okay picture the scene it is december 11th 1936
you are sitting in a you know a drafty living
room in london or maybe huddled around a wireless
radio in a farmhouse in the american midwest
the entire world has effectively stopped the
airwaves are crackling with static and then a
man's voice cuts through And it's a very distinct
voice. It's a voice that belongs to the king
of the United Kingdom, the emperor of India,
the ruler of a dominion that covers a quarter
of the globe. And he says something that, well,
it basically stops the clocks on the wall. 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. The woman I
love. It is arguably the most famous resignation
letter in human history. I think you're right.
There's nothing else quite like it. And the woman
he is talking about isn't a princess from a neighboring
kingdom. She isn't a duchess with a pedigree
going back to the Crusades. She is Wallis Simpson,
a four -year -old American from Baltimore. And
a divorcee, a two -time divorcee, in fact. Right.
A woman who, depending on which history book
you decide to open, is either the romantic heroine
of the century or a... The villain who nearly
destroyed the British monarchy before it even
hit the mid 20th century. It really is the event
against which all other royal scandals are measured.
We think we have drama now with modern royals.
This was the original blockbuster. This was the
earthquake that shook the foundation of the institution
itself. It's not an exaggeration to say it brought
the empire to the brink of a constitutional meltdown.
And that is exactly what we are unpacking today.
We are doing a deep dive into the life of Wallis
Simpson. But we aren't just going to rehash the
fairy tale version or the, you know, the hit
piece version. We want to know who actually was
she. Yes. Because for a woman so famous, she
is incredibly misunderstood. Absolutely. And
to get to the truth, we have pulled together
a massive stack of sources for this one. We are
looking at definitive biographies. We combed
through the Wikipedia archives to get the timeline
straight, which is crucial. We're looking at
contemporary diaries from the 1930s. which are
just full of the most incredible gossip. And
we're even cracking open some declassified FBI
files that paint a much, much darker picture
than the romance novels do. The FBI. We'll definitely
have to get into why they were involved. Oh,
we will. So the mission today is to move past
the caricature. It is so easy to paint her as
the villainous temptress, the sorceress who stole
the king. The American Jezebel, as some called
her. Or, on the flip side, the romantic victim
who just fell in love and got swept away by forces
beyond her control. But when you look at the
actual evidence, the reality is so much messier.
She was complex. She was ambitious. She was terrified.
And she was contradictory. That's the perfect
word for contradictory. We're going to trace
that entire arc. We will go from her childhood
as a poor relation in Baltimore, which I think
explains almost everything about her psychology.
I agree. That's the key right there. To the wild
rumors of her time in China. the constitutional
crisis that brought down a government, the incredibly
controversial brush with the Nazis, and finally,
those silent, lonely years in Paris. It is a
sweeping narrative, a life lived at the absolute
center of history. So let's start at the very
beginning, because she wasn't born a duchess.
She wasn't even born Wallace, really. Not as
a first name, no. She was born Bessie Wallace
Warfield. Bessie Wallace. That's right. June
19th, 1896. And she wasn't born in a palace or
even a major city. She was born in a place called
Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. Which sounds
lovely, but why there? Why not Baltimore, where
her family was from? I mean, the Warfields were
a big name in Baltimore. It was a summer resort.
You have to remember, in 1896, there is no air
conditioning. Baltimore in the summer is a swamp.
It's humid. It's oppressive. The threat of diseases
like typhoid was very real. Right. So the wealthy
families and the Warfields, who were a very wealthy,
prominent family, would retreat to the cool mountain
air of Pennsylvania. It was an escape for the
elite. The square top hotel, to be exact. Right.
So she's born into this world of privilege, at
least on the surface. On the surface. But even
her birth comes with a little asterisk, doesn't
it? There is a bit of a scandal right out of
the gate regarding the timeline. Yes, the wedding
date versus the birth date. There is. And this
is the kind of detail that could haunt a family
in that era, especially in a society as concerned
with appearances as Baltimore's was. If you look
at the church records, her parents, Tika Wallace
Warfield and Alice Montague, were married on
November 19, 1895. Okay, November 95. Wallace
arrives in June 1896. I'm doing the mental math.
That is seven months, a very tight seven months.
It is a tight seven months. Now, premature babies
happen, of course. That's entirely possible.
But there's always been a persistent rumor that
she was conceived out of wedlock. Which would
have been a major stain on the family's honor.
A huge one. And what's really telling is that
Wallace herself, later in life, would claim her
parents were married in June 1895, pushing the
date back a full year to make the math look more
respectable. So she lied about it. She did. But
the church records don't lie. That is fascinating.
