations of the world except Soviet Russia, while she knew her own country from the Atlantic to the Pacific and had travelled through Europe and Asia - something unimaginable to most Western women at the time. It was not so much that women didn't go abroad between the wars. Upper-class women travelled all over the world, but for the most part they did so as a wife or as a daughter, protected by a man and by his wealth and status. Wallis, on the other hand, had often travelled alone, without much money or any status beyond that of being an American citizen. 'From the first,' wrote Edward later, 'I looked upon her as the most independent woman I had ever met.'
⁴⁹
Wallis was also quite fearless. After her final separation from Win, at the age of twenty-eight, she left him in Hong Kong and journeyed to Shanghai in China. When she decided to go on to Peking, she was advised by the American Consul against travelling by rail, on the grounds that it would take
her through territory made dangerous by a local war. But she went
anyway:

The train was late in getting under way. As usual, the aisles were crowded
with Chinese passengers, chiefly occupied in eating oranges and spitting out
the pips. Seated across from me, the only other Occidental in the carriage, was
a rather plump, middle-aged man . . . several times on the way the train jerked
to a violent stop; evil-faced men in shabby uniforms and armed w:ith rifles
pushed into the crowded vestibules ... I assumed an air of utter indifference.
Nothing ever happened; after a quick look around the soldiers disappeared.
⁵⁰

Once she had arrived in Peking, Wallis met an old friend from the
USA, Katherine Rogers, who invited Wallis to stay with herself and
her husband, Herman.

Both Wallis and Edward understood the complexities of differences
between nations and cultures. On his tour of India in the early 1920s,
Edward had been aware - and regretted bitterly - that he was given few
chances to meet the native people. He complained to Lord Reading, the
Viceroy:

The ostensible reason for my coming to India was to see as many of the natives
as possible and to get as near to them as I could. At least, I presume it was the
main reason, and I looked upon that as my duty. Well, I am afraid that I have
not had many opportunities of doing this, either in British India or in the
Native States.
⁵¹

Similarly, Wallis realized that because her life in Peking had been
limited to the foreign colony inside the walled city, she learned very
little about the people and their culture: 'Actually, I never did get
much closer to the real Peking than [the] views from the top of the
city walls and my occasional encounters with dealers in jades and
porcelains and the can-do tailors.'
⁵²

Well read, interested in politics and independent, Wallis was differ­ent from most of the women Edward met at court. Indeed, she 'was a
great deal more intelligent than many in the Palace circle,' according
to the writer and journalist John Gunther.
⁵³
'Little Mrs Simpson is a
woman of character and reads Balzac', approved the social hostess
Emerald Cunard, herself a serious reader.
⁵⁴
Her appearance, too, was
striking. 'Mrs Simpson is quite a different sort of woman', judged the
novelist Marie Belloc Lowndes. 'She doesn't pose as being young and
in fact must be nearly forty ... I did not think her in the least pretty
. . . She has an intelligent but in no sense a remarkable face.' Mrs
Belloc Lowndes was at once impressed, though, 'by Mrs Simpson's
perfect figure. She was of medium height, and beautifully dressed in
the French way, that is, very unobtrusively.'
⁵⁵
Mrs Simpson 'looked
very well tonight, like a Vermeer, in a Dutch way', observed Chips
Channon approvingly one night.
⁵⁶
The unshowy elegance of her
appearance seemed to him far more attractive than the dress of British
women. This view was shared by aesthetes such as the Society pho­tographer Cecil Beaton. When Beaton saw a home movie of some of
Edward's house guests, he observed that the 'tall, badly or boringly
dressed Englishwomen with their untidy hair' were in sharp contrast
with 'the neat and perfectly turned out Wallis.'
⁵⁷
At a photographic
session in late 1936, he observed that Wallis was '
soignee
and fresh as
a young girl. Her skin was as bright and smooth as the inside of a
shell, her hair so sleek, she might have been Chinese.'
⁵⁸

