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Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. King Edward VIII was on the throne for less than a year, and yet, in that short time, brought about one of the greatest crises in modern royal history. He lived for 77 years, but is only really remembered for two things: giving up the throne for love, in the shape of Wallis Simpson,
And that infamous meeting with Adolf Hitler, complete with Nazi salutes. But is there more to him than that? In this episode of Forbidden History, we join Dr. Tracey Borman as she examines the life of Edward VIII, looking behind closed doors at one of the most pivotal relationships of the 20th century. We find out whether giving up the throne may have been a mistake or not.
We'll discover more about his love of clothing and how he was a real innovator in fashion. He was famous for making the plus fours popular. If the abdication crisis hadn't derailed him, then he could have been the king that people wanted him to be. But the historical record suggests otherwise. Edward was a dreadful Prince of Wales and would have been a dreadful king. He wasn't diligent.
He didn't really listen to people anymore. He was surrounded by courtiers who had very mixed feelings about whether he should be there in the first place. He made no bones about how much he hated many of his own family, how much he resented his own role, how he couldn't see the future, you know, he couldn't face the thought of the kind of marriage he was supposed to make. While Edward clearly loved Wallis enough to give up being king, did she really love him?
How did the abdication create a rift in the royal family that would never heal? And how did Edward pay for his decisions for the rest of his life? This is the life of King Edward VIII. The young Edward's life was dominated by his father. Ever mindful that his son would one day be king, he imposed strict rules regarding dress, punctuality and etiquette.
Even as a boy, the weight of future responsibilities lay heavy on Edward's mind, as he feared that the rigid regime he was brought up under could only get worse. The Duke of Windsor's upbringing was fairly draconian. You know, his father was incredibly strict, his mother was very cold, was very distant. And I don't think the Duke of Windsor's character was made for that kind of upbringing.
To make matters worse, he also had a nanny who
was not particularly nice to him, who used to pinch him before he was meeting his parents so he would cry. Edward was given a solidly naval education, first at the Naval Academy at Osborne and then on board HMS Britannia at Dartford. Edward didn't enjoy this education. It was strict, it was unbending, he was teased and bullied, he was nicknamed Sardine. It wasn't particularly successful.
Edward's father ascended the throne in May 1910 as King George V, and Edward was appointed Prince of Wales nine weeks later, on his 16th birthday. As he moved closer to becoming king, doubts about his future role grew and grew.
Edward did not take well to his position as Prince of Wales. While he was determined to do his duty, he hated being put on a pedestal and he despised people staring at him. But in 1914, an event happened that he hoped would change everything, that would give him the chance to do his duty but on his terms. That event was the First World War.
When the First World War erupted, Edward requested a commission in the Grenadier Guards and was overjoyed to escape the palace. He wanted to put his royal title to one side and fight on the front lines as an ordinary soldier. But he soon learned a Prince of Wales was not allowed to be an ordinary soldier.
I think there was no question that the heir to the throne was going to be pushed into the trenches and allowed to be cannon fodder. But that wasn't really the point. The point was he could have been captured and he would have been used as a pawn by the Germans. So it wasn't so much killing the prince that would have been a bad thing, it would be the prince staying alive and being captured. Nevertheless, to his credit, Edward did visit the trenches and it has to be said that he banked some goodwill with veterans after the war.
Edward arguably entered the war a boy and came out a man. While he didn't fight on the front lines as he wanted to, his natural charm made him enormously popular. But after the First World War, revolution was in the air. Monarchies across Europe and Russia were toppling, so back in Britain, Edward approached his duties with a renewed sense of purpose.
I think the Prince of Wales saw all the royal cousins in Russia, in Austria, in Germany fall. So the monarchy, the absolute monarchy disappears and he sees that there's a way forward and he can do something, he can be a power for good.
He began to realize that he could use his position as Prince of Wales to, in a sense, save the establishment, save the old order. I don't think he wanted a revolution. He just realized that the monarchy had to do something in order to avoid a revolution. But that was not the only aspect of his life that he increasingly applied himself to. His first World War experiences saw him grow up in more ways than one.
Like many young soldiers who found themselves out from under the watchful gaze of their parents, he could have much more of a private life. During and especially after the war, women became a fixture in his life. Royal historian Tracy Borman is meeting with Sarah Gristwood to hear more about some of Edward's relationships.
He came from this enormously repressed family. I mean, neither his father, King George, nor his mother, Queen Mary, are people you really think of as being very open or very happy in these ways. So when his aquarists put him together with Paulette in Paris, it almost certainly did set him off on the path he later followed with some enthusiasm.