So from day one, she is managing her image. She
is trying to rewrite the facts to fit a respectable
narrative. That's a theme that just never goes
away with her. Exactly. And that insecurity,
that need to control the story, is compounded
by tragedy almost immediately. Her father, Teagle,
had tuberculosis. It was the scourge of the age.
A death sentence, really. Pretty much. He dies
in November 1896. Wallace is barely an infant,
five months old. She never knew him. So her mother,
Alice, is left a widow with a baby and, crucially,
no independent income. And this is the defining
dynamic of Wallace's early life. This is what
shapes her. They are Warfields. The Warfields
are a big deal in Baltimore history, politicians,
businessmen, very established. But Wallace and
her mother are the poor Warfields. The ones without
the money? The ones without any money of their
own. They are entirely dependent on the charity
of her father's brother, her Uncle Solomon Davies
Warfield. Let's talk about Uncle Saul, because
he sounds like a character straight out of a
Dickens novel. He really is. He was a bachelor,
incredibly wealthy, incredibly powerful. He was
the postmaster of Baltimore, president of a trust
company, president of a railway. He was a major
figure. And he held the purse strings, and by
all accounts, he held them tight. So he takes
them in. Yes. Wallace and her mother moved into
his four -story row house on East Preston Street.
That sounds comfortable on paper, living in a
mansion. I mean, four stories? It sounds grand,
but psychologically... That has to be incredibly
tough. I can't even imagine. It's a very specific
kind of pressure. You are surrounded by wealth.
You have the right last name. You go to the right
parties. Yeah. But you have no money of your
own. You are living there on sufferance. You're
a guest in your own life. You have to be grateful.
You have to be pleasant. You have to sing for
your supper in a way. You can never step out
of line because the roof over your head, the
food you eat, it all depends on your uncle's
mood. It is the poor relations syndrome. You
are inside the club, but you are not of the club.
You're always looking in from the outside, even
when you're on the inside. Precisely. And I think
this breeds two things in Wallace. First, a deep,
gnawing insecurity. She never felt safe. And
second, a ferocious drive. A determination. She
decided very early on that she was never... ever
going to be in this position of dependency again.
She wanted her own security. She wanted security.
And in her world at that time, security meant
money and status. And the only way for a woman
to get that was through marriage. But Uncle Solomon
did come through on the education, right? He
didn't skimp there. No. To his credit, he paid
for her to attend Oldfield School. This was the
most expensive, most exclusive girls' school
in Maryland. This is where the elite sent their
daughters. So now teenage Wallace is rubbing
shoulders with the daughters of true tycoons.
We are talking about people like Rene DuPont.
The DuPonts. I mean, that's American royalty.
OK, so she is literally in the mix with the American
aristocracy. She is. But again, she knows the
difference. They have trust funds. She has an
allowance from a grumpy uncle. They have country
estates. She lives in her uncle's house. And
this is where we see the Wallace personality
really begin to form. She realizes she can't
compete on money. And honestly, she couldn't
really compete on classic beauty either. The
sources are quite blunt about that, aren't they?
One biographer mentioned her jaw was too heavy
for the standards of the time. She wasn't...
the Gibson girl ideal. She wasn't. She didn't
have that soft, rounded, conventional prettiness
that was so prized, but she had distinct assets.
She had amazing violet blue eyes, according to
descriptions. They were apparently magnetic.
She had a very petite, slender figure, which
she kept her whole life, but mostly she had style
and she had wit. She weaponized her personality.
She did. I love the quote from her classmate
at Oldfields. They said, she made up her mind
to go to the head of the class, and she did.
That sums her up perfectly. She willed herself
into prominence. Absolutely. She was always the
best dressed immaculately turned out. That became
her armor. If you can't be the prettiest, be
the most stylish. If you can't be the richest,
be the most interesting, the wittiest. She learned
how to focus her attention on people, especially
men, to make them feel like they were the only
person in the room. It was a cultivated skill.
A highly cultivated skill. It is a survival mechanism.
She is... optimizing herself for the marriage
market, essentially. Crude but true. In 1910's
Baltimore, that was the career path available
to her, and she was determined to succeed at
it. And succeed she did, at first. So she graduates,
she makes her debut into Baltimore society, and
she meets a man who seems to tick all the boxes,
Earl Winfield Spencer Jr. Wynn. This is 1916.
She is visiting a cousin in Pensacola, Florida.