Since Wallis's arrival in London in 192.8 she had developed a style
of her own, with an emphasis on simple shapes and clear colours as
well as immaculate grooming. No doubt her slim physique assisted
this effect. Her favourite designer was Mainbocher, an American who
had been the influential editor of French
Vogue
until 1929, when he
resigned to open his own
matson de couture
in Paris which soon
became known for his stylish, tailored look. Wallis often looked
severe, but this was arguably useful for a woman who, in a man's
world, liked to be independent. The aggressive behaviour of Win
Spencer, her first husband, had given her a keen sense of the need to
protect herself - and looking tough would have made her feel less
vulnerable. Perhaps she
was
quite tough. Duff Cooper, a friend of
Edward's and the Secretary of State for War, thought she was 'as hard
as nails'.
⁵⁹
Meeting Wallis must have been a puzzling if not intimidating
experience for Duff, who had a very low opinion of women's abilities.
He confided to his diary that Lady Cunard 'hasn't, of course, the
faintest idea of what the British Constitution is all about. I suppose
very few women have.'
⁶⁰
He had numerous adulterous affairs with
women, but presumably never expected to discuss political matters
with them.

Wallis was a survivor in the face of considerable odds, and she was
proud of it. When Bessie sent her a letter warning her of the unhappiness that might result from her intimacy with Edward, she reminded
her aunt of her ability to weather storms:

As you know people must make their own lives and I should by now nearly
40 have a little experience in that line - as I wasn't in a position to have it
arranged for me by money or position and though I have had many hard
times, disappointments etc. I've managed not to go under as yet
-
and never
having known security until I married Ernest perhaps I don't get along well
with it knowing and understanding the thrill of its opposite much better
-
the
old bromide nothing ventured, nothing gained.

‘I might still be following ships,' she added, recalling the bitter experi­ence of her marriage to Win Spencer, who was a navy pilot.
⁶¹

She was also liked and respected by her servants. 'All the maids
spoke well of Mrs Simpson', said a kitchen maid who worked at
Bryanston Court.
⁶²
Her personal maid, Mary Burke, who went
everywhere with her and would have known everything about her,
was fiercely loyal. So too was Mary Cain, her Scottish parlour maid,
who was 'a confidential servant and she never spoke about her mis­tress. If anyone spoke about her mistress she would at once leave the
room.'
⁶³
According to the head porter at Bryanston Court, 'there was
nothing frivolous' about Mrs Simpson - 'She had a sort of command
about her.'
⁶⁴

But however worldly-wise she was, Wallis had a warm heart and
liked to care for people. 'She was so affectionate, a loving sort of friend
- very rare, you know', commented Diana Vreeland.
⁶⁵
Wallis was
devoted to her mother and her aunt, with whom she exchanged weekly
letters from London, full of gossip and recipes; she also sent cheques
home on a regular basis. When Alice was only fifty-nine, in 1929, she
suffered a stroke. Wallis rushed home, taking the next boat across the

Atlantic. She stayed as long as she could, until Ernest pleaded with
her to return to London. Wallis worried incessantly and wrote to her
aunt:

I feel desperate being so far away and knowing she is not getting better and
wants and needs me there with her and to think of you having to bear it all
alone. I don't think I am much use here as I'm really so sad the majority of the
time I'm not a fit companion.
⁶¹
'

She returned to America in the autumn, but it was a brief visit because
her mother had fallen into a coma, and died in November. Wallis was
overcome by grief.

Aunt Bessie became even more important to Wallis. Now in her
seventies, with an ample matronly figure, Mrs Merryman was loving,
affectionate and kind. She lived in Washington, where she was
employed as a paid companion to a newspaper heiress. Over the next
twenty years Wallis wrote her a stream of letters. 'It was thrilling to
hear your voice on Xmas eve. It did make me want to see you so
badly', she wrote in 1935.
⁶⁷
She worried about her aunt's health: 'I
am so worried about your blood pressure,' she wrote in 1936, 'and
please be sure to do exactly what the doctor tells you.'
⁶⁸
Edward
adored Bessie and delighted in her company. At the end of one of
Wallis's letters, he pleaded in a postscript:

Please
Mrs Merryman not to be cross with Wallis for writing you
[sic] in so long! it really has been quite a busy time with the Jubilee and various
ceremonies and social functions connected with it. I wish you could have seen
one or two of them . . . Do come over and see us again soon.