So, Sarah, who were the most important women in this early part of Edward's experience? There were really three of them. That's counting Wallis Simpson. There was Freda Dudley Ward, with whom he did have this long, warm relationship.
And she remained an influence in his life even after he moved on to Thelma, to Lady Furness. And interestingly, she was not only another married woman, she was another who was half American. Edward had this huge thing for America and Americans. He even began to speak with something of an American accent himself. It was one of the ways he differentiated himself from his parents.
He did dive into womanising with a kind of frenzy that may or may not have something, you know, a little bit defensive about it. But there's a famous story that he was abroad and he was told that his father might well be dying, but he refused to set off to leave and come back to England because he was too busy trying to seduce the wife of a local official. Now, that's a man with his mind...
on other matters. Affairs of the heart above affairs of the state. Interesting. Edward's affairs with women were one of the ways he chose to rebel against the rigid line drawn by his father. Another was through his clothing, which became a great passion throughout his life. Tracey Borman is at Kensington Palace to meet with curator Isabella Carassa to learn about some of the clothes that Edward wore and to discover more about his love of fashion.
So we'll start with this green tartan suit and this is from later in his life. So this is when he is the Duke of Windsor. He is now in France. This is the Lord of the Isle tartan. So this particular, only the royals could wear it. And the story goes that this tartan was actually made in the 15th century for the head of the Macdonald clan in Scotland.
But then later in that century, they had a conflict with the king and the king decided that he could not wear the tartan anymore. The clan was not allowed, it would be now incorporated to the royals. And this is why now he could wear it. So everything has meaning, doesn't it? Absolutely, absolutely. Edward described himself as a true British dandy and he had a style that he called dress soft.
So it was stylish and comfortable. It was tailored to make him look slimmer and taller. You know, kind of padded shoulders, big lapels, turn-ups and so on. His father, George V, was less impressed by his tailoring. I mean, he thought basically his son looked like a spiv, like a Mayfair socialite, and not like a prince.
So, what have we here? Well, this is, I think, one of the favourite items we have in the collection. I just absolutely love this. So, this is the outfit that he would have worn to go golfing. Aha! OK. So, the plus fours. Exactly. So, he was...
famous for making the plus fours popular. And he writes in his autobiography, he's always very humble, you know, with how trends start. And he said, well, I don't really know why people say I'm the one who started using plus fours because my father and my grandfather, they had worn large knickerbockers when they went golfing as well. But yeah,
Yes, I suppose mine were a little wider and yes, mine were a little longer, so maybe that's why people liked it.
He was passionate about his clothes. He would spend hours with his tailors, not just deciding, "Oh, maybe this fabric or that." They would sit together and actually discuss minor details, things that people wouldn't think otherwise. And for this one, so it's wool, and you wouldn't necessarily wash your wool. And this is something that he's actually thinking, "How am I going to get my clothes clean?"
and he got detachable lining. And they go all the way down to the hem, and you have that washed. That's quite unusual, isn't it? It's not just about the aesthetics and how he's looking. He's thinking about the practicalities. Yes, and this is why we think it's so interesting, his relationship with clothes, because he was, I mean, so flamboyant, and he loved all those crazy styles, but actually, when you look at them, they're very practical,
everything about them has a reason for being there. Like with the trousers as well, he would always have a button right at the centre front, and that means that he could button his shirt, so when he sat or moved, the shirt wouldn't be moving around. You would see as much of the Prince of Wales in the newspapers in golf attires. He used to wear the flat Baker Boy caps that were made by James Lock and Co on St James's Street.
One of his great innovations was to crease the trousers to the front instead of to the side like his father. He was also in the 20s known for wearing Oxford bags, which were these great wide trousers that were popularised by undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge. And he also wore turn-ups, which George V ridiculed and said they were there to catch rain. One gets the impression that George V didn't have a very entertaining sense of humour.
Clothes were clearly just a means of expressing himself, wasn't it? Oh yes, and I mean, for a person that had such a life full of, you know, crazy events, I mean, he is the one who abdicated for love. He was Prince of Wales, travelled the world, became king, and yet in his autobiography he dedicates a whole chapter just for his clothes.
Edward's dress style, while it annoyed his father, was bearable for the royal family. And while he was rather frequently falling in love with married women, at least they returned to their husbands. So such affairs could be kept fairly private, as long as he didn't make the mistake of thinking he could marry one.