And Wynn Spencer is a U .S. Navy aviator. And
we have to contextualize this. In 1916, a pilot
was a rock star. It was dangerous. It was new
technology. It was the absolute height of masculinity
and glamour. It is like dating an astronaut in
the 1960s or a tech billionaire today. Exactly.
He was handsome, dashing, from a good family.
On paper, he was the perfect catch. They married
quickly. But the glamour stripped away very,
very fast. How so? What went wrong? Well, for
one, the danger part of aviation became very
real to her. While she was in Pensacola, she
witnessed two separate airplane crashes just
weeks apart. Oh, wow. Not on a newsreel, but
in person. In person. Saw the wreckage, saw the
aftermath. Seeing that trauma firsthand gave
her a lifelong crippling fear of flying, which
is incredibly ironic considering how much she
traveled later in life, often sedated or terrified
on planes. But that wasn't the main problem with
the marriage, was it? Not at all. The bigger
problem was Wynn himself. The sources describe
him as a heavy drinker. Heavy is putting it lightly.
He was an alcoholic and not the fun at parties
kind of alcoholic. He was a mean drunk. He was
abusive, both verbally and some sources physically.
He was known to drink even before getting into
the cockpit. That's terrifying. Can you imagine?
Their marriage became a cycle of fighting, him
leaving for months on deployment, and her trying
to cope. They moved to San Diego, then to Washington,
D .C., but the relationship was just crumbling.
It was toxic. And eventually, Wynne gets posted
to the Far East. And this leads us to what I
think is the most mysterious and mythologized
chapter of her life, the China years. The China
dossier. This is where the legend of Wallace
Simpson starts to drift into, well... So she
decides to travel to China to try and reconcile
with him, right? Which in the 1920s, for a woman
traveling alone, that is a serious track. It
is a massive undertaking. She travels on a troop
carrier, the USS Shomal. It takes weeks and weeks.
She ends up in Hong Kong and joins Wynn. But
the reconciliation is a complete disaster. He
is drinking more than ever. He is erratic. Does
she leave him? She does, but she doesn't go home.
She doesn't go back to Baltimore with her tail
between her legs. She goes to Beijing. And she
spends over a year in China. And the rumors that
came out of this period, I mean, they dogged
her for the rest of her life. Oh, they were salacious.
People whispered that she learned ancient sexual
techniques in the brothels of Beijing, that she
was running with a wild crowd of diplomats and
warlords. It's very exoticized, isn't it? Completely.
And the most specific and damaging rumor involved...
Count Galeazzo Ciano. Who later becomes Mussolini's
son -in -law and foreign minister, a major historical
figure. Right. He was a young diplomat in Beijing
at the time. The rumor, which was repeated for
decades in London salons and treated as fact,
was that Wallace had a torrid affair with Ciano,
got pregnant, and had a botched abortion that
left her infertile. That is an incredibly specific
and vicious rumor. Is there a shred of truth
to it? Based on the actual evidence, almost certainly
not. Jianna's wife later denied it vehemently.
The dates don't really line up with their time
in Beijing. Historians have searched for this
legendary China dossier that supposedly listed
all her crimes and sexual exploits. The consensus
is that it simply doesn't exist. It was a myth
likely fabricated later to discredit her. It
feels like a very specific kind of smear. It's
like... How did this American woman with a heavy
jaw enslave the King of England? Oh, she must
have learned secret dark arts in the mysterious
Orient. That is exactly what it is. It's a toxic
mix of sexism and Orientalism. People couldn't
accept that Edward just found her personality
compelling, so they had to invent a sexual sorcery
narrative to explain his devotion. They had to
exoticize her to make sense of it. But she did
enjoy her time in China, by your own account.
She lived the expat life. She did. She stayed
with friends. She went to parties. But for all
the talk of her becoming this worldly, sophisticated
traveler, there is a hilarious anecdote from
Madame Wellington Koo, who was a famous Chinese
socialite in Beijing. Okay. She claimed that
after a full year in China, Wallace had mastered
exactly one phrase in the local language. Let
me guess. Was it, hello, thank you, where is
the embassy? It was, boy, pass me the champagne.
Boy, pass me the champagne now. That's the story.
And if it's true, it tells you everything about
her lifestyle there. She was living in the bubble
of the international settlement. She wasn't immersing
herself in the culture. She was extracting pleasure
from it. So she eventually leaves China, returns
to the U .S., and finally divorces Wyn Spencer
in 1927. And then she wastes absolutely no time.