EDWARD P
⁶⁹

How different was Mrs Merryman from Edward's mother, although
they did share a gift for plain speaking. On several occasions Bessie
warned Wallis against further involvement with Edward. 'You did
give me a lecture,' acknowledged Wallis in one letter, 'and I quite agree
with all you say regarding HRH and if Ernest raises any objections to
the situation I shall give the Prince up at once.'
⁷⁰
Similarly, Janet
Flanner observed that Queen Mary 'can't make a speech but knows
how to speak her mind, and gets to the point without shilly-shally.'
⁷¹
But there the similarity ended. Mrs Merryman's kindly behaviour
contrasted sharply with the stiff and unbending Queen Mary. So did
her comfortable appearance, which was a world away from the very
formal dress of the Queen, who was said by Janet Flanner to have
resisted

hints from dressmakers, worn her skirts long when skirts were rising, raised
hers, slightly, when it was too late; her hats, during her sons' sensitive sartorial
twenties, caused them pain
.
. . She looks like herself, with the elegant eccen­tricities - the umbrella or cane, the hydrangea-colored town suits, the light
lizard slippers, the tip-tilted toque - of a wealthy white-haired grande dame
who had grown into the mature style she set for herself too young.
⁷²

Like her aunt, Wallis was affectionate, almost motherly, towards
people she loved. This met Edward's need for emotional warmth. Her
care of him took many forms, of which one was a simple domesticity.
According to gossip spread by Alice Keppel, who had been the favour­ite mistress of King Edward VII, Wallis was 'an excellent cook
and has sent off the cook the Prince has had for long at Belvedere
. . . the Prince talked to her of nothing but cooking for two whole
hours at an evening party the other night!!!' ' She served good food
that was simple and nutritious, 'introducing succulent Southern dishes
to a people long paralysed internally by boiled meat and suet pud­ding.'
⁷⁴
Edward basked in these comforts. One contemporary reported
that

she had a delightful way of bossing him around without being boring or coy
about it. 'Don't eat that, Sir!' she would say smiling and taking a caviar canape
out of his hand. 'Have this instead?' and she would give him a bit of cream
cheese on toast
.
. .

Wales, who had never been looked after except officially, blossomed and
beamed under this fond supervision ... all of Mrs Simpson's menus were
planned with a view to his nervous stomach, which became less and less
nervous as one calm meal after another vanished within it.
⁷
'

‘I have learned to make that gooey stuff Mrs Bristol puts on the top
of her ham. It's made of peaches,' reported Wallis to her aunt. 'I will
send the apple recipe on separate cover,' she added, 'as I'm writing
from the Fort where there has been a pompous week-end including
the King's secretary and wife.'
⁷⁶
She did not feel comfortable with Alec
Hardinge and his wife, Helen, whose extreme formality exemplified
the manners of the royal court.

Wallis helped Edward with royal entertaining. 'Have the table
moved back as far as possible', she wrote before a dinner party in
1935. She offered advice on the menu: I would also have two sorts of
cocktails and white wine offered as well as the vin rose, the servants
to service the wine. Also I didn't see a green vegetable on the menu.
Sorry to bother you but I like everyone to think you do things well.'
She added playfully, 'Perhaps I'm quite fond of you.' When he finally
managed to get away from his royal duties for a summer holiday, she
wrote fondly to her aunt, 'At last this poor tired King got off.'
⁷⁸
Edward was equally solicitous about her and found it difficult to
separate his own well-being from hers. 'But I do long long to see you
even for a few minutes my Wallis it would help so much', he wrote
during the days when his father lay dying.

'Please take care of yourself
and don't get a cold. You are all and everything I have in life and WE
must hold each other so tight. It will all work out right for us. God
bless WE.'
⁷⁹

Standing by Edward's side, Wallis watched from a window in
St James's Palace as he was proclaimed King Edward VIII on
22 January 1936. She tried hard to support him in his work. 'God
bless you and above all make you strong where you have been weak',
she wrote in a letter, adding that soon she would be happy because
'you would be holding me and I would be looking "up" into your
eyes.'
⁸⁰
Since Wallis was slightly taller than Edward, who was only
five feet seven inches, it is difficult to see how she could have looked
'up' into his eyes. But comments like these must have helped him to
feel vigorous and manly. Wallis also helped him with those parts of
his job that he found wearisome, and many people recognized her
usefulness in this respect. At a party, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia went
up to Wallis and begged her to persuade the King to telephone his
sympathy to the Infanta, Beatrice of Spain, whose second son had just
been killed. When the King pleaded, 'Couldn't I do it in the morning?',
she intervened firmly
-
'No, now, to please me, sir.' He obediently
made the call.
⁸¹