In January 1931, while Edward was staying with his mistress, Lady Furness, at her country house, he was introduced to her friend, Wallis Simpson, and her husband, Ernest. At this point, there was little sign of what was to come. Wallis made very little impression on Edward at all, but it's probably fair to say that she was a bit of a social climber and was excited at the prospect of having a future king in her circle of friends. So she kept in touch with him.
The pair met up on several occasions and became close. Edward's loyalties remained primarily with Lady Furness until in January 1934 she sailed to the United States. With Furness out of the picture, Wallis bagged herself a prince. Edward's psychology yearned for domination.
And this is what he found in Wallace. Here was somebody who was in a very powerful position who nobody ever said no to. And the thrill of having somebody say no, somebody challenge him, somebody make him feel little and nothing was extraordinary for him.
Wallace Simpson is almost so severe, so domineering, so rude, that, you know, she's almost a dominatrix, you know, in relation to Edward. You rather get the impression of Edward as wanting to fall into the role of naughty prince, and Wallace is there to hold the whip, maybe literally, we don't know. The royal family initially ignored what was going on, perhaps thinking that Wallace was yet another in the long line of married women that Edward fell in love with.
Edward himself professed that his relationship with Wallace was innocent, but in November 1934, the reality of the situation became apparent. Alan Lascelles said that it was as easy to believe in the innocence of their relationship as it was to believe that a herd of unicorns were grazing in Hyde Park or that a shoal of mermaids were swimming in the serpentine.
Obviously, we don't know what was going on, but Edward was seen coming out of her room with lipstick all over him. I think that kind of gives you a fairly good indication of what had happened between them.
-It would have been imagined that even though Wallis Simpson was known to the royal family, they wouldn't have been presented with her unless the Duke of Windsor was absolutely adamant that they had to meet. And this happened at a party at Buckingham Palace that was celebrating the Duke of Kent's marriage to Princess Marina. And she was physically put in the way of the queen, so they couldn't ignore her. He was almost declaring his love and saying, "This is the woman I'm going to marry, whether you like it or not."
On the 20th of January 1936, Edward's father, King George V, died.
Queen Mary took her son's hand and kissed it. He'd had 40 years to prepare himself for this day, but he had spent those 40 years dreading it. The now King Edward VIII burst into tears. Have you ever spotted McDonald's hot, crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton? And time just stands still. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.
But now he was king, Edward was determined to make the most of it. He planned to make his reign different from those that had gone before. He'd be open to new ideas, progressive, willing to make changes. The more traditional regime of his father was over. His own reign was to be a more modern reflection of the times. But such a modern attitude, combined with a more informal approach, would make his a controversial reign.
One of my favourite stories which I think epitomises Edward VIII's new approach concerns the clocks at Sandringham. Since the reign of Edward VII they'd always been set half an hour fast. It was known as Sandringham time and was done to give him more evening daylight for hunting. But shortly after his father's death Edward VIII ordered that they be put
to the correct time. That seems to make sense. It must have been pretty confusing having a state in its own time zone. But it was also a tradition. And in the royal household, tradition has sometimes mattered more than common sense. Edward VIII was ripping up the rule book and ruffling feathers from day one. Edward hadn't particularly enjoyed the education he was given to be king.
and he didn't value the sort of king that his father was. Edward wanted to be more modern, more relaxed, less stuffy and high-bound. But in throwing away many of the elements of traditional kingship, he ended up throwing away those that earned him the trust and respect of his ministers and those he worked with, to the extent that he came to be seen as an unreliable character.
I think as King, Edward was contrary, to say the least. He was also quite a vain man. You know, the idea of being shown on the reverse side rather than the conventional side because it was a better side to his face is faintly ludicrous, I would have thought.
There were huge problems with the diplomatic boxes that were sent to his personal residence and they would come back covered in red wine stains or with cigarette ash flicked all over them, which suggests that these very private papers were left around while there were parties occurring in Fort Belvedere. And even if there weren't parties and Mrs Simpson was actually looking at these papers, that would have been a huge breach of protocol and intelligence.
King Edward's modern approach was popular with the public, but not with the establishment. And it was nothing compared to the elephant in the room, Wallis Simpson. By October 1936, it became clear that he was not going to give her up and wanted to marry her. The establishment was horrified, and Edward's position became untenable.
In the end, rather than give up Wallace, he gave up the throne and abdicated on December 10th, 1936. A few hours ago, I discharged my last duty as king and emperor. But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility
and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love. So why did Edward make this momentous choice? And was Wallis really the conniving social climber that history remembers her as?