She pivots immediately. She pivots to Ernest
Simpson. Marriage number two. Ernest is the anti
-Wyn. He is everything Wynn Spencer was not.
He is an Anglo -American shipping executive.
He served as an officer in the Coldstream Guards.
He is stable. He is solvent. He is eminently
respectable. And he's already married when she
meets him. He is. He actually divorces his first
wife to marry Wallace. They get married in London
in 1928, almost immediately after her divorce
from Wynn is finalized. And crucially, he takes
her to London. This is the key. This is the goal.
Wallace always loved the idea of England, of
English society. To her, London was the absolute
pinnacle. They moved to Mayfair. They get a flat
with servants. They start entertaining. This
is the life she has always wanted. And the timing
is just terrible. Terrible timing. They marry
in 1928. The Wall Street crash happens in 1929.
Oh. It completely wipes out Wallace's small investments.
To make matters worse, her mother dies penniless
that same year. And Ernest's shipping business
takes a huge hit in the Great Depression. So
they're in trouble financially. They aren't poor,
not by normal standards, but they certainly aren't
Mayfair society wealthy. But, and this is classic
Wallace, they pretend they are. Fake it till
you make it. Exactly. They continue to live well
beyond their means. She throws these immaculate
dinner parties. She serves the best food, the
best wine. Even she has to scrimp elsewhere.
She is climbing the social ladder rung by painstaking
wrong. And that letter eventually leads her to
Lady Thelma Furness. It is a game of degrees
of separation. A friend of hers is friends with
Thelma Furness. And Thelma Furness happens to
be the current mistress of the Prince of Wales,
Edward. It is always the mistress who introduces
the replacement. It's like something out of a
Greek tragedy. It is a dangerous game. January
1931, a weekend house party at Borough Court,
Lady Furness's country house. And she invites
the Simpsons. And there, Wallace is introduced
to the Prince of Wales. Now, was it fireworks
immediately? Did the earth move? Not really.
The sources suggest he didn't even remember her
after that first meeting. It was a slow burn.
They moved in the same circles for about three
years. The prince would come to dinner at their
flat. They would go to his weekend retreat, Fort
Belvedere. So she's just part of the crowd at
this point. She is. But the shift, the pivotal
moment, happens in January 1934. Thelma leaks
town. Thelma Furness has to go to New York City
for a family matter. And she turns to her good
friend Wallace and basically says, look after
the prince for me while I'm gone. Keep him entertained.
Don't let him get bored. Look after him. Famous
last words. By the time Thelma steps off the
boat back in England, she has been completely
erased. Wallace has taken her place. The affair
has begun in earnest. I want to drill down on
this because it's the question everyone asks.
Why Wallace? Edward is the Prince of Wales. He
is the most eligible bachelor on planet Earth.
He could have anyone. He's dated stunning beauties,
aristocrats. Why this 38 -year -old, not classically
beautiful American housewife? This is the million
-dollar question, isn't it? Yeah. And the sources
all seem to converge on one answer. It was her
manner. We'll know about it. Edward was surrounded
by sycophants. Everyone bowed. Everyone curtsied.
Everyone agreed with him. His entire life was
a performance of deference to him. He was bored
out of his mind. Okay. Wallace. Wallace didn't
do that. She was irreverent. She was abrasive.
She was domineering. She was absolutely domineering.
She treated him like a normal person or even
like a naughty child. She would tell him his
tie was ugly. She would snack his hand if he
reached for a cigar when he was trying to quit.
She would interrupt him mid -sentence and say,
that's a bore. Tell us something else. And he
liked that. He loved it. His official biographer
described him as being slavishly dependent on
her. It seems he had a deep psychological need
to be mothered or dominated by a strong woman.
She provided a structure and a discipline that
he secretly craved. He found her complete lack
of deference totally intoxicating. So he showers
her with gifts, jewelry, money. Enormous amounts.
Jewels, furs, cash. He pays off her debts. He's
completely besotted. Her husband, Ernest, is
just sort of sidelined. pushed into the background.
So by 1934, he is hooked. He's bringing her to
Buckingham Palace, which is a huge no -no. A
massive breach of protocol. You did not bring
divorced women to court, especially not when
the king and queen are in residence. And she
had two living ex -husbands, well, one ex and
one current. What did his parents think? King
George V and Queen Mary. They were horrified,
absolutely appalled. King George V refused to
meet her. He was furious with his son. He famously
predicted to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin,
after I'm dead, the boy will ruin himself in
12 months. That is a chillingly accurate prediction.
