Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), was an American socialite and the wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (former King Edward VIII). Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to United States Navy officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, while married to her second husband Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, the heir apparent to the British throne. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced Ernest to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, ultimately leading to his abdication in December 1936. After abdicating, Edward was made Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, George VI. Wallis married Edward six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, but was not allowed to share her husband's style of "Royal Highness".
Before, during, and after the Second World War, Wallis and Edward were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathizers. In 1937, without government approval, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, Edward was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished the office in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, they shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After Edward's death in 1972, Wallis lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.
Early life and education
An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania.Weir, p. 328 A summer resort close to the border with Maryland, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building, as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel."Baltimore in Her Centennial Year", Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, Volume 43 (Frank Leslie Publishing House, 1897), p. 702Blue Ridge Summit referred to as "a fashionable summer resort ... then greatly patronized by Baltimoreans" in Francis F. Bierne (1984), The Amiable Baltimoreans, Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 118
Wallis's father was Teackle Wallis Warfield (named after Severn Teackle Wallis), the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a prominent merchant, described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore", who ran for mayor in 1875. Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until, at some time in her youth, the name Bessie was dropped.King, p. 13
According to a wedding announcement published in The Baltimore Sun on November 20, 1895, Wallis's parents were married by C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895, which suggests she was conceived out of wedlock. Wallis said that her parents were married in June 1895.Duchess of Windsor, p. 17; Sebba, p. 6 Her father died of tuberculosis on November 15, 1896.Tombstone in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore; King p. 13; Sebba, p. 9 For her first few years, Wallis and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother Solomon Davies Warfield, postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.Carroll, vol. 3, pp. 24–43; King, pp. 14–15; Duchess of Windsor, p. 20
In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of prominent Democratic Party boss Isaac Freeman Rasin.King, p. 24; Vickers, p. 252
On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle paid for her to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland.Higham, p. 4 There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware.King, p. 28 A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she did."Higham, p. 7 Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well.King, pp. 21–22 A later biographer wrote of her, "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."
First marriage
In April 1916, Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., a US Navy aviator, in Pensacola, Florida, while visiting her cousin Corinne Mustin, spouse of Henry C. Mustin.King, p. 38; Sebba, pp. 20–21; Vickers, p. 257; Duchess of Windsor, pp. 59–60 It was at this time that Wallis witnessed two airplane crashes about two weeks apart, resulting in a lifelong fear of flying.Higham, p. 20 The couple married on November 8, 1916, at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore, which had been Wallis's parish. Win, as her husband was known, was a heavy drinker. He drank even before flying and once crashed into the sea, but escaped almost unharmed.Duchess of Windsor, pp. 76–77 After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Spencer was posted to San Diego as the first commanding officer of a training base in Coronado, known as Naval Air Station North Island; they remained there until 1921.King, pp. 47–52; Vickers, pp. 258, 261; Duchess of Windsor, pp. 79–85
In 1920, Edward, Prince of Wales, visited San Diego, but he and Wallis did not meet.King, pp. 51–52; Sebba, p. 36; Vickers, p. 260; Duchess of Windsor, p. 85 Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they were reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer had been posted. They soon separated again, and in 1922, when Spencer was posted to the Far East as commander of the , Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe de Espil.Ziegler, Philip (2004) "Windsor, (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, , retrieved May 2, 2010 (subscription required) In January 1924, she visited Paris with her recently widowed cousin Corinne Mustin,Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, p. 22; King, p. 57; Sebba, pp. 41–43; Duchess of Windsor, pp. 100–101 before sailing to the Far East aboard a troop carrier, . The Spencers were briefly reunited until she fell ill, after which she returned to Hong Kong.King, p. 60; Duchess of Windsor, pp. 104–106
Wallis toured China, and while in Beijing stayed with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who were to remain her longterm friends.King, pp. 62–64; Sebba, pp. 45–53; Vickers, p. 263; Duchess of Windsor, pp. 112–113 According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs. Milton E. Miles,Higham, p. 50 in Beijing Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, later Mussolini's son-in-law and foreign minister, had an affair with him, and became pregnant, leading to a botched abortion that left her infertile.Higham, p. 50; King, p. 66; Sebba, pp. 55–56 The rumor was later widespread but never substantiated and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it. The existence of an official "China dossier" (detailing the supposed sexual and criminal exploits of Wallis in China) is denied by historians and biographers.Higham, p. 119; King, p. 61; Vickers, p. 263; Ziegler, p. 224 Wallis spent over a year in China, during which time—according to the socialite Madame Wellington Koo—she managed to master only one Chinese phrase: "Boy, pass me the champagne". By September 1925, she and her husband were back in the United States, though living apart.King, p. 66 Their divorce was finalized on December 10, 1927.Sebba, p. 60; Weir, p. 328
Second marriage By the time her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had become involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in the Coldstream Guards.King, pp. 68–70; Sebba, pp. 62–64; Vickers, pp. 267–269; Duchess of Windsor, pp. 125, 131 He divorced his first wife, Dorothea (by whom he had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928, at the Register Office in Chelsea, London.Sebba, pp. 62–67; Weir, p. 328 Wallis had telegraphed her acceptance of his proposal from Cannes, where she was staying with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.Higham, p. 58
The Simpsons temporarily set up home in a furnished house with four servants in Mayfair.Duchess of Windsor, p. 140 In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit her sick mother, who had married legal clerk Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip, Wallis's investments were wiped out in the Wall Street Crash, and her mother died penniless on November 2, 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipping business still buoyant, the Simpsons moved into a large flat with a staff of servants.Higham, p. 67
Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis met Consuelo's sister Thelma, Viscountess Furness, at the time the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales.Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, p. 33; Sebba, p. 84; Vickers, p. 272 On January 10, 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to Edward at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray.Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, p. 37; King, p. 98; Vickers, p. 272 Edward was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir apparent to the British throne. Between 1931 and 1934, he met the Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented at court. Ernest was beginning to encounter financial difficulties, as the Simpsons were living beyond their means, and they had to fire a succession of staff.Bloch, The Duchess of Windsor, pp. 37–41
Relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales
In January 1934, while Lady Furness was away in New York City, Wallis allegedly became Edward's mistress.Edward sued one author, Geoffrey Dennis, who said that Wallis and Edward were lovers before their marriage, and won (King, p. 119). Edward denied this to his father, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as "evidence of a physical sexual act".Diary of Clive Wigram, 1st Baron Wigram quoted in Bradford, pp. 145–147 Wallis soon ousted Furness, and Edward distanced himself from a former lover and confidante, the Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward.Sebba, p. 98; Vickers, p. 287; Ziegler, pp. 227–228