To find out, Tracy is meeting a biographer of Wallace Simpson, Anne Seba. So Anne, can you pinpoint the moment when it became more serious and Edward really fixed upon Wallace as his future wife? I suspect it was very early on actually. Once Thelma Furness had to go away to America,
- Really, Wallis moved in at that point and Thelma knew immediately she was back that Edward and Wallis had developed this intimacy. Now, if you read Wallis'
In Wallis's memoirs, it was a holiday in 1934 when Edward slipped a little jewel into her hand at the end of the holiday and Wallis says, "That imperceptible moment, there was no going back." So I really think jewellery was the root of it.
But Wallis convinced herself that as soon as Edward became king, he'd be forced to dump her because, you know, mistresses in history, as you know well, historically, they get dumped. What she failed to understand was Edward's need for her was very deep, obsessional, pathological, if you like.
Now, Wallis has been seen as the kind of arch schemer who manipulated Edward because she had her eyes on the throne from the beginning. How fair is that?
Not entirely fair. Of course, Wallis was a manipulator. She manipulated it so much that in January '36, when Edward insisted that that summer they went on a cruise together, Wallis thought, "Oh, how can I keep Ernest happy?" Because she was certain that at the end of it all, she'd go back to Ernest.
Wallace was really living in cloud cuckoo land because don't forget the British press was self-censored. So nobody really knew about this story and Wallace thought, well, you know, a little bit of adultery, I'll be forgiven for that. What changed was at the end of this holiday in 1936,
when she stopped in Paris and her thoughtful aunt had kindly clipped photographs of her that had been seen in the world's press with Wallace's hand, a married woman, on the arm of the king. Once that photograph went viral, it was all over for Wallace because she realized then how hated she was that the women in all the Commonwealth were not prepared to accept
as Queen Wally, a woman who was already married. So she wrote at that point to Edward saying, "You and I must call it off. We'll only create disaster together." She'd missed her opportunity. She really didn't want to be queen with all the responsibility of opening factories and schools. You know, that was work. She liked the fun of it. She liked the enjoyment of the jewellery.
It's not the real responsibility that goes with it. "England's day of days. Westminster Abbey is the setting for the show of the century as peers arrive for the coronation of King George VI." Wallace was never going to be Queen, so after the abdication, Edward's brother became King George VI. Edward, now His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor, departed Britain not for France and Wallace, but to Austria.
He and Wallace couldn't be together at first, as it would jeopardize her divorce. Edward was at a bit of a loose end. He spent the next few months pining for Wallace. He tried to distract himself by playing the drums loudly to gramophone records, drinking copious amounts of brandy, and running up telephone bills speaking to her.
He could not live without her, and I think we find this very difficult to understand, whether there was a sexual hold over him, which is entirely possible and was rumored at the time, or whether this domineering character was something that he needed. I mean, to give up a throne for a twice-divorced American lady is still inexplicable to many people.
Edward had left the country so quickly that there'd been little time to work out what his future role was going to be. It's often said that he never wanted to be king in the first place, and so must have been glad to be out of it. But that's probably an oversimplification. Not being particularly suited to the position didn't make it easy to give up all that power and prestige.
It's more likely that he thought that once the dust had settled, he'd be allowed back into the fold and given some sort of role. He was stripped one by one of the positions he held back in Britain. It soon became clear to him, out meant out. The new king even banned his family from attending their wedding. But Edward had no intention of fading away. Just four months after their wedding, he and Wallace hit the headlines again
when they embarked on that infamous trip to Nazi Germany. It's incredible to think that a year after abdicating, with all the rumors that have been swirling around, Edward decides the best thing to do is to go and visit Hitler at his mountain lair in Berchtesgaden. And worse, to be photographed, to be filmed, him and Wallace giving the classic Nazi salute.
I think Edward understood from World War I the lessons that at all costs you would avoid another world war. It was in retrospect, it advised, but at the time most of the British aristocracy were pro-appeasement. They really did not want another war and thought they had to do business with Hitler. So Edward and Mrs. Simpson going to Germany was more pro-appeasement than it was pro-Nazi.
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Edward, of course, failed in his diplomatic mission. With the coming of the Second World War, Edward briefly returned to Britain before being posted to France and then Spain. While there, he openly criticized the British government and his defeatist talk was hugely embarrassing. And so they decided to ship him off to a far more lonely and obscure outpost, the Bahamas.