It was precise. Because in January 1936, the
clock runs out. King George V dies. And the bored,
besotted Prince of Wales becomes King Edward
VIII. And suddenly, this isn't just a family
embarrassment or society scandal. It is a constitutional
crisis waiting to explode. The fuse has been
lit. There is a moment right after the accession
that symbolizes everything. The proclamation
of the new king is being read at St. James's
Palace. Traditionally, the new king doesn't watch
his own proclamation. Right. It's considered
unseemly. But Edward breaks tradition. He watches
from a window. And who was standing right next
to him? Wallace. Wallace. Still married to Ernest
Simpson. Caught on camera by the press, it was
a deliberate signal to the establishment. I am
the king now, and she is with me. Get used to
it. He couldn't just keep her as a mistress,
right? Kings have had mistresses for a thousand
years. Why couldn't he just keep her in a nice
house in Regent's Park and visit her on Tuesdays?
Why did it have to be marriage? Because he was
obsessed. It wasn't just lust or affection. He
wanted to possess her completely. He wanted her
to be his queen. He wanted to validate her in
the eyes of the world and in the eyes of the
family that despised her. And that is where he
hit a solid brick wall. Let's break down that
wall because I think people forget the technical
reasons why this was so impossible. It wasn't
just a case of we don't like her. No, it was
a trifecta of constitutional and religious blockers.
Religion, law, and politics. Okay, take us through
them one by one. First, religion. This is the
big one. The king of the United Kingdom is also
the supreme governor of the Church of England.
In 1936, the church's doctrine was strict. Marriage
is for life. If you divorce, you cannot remarry
in the church while your former spouse is still
alive. And Wallace had two living ex -husbands.
Exactly. Win Spencer was still alive and Ernest
Simpson was still, you know, breathing. For the
king to marry her would be to directly defy the
core teachings of the very church he was sworn
to lead. It's a theological contradiction. It
would undermine the entire institution. Completely.
Second is the legal risk. And this is a really
interesting, slightly obscure point that the
government was terrified of. Okay. Wallace divorced
her first husband. When? In the United States.
On grounds of incompatibility. Emotional cruelty,
basically. But in England at that time, the only
ground for divorce was adultery. So English law
didn't recognize American incompatibility divorces.
There was a very real legal opinion circulating
in Whitehall that her first divorce was not valid
under English law. And if her first divorce wasn't
valid, then her second marriage to Ernest was
bigamous. Oh, wow. And if the king married her,
he would be committing bigamy. Can you imagine
the scandal? The king of England, a bigamist.
It was a legal nightmare. That's a landmine.
And the third reason. Politics. Pure and simple.
The prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, and the
governments of the dominions, Canada, Australia,
South Africa, New Zealand, they all said no.
Emphatically no. They saw her as a woman of limitless
ambition, a political adventurer. They didn't
trust her judgment. And they felt the British
public would never, ever accept a twice -divorced
American as queen. So Edward tries to find a
loophole, right? The morganatic marriage proposal.
He does. He's getting desperate. He proposes
a compromise. He says, OK, I'll remain king.
I'll marry her. But she won't be queen. She'll
have a lesser title, like the Duchess of Cornwall.
And any children we have won't inherit the throne.
On the surface, that sounds like a reasonable
compromise. Baldwin shot it down immediately.
He went to the cabinet and they rejected it.
He famously said, the queen is the queen. There
is no such thing as a half queen in the British
Constitution. The Dominion governments were consulted
and they all rejected it too. So the walls are
closing in. There's no way out for him. None.
At this point, Wallace herself is panicking.
She's filed for divorce from Ernest, citing his
adultery with her own friend, Mary Kirk, an affair
that was almost certainly arranged for the purpose
of the divorce. A convenient adultery. A very
convenient adultery. Right. But as the scandal
breaks in the British press in December 1936,
and it breaks like a tidal wave, Wallace realizes
she is about to become the most hated woman in
the empire. She has to get out of the country.
She flees to the south of France, to the home
of her friends, the Rogers. Reporters are literally
chasing her car across France. It's terrifying
for her. And under immense pressure, she releases
a public statement saying she is willing to withdraw
to give Edward up. She offers to end it. She
does. She offers him an out, but Edward refused
to take it. He was on the phone to her constantly.
He famously said something to the effect of,
the other end of the wicket was determined. He
had made up his mind. If he couldn't have her
as king, he wouldn't be king. It was Wallis or
the throne. And he chose Wallace. He chose Wallace.
And so we get to the broadcast, December 10th,
1936. He sits in Windsor Castle and signs the
instrument of abdication. He signs it. He gives
up the throne. He becomes the Duke of Windsor.
His stuttering, shy brother Bertie becomes King
George VI. And Edward goes into exile, king for
less than a year. The shortest reign for an uncrowned
monarch. And that brings us to the next chapter,
the Duchess of Windsor. They finally get married
on June 3rd, 1937. at the Chateau de Condé in
France, which was loaned to them by a rather
controversial industrialist named Charles Badeau.
Everything about them seems to have a controversial
asterisk next to it. It does. And this wedding
should have been a triumphant moment for them.
Love conquers all. The ultimate romantic gesture
is complete. But if you look at the wedding photos,
there is a distinct sadness there. Why? Because
no one came. No member of the royal family attended.
Not his mother, Queen Mary. Not his brothers,
the King and the Duke of Kent. Not his sister.
It was a total coordinated boycott. That must
have stung deeply. It was a profound humiliation.
Wallace wore a beautiful dress in a color created
just for her, Wallace Blue. The designer was
Maine Botcher. And she had a new wedding ring.
An emerald mount engraved with the words, We
are ours now. We are ours now. That is... It
is romantic, but it is also incredibly isolating.
It is like saying, we have nothing else left
but each other. That is exactly what it was.
And the royal family made sure to twist the knife
one more time, just to make sure they understood
their new status. The title. The title. The new
king, George VI, created Edward the Duke of Windsor,
which gave him the style of his royal highness,
or HRH. But the king then issued a specific legal
document called Letters Patent that decreed that
while Edward was a royal highness, his wife Wallace
and any children they might have would not be.
The famous HRH snub. So she was the Duchess of
Windsor, but not her royal highness, the Duchess
of Windsor. Correct. She was just her grace.
And this was the one that never healed. For Edward,
it was an unforgivable insult. He felt it as
an illegal act, stripping a wife of her husband's
rank. For Wallace, it was a daily reminder that
the family considered her less than. They fought
for that HRH title for the rest of their lives.
And the animosity between the women. I mean,
the sources describing the feud between Wallace
and the new Queen, Queen Elizabeth, later the
Queen Mother, are absolutely brutal. It was venomous,
pure poison. The Queen Mother reportedly referred
to Wallace only as And Wallace fired back. Oh,
yes. Wallace had a sharp tongue. In private,
she had nicknames for all of them. She called
the Queen Mother Cookie, a cruel jab at her supposedly
frumpy style and fondness for food. Wow. And
she called the young Princess Elizabeth, our
late Queen Shirley. As in Shirley Temple. as
in Shirley Temple, because she was a curly -haired,
precocious child who was suddenly the heir to
the throne. That is next -level shade, calling
the future Queen of England Shirley Temple. It
just shows you the level of petty resentment.
They were consumed by it. They felt they had
been robbed of their destiny, their dignity.
But if we think the scandal ended with the abdication
and the wedding, we are very wrong. Because now
we get to the part that makes the history books
really uncomfortable, the part that's not romantic
at all, the Nazi connection. This is the darkest
shadow over their lives. And it's the part that
really changes the story from a tragic romance
to something much closer to potential treason.
It is 1937. They are newlyweds. They're in exile.
They need to make a splash to show they're still
relevant. So where do they decide to go for their
high -profile tour? Germany. Nazi Germany. To
meet Adolf Hitler. I mean... Talk about reading
the room wrong. In 1937, the nature of the Nazi
regime was already becoming clear. It was a catastrophic
error in judgment. But you have to see it from
their perspective. Edward wanted to be treated
like a king, and the British government was ignoring
him. The Nazis. The Nazis rolled out the red
carpet. They treated him like a visiting head
of state. They were greeted by crowds giving
the Nazi salute. And there are photos of them
doing it back, or at least Edward doing it. There
are photos of Edward giving the salute. They
met with high -ranking officials. They toured
factories. And the climax of the visit was tea
with Hitler at the Berkhof, his mountain retreat.