Upon arrival, the pair went to their new home government house and instantly took a dislike to it. They'd already been given £2,000 for a redecoration, but Edward asked the British government for more. Lord Lloyd, the colonial secretary, suggested that the money could probably be better spent on a fighter aircraft. There was, after all, a war on, so the Windsors paid for most of the redecoration themselves.
Well, I think that Edward was a Sybarite at heart, you know, that he loved the luxuries of life. And when he was sent to the Bahamas, the first thing he thought about was asking the Duchess of Windsor to redecorate Government House, which was pretty poor show, really, when you think that the rest of the world was at war and all he could think of was paint colours.
Edward was very self-centered and very self-serving. He was brought up to be this way. He didn't know how to look after his best interests. He didn't know how to put on a good public face because, you know, PR, what's that? You know, why should I partake in that? You know, he thought only of himself and his own pleasures. Life on the Bahamas for Edward was quite dull. But if the British government hoped that sending him away would finally get him out of the newspapers...
They were to be disappointed. Edward seemingly couldn't keep his mouth shut when it came to criticisms of the war effort. He told an American stockbroker that he thought the United States should keep out of the war because democracy in Europe was a lost cause. He hinted that he believed communism would take over Britain and that America should just look after itself. Such defeatist talk was one thing.
But there have been allegations that Edward, and particularly Wallace, went much further. Even though Edward was in the Bahamas, he spoke openly about his view that England couldn't win. He saw that either the Nazis would, or that communism would be successful.
But in all of these speeches, even from the Caribbean, he managed to do nothing other than undermine the attempts of the Allies who are trying to create a coherent narrative against Germany and the Axis powers.
I think it's ridiculous to say that Edward was a Nazi. You know, the entire British royal family is German or has German origins. So he might have felt that he had empathy with the Germans or empathy with Hitler and he could avoid an international catastrophe that was World War II. By early 1945, it was clear that Edward's defeatist predictions were false and that the fall of Nazi Germany was edging closer.
And so, the British government's thoughts increasingly turned to what Edward and Wallace would do next. Edward announced his resignation of the governorship of the Bahamas to take effect in April. So a decision had to be made. This was a tricky situation. It's very rare to have someone who's an ex-king running around alive and well. What do you do with him? Edward initially wanted to serve a useful purpose.
Perhaps an official posting to the United States, where he could help to further Anglo-American relations. His brother, the king, thought it sounded like a good idea. But after taking advice from his ministers and his private secretary, Tommy Lassels, the king changed his mind. It's fair to say that at this point, Edward lost faith in ever being a productive member of the royal family.
His last day as governor of the Bahamas proved to be his last day of work for the rest of his life. Once he was out, he was just left to wander the globe being a jet setter. There wasn't much else to life apart from, you know, wanting the Duchess of Windsor to be called HRH and be curtsied to, which meant nothing if she wasn't going to be curtsied to in England. The truth started to dawn that the rest of his life was going to be
Celebrity articles, TV interviews, completely pointless socializing, and a bit of gardening. In the end, he and Wallace split their time between the United States and France, primarily due to the latter's tax advantages. He would spend the rest of his life waiting for something to happen. For a time, they rented a house in Paris and managed to avoid the tightening of belts that defined post-war Europe.
They held lavish lunches and dinners for a crowd of French and foreign dignitaries, as well as numerous friends. There were cocktails, caviar, and lobster. Meals were ten courses, washed down with a cavalcade of drinks. Music would be played, and Edward would wave his arms around like a conductor.
The royal family thwarted all of his ambitions. He tried to gain positions. He wanted to do something, and they just prevented him from doing that. So he had to turn his time towards something, and he began writing his memoirs. And he really put himself into that because it was a way of channeling his frustrations, and it was a way of passing the time and doing something.
At least Edward had the woman he'd given it all up for: Wallis. But with little else to fill his time, Edward's already obsessive love for her became stifling, and she increasingly sought escape in the arms of a millionaire socialite called Jimmy Donahue. But was Wallis really being unfaithful to the man who'd chosen her over the throne? Tracy Borman is meeting author Christopher Wilson,
Edward's made this enormous sacrifice for Wallis, the woman he loves, but one would imagine that would put some pressure on the relationship. Is that the case? Consider this. The Duchess of Windsor is in dry, unrewarding human relationship. He adores her, but he won't leave her alone. And it gets very wearing. I think their personal relationships were fulfilling for him, but they were not fulfilling for her.