What happened at that meeting? Hitler was utterly
charmed by them, especially Wallace. He reportedly
told an aide after the meeting she would have
made a good queen. Of course he said that. A
fascist sympathizer on the British throne would
have been the greatest strategic asset the Third
Reich could ever hope for. Exactly. And that's
how the Nazis saw them. They saw the Windsors
as useful idiots, at best, or potential puppets,
at worst. There was a plan, if Germany conquered
Britain Operation Willie, to find the Windsors
and reinstall Edward on the throne as a puppet
king. And it wasn't just the trip. The declassified
FBI files you mentioned earlier, they suggest
Wallace might have had personal connections to
the Nazi leadership long before this. The files
are full of intelligence reports and informant
gossip, so you have to take it with a grain of
salt. But they repeatedly mentioned Joachim von
Ribbentrop, who was the Nazi ambassador to London
in the mid -30s. Right, when the affair with
Edward was in full swing. Yes. There were persistent
rumors that Wallace and Ribbentrop had an affair
while she was in London. There were rumors about
the carnations. Yes, that he sent her 17 carnations
every day, supposedly representing the number
of times they had slept together. That sounds
like over -the -top gossip. It almost certainly
is. But the FBI took very seriously the report
from an informant that she kept a signed photograph
of Ribbentrop on her bedside table. Whether they
were lovers or not, it's clear they were politically
aligned. Wallace was deeply anti -communist.
And like many in the aristocracy, she saw fascism
as a necessary bulwark against the Soviets. So
the war starts in 1939. The Windsors are in France.
Germany invades in 1940. They have to run. They
flee south. They get out of France and make their
way to Spain, then to Portugal. And this is where
the British government starts to panic. Edwards
is in neutral territory, talking to all sorts
of questionable people, sending defeatist signals.
And Wallace is doing the same. She is. She's
quoted in a diplomatic cable telling the U .S.
ambassador that France lost the war because it
was internally diseased and hadn't organized
itself properly. That is classic defeatist talk.
Blaming the victim. And Edwards later admitted
in an interview that he was taken in by Hitler.
He thought Britain should negotiate a peace.
Winston Churchill was terrified that the Nazis
would either kidnap the Windsors or convince
them to defect. He had to get them out of Europe.
So he gives Edward a job basically to get him
out of the way. He appoints him governor of the
Bahamas. Which, on the surface, sounds like a
nice gig son, sand, cocktails. But for them...
For them, it was prison. It was the ultimate
exile. wallace called it our saint helena a direct
reference to the desolate rock where napoleon
was banished to die she hated it she felt buried
alive in a colonial backwater and her letters
from this time they really peel back the veneer
we see a side of her that is really truly ugly
we have to address the racism It is undeniable.
And it is shocking to read. In her letters to
her aunt in Baltimore, she complained bitterly
about the local Bahamian population. And she
used appalling racial slurs. She called them
lazy thriving. And she used the N -word to describe
them. It reflects that old South Baltimore upbringing
in the worst possible way. It does. It shows
a deep and unthinking prejudice. And on top of
that, she was also incredibly tone deaf about
the suffering of the war. While London was being
blitzed, while people were sleeping in subway
tunnels and eating meager rations, Wallace was
taking shopping trips to Miami and New York.
Buying designer dresses and jewelry while her
former subjects were being bombed. It was a PR
disaster. She was criticized heavily in the press.
There was also the incident with the yacht, the
Southern Cross. They went vacationing on the
yacht of Axel Wennergren. a Swedish industrialist
who was on the British and American blacklists
for being a suspected pro -German agent. Churchill
must have been pulling his hair out. He was furious.
He basically had to send a strongly worded telegram
saying, stop hanging out with Nazi sympathizers.
It is honestly amazing they survived the war
with any reputation left at all. But they did
survive. The war ends in 45, the governor gig
is over, and they go back to France. And this
leads us to the final act of their lives. The
long, glittering exile. They settle in Paris.
The city of Paris gives them a mansion in the
Bois de Boulogne for a nominal rent, which is
controversial in itself. They also buy and restore
a country house, which they call the Mel, and
they basically become professional socialites.
What does that even mean? What did they do all
day? They entertained. They traveled. They played
with their pugs. They curated their image. They
were famous for... Being famous, really. A precursor
to our modern celebrity culture. Who were they
hanging out with? A mix of old aristocrats, rich
Americans, fashion designers, and the occasional
political outcast. Notably, they stayed very
close with Oswald and Diana Moseley, the leaders
of the British Union of Fascists. That connection
never really went away. And tell me about the
jewelry, because the Duchess of Windsor collection
is the stuff of legend. It really became her
substitute for royalty. Edward... Continued to
shower her with jewels. Incredible pieces from
Cartier, from Van Cleef in our bowls. The famous
panther bracelets, the flamingo brooch made of
rubies and diamonds. If she couldn't wear a crown,
she would wear everything else. It was her armor.