She had got to the stage in her life where she was looking at herself in the mirror and saying, "I've got all the jewels I want. I've got all the photographs I want. I've got, you know, houses and money, and what next?" And at that point, a young man called Jimmy Donahue walked across her path, and she fell for him hook, line, and sinker.
And did Edward find out about this? There was a moment which is recorded by the Windsor's private secretary, Anne Seagram, in her private diaries, where she overhears the Duke finally confronting the Duchess. The Duchess had been having an affair with Jimmy Donahue for four years. And finally, in their apartment in New York, the Duke tells the Duchess it's got to stop.
He is in tears. He's begging her. He's pleading her that she should give up this young man. And she's been found out. She didn't know that he knew. And she walks away from that encounter full of chagrin, full of doubt. And still, the relationship went on. They were inseparable for four years. Wallace's actions must have left Edward feeling utterly distraught. But things weren't about to get any better.
In February 1952, his brother, King George VI, died, followed just over a year later by his mother, Queen Mary. Edward had spent a large part of his life seeking his mother's approval, and he was never, ever able to get it. He wanted...
her to like or even forgive him for marrying Wallace. And she was never going to like Wallace, and she was never going to forgive him for marrying her. And when she died, he lost that opportunity to ever have that reconciliation happen. And so he was very, very upset about that.
Upon his brother's death, Edward's niece ascended the throne as Elizabeth II, but if he expected any change in the royal family's position on himself and Wallis, then he was to be disappointed. He wasn't even invited to the coronation, and so filled his time writing articles about the monarchy, looking after property in France, playing golf, and practicing Spanish and German.
What Edward never seemed to get his head around was that the monarchy had essentially struck a bargain with the government and with the British people. You enjoy your privileges, your palaces, but you play by the rules. You have duties. You behave in a certain way. I think the one thing the Duke always remained steadfast about was his love of Wallis Simpson. He never regretted it.
And it was almost like, you have to entertain me, you have to keep me occupied because I've given up all of this for you. I would imagine that Wallis Simpson felt very trapped in the marriage because she had to keep on entertaining this man who was born to be king and threw it away for her. So what a poison chalice that must have been. Wallis may have felt trapped, but she continued life with Edward. And even at this stage, he was still fighting to get her an HRH title.
something the royal family back home never relented on. Edward expressed his displeasure with some unusual titles of his own. The pair kept pug dogs called Disraeli, Trooper, and Davy Crockett, but for a time there was even a fourth named Peter Townsend. Their creativity for naming their dogs was only matched by the way they referred to their relations.
Edward nicknamed the Queen Shirley Temple due to her having curly hair, which bore a passing resemblance to the child stars. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, was known as "that fat Scotch cook" and "the Loch Ness Monster." And when she appeared on television, Edward would exclaim, "Here comes the blimp!" The rift in the family showed no signs of healing.
It was a very cruel blow not to give the Duchess of Windsor an HRH. It was vindictive. And the vindictiveness was coming from Queen Mary and from Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth would not allow Wallace to have the protocols and the privileges that HRH would give her. The question of Wallace's title became a long-running sore for Edward.
But it was in his personality not to let things go. And so right until his deathbed, he was still writing and complaining as to why Wallace wasn't given this simple dignity of the title. Towards the end of 1971, doctors found a malignant tumor in Edward's throat. It was inoperable. In May 1972, attached to his life support system, he had a last meeting with the Queen and died nine days later.
The funeral took place on the 5th of June, and his body was buried at Frogmore House near Windsor Castle. Wallace was to be buried beside him 14 years later. Edward's funeral was not a state occasion. Wallace was there on invitation of the Queen. She stayed at Buckingham Palace. She was apparently very bewildered, and almost the onset of Alzheimer's had almost begun. Not being a state occasion, it was slightly hugger-mugger.
The grave is not particularly remarkable, there's no great monument to him, so he was sort of buried around the corner, as it were, rather than in Westminster Abbey or St George's Chapel, Windsor. Edward's biggest flaw had been his self-centred outlook that had led him to believe he could keep his public life and his private life separate, and therefore get away with marrying Wallis. But this had proved impossible, and in order to live the private life he'd wanted,
he'd had to pay an enormous price: the throne. He had never really come to terms with what that meant, and the rest of his life had been hopelessly waiting for duty to call. But was he ever suited to the job in the first place? For while the trappings of monarchy may be appealing to some, to Edward, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and St. James's Palace became just the finest gilded prisons in the world. He escaped.
and the nation lost touch with King Edward VIII.