But there was a famous theft, right? A big mystery
surrounding the jewels. 1946. They were visiting
England, staying at Ednam Lodge. A burglar broke
in and stole a massive haul of her most precious
jewels. And of course, the conspiracy theory
started immediately. Instantly. Some people whispered
the royal family had orchestrated the theft to
steal back the royal heirlooms that Edward had
taken with him. I've heard that one. Others said
the Windsors staged the theft themselves for
the insurance money, because for all their glamour,
they were often cash poor. So what was the reality?
The much more mundane reality. Years later, a
career criminal named Richard Dunphy confessed
to it in 1960. It was just a regular, if very
successful, burglary. But with the Windsors,
nothing was ever allowed to be mundane. There
always had to be a conspiracy. So they lived
this life of easy retirement, as one biographer
called it. Dinner parties, pugs, fashion. But
then time catches up. It always does. Edward,
a lifelong smoker, was diagnosed with throat
cancer. He died at their home in Paris in 1972.
It was the end of the partnership. And Wallace
went back to England for the funeral. She did.
And in a gesture of reconciliation, the queen
had her stay at Buckingham Palace. There are
heartbreaking photos of her, a tiny, frail figure
in black, looking out the window, watching his
coffin pass by. But by then, she wasn't really
herself, was she? The decline had already started.
No. She was frail. She was confused. She was
suffering from arteriosclerosis, which was affecting
her mind. She was beginning to succumb to dementia.
And the years after Edward's death, from what
I've read, they sound like a horror movie. They
were tragic. She lived for another 14 years.
But she became a complete recluse in that big
house in Paris. She lost the ability to speak
by 1980. And she fell under the total control
of her French lawyer, a woman named Suzanne Bloom.
This is a very controversial figure. Hugo Vickers,
the royal biographer, called Bloom a satanic
figure. That's a strong phrase, but there are
serious accusations that Bloom exploited Wallace's
dementia. She isolated the Duchess, kept her
old friends away, and allegedly sold off her
possessions, furniture, art, personal items,
to Bloom's own friends at bargain prices, all
while Wallace was upstairs, bedridden, and in
a vegetative state. That's a sad, vulnerable
end for a woman who had been so obsessed with
control and her own image. The ultimate loss
of control. And when she finally died, April
24th, 1986. She was buried next to Edward at
the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore, near Windsor.
Finally, back in the royal fold, in death. The
Queen attended the funeral. A final, quiet peace
was made. But the will... The will was one last
shock to everyone. It was. Everyone expected
the money or the jewels to go to friends or maybe
back to the royals or to a charity she had shown
some interest in. Instead, the entire estate,
millions of dollars, went to the Pasteur Institute.
A French medical research foundation. A foundation
which she had shown zero interest in during her
life. It was almost certainly Suzanne Bloom's
influence. Bloom sat on the board of a connected
charity. It was the final... Strange twist. And
then came the auction, 1987, Sava Bees in Geneva.
The sale of the jewels. It was a global media
frenzy. It raised $45 million, a staggering sum
at the time. Mohamed Al -Faid bought the Paris
mansion and a lot of their personal effects.
It was the final liquidation of the Windsor myth.
So, bringing it all back, we've looked at the
ambitious girl from Baltimore, the scandalous
mistress, the hated duchess, the Nazi sympathizer,
and the lonely, exploited widow. When you step
back from all the details, what is the legacy
here? Well, Wallace tried to write her own legacy.
She published a memoir in 1956, The Heart Has
Its Reasons. But critics at the time called it
a facelift of the truth. She conveniently rearranged
facts and timelines to make herself look better,
more sympathetic. Of course she did. She was
shaping the narrative until the very end. But
I think the most poignant assessment comes from
one of her biographers who said she experienced
the ultimate fairy tale that went wrong. How
so? Explain that. Think about the classic structure
of fairy tale. The prince falls in love with
the commoner. He defies his family. He makes
her his queen. They rule together, happily ever
after. But here, the script flipped. The prince
fell in love. He defied his family. But to have
her, he had to quit his job. He had to abdicate.
So suddenly, you aren't the queen of England.
You're just the wife of an unemployed duke with
a lot of baggage and a resentful family. That's
the tragedy, isn't it? She got the man, but she
lost the context that made him the man she wanted.
She didn't want Edward Windsor, private citizen.
She wanted the king, and she got the duke. And
Wallace herself summed it up in a moment of rare,
brutal honesty. She once said to a friend, you
have no idea how hard it is to live out a great
romance. That is a heavy sentence. Living out
a great romance as a job, a burden. It implies
it was work. It wasn't just effortless love.
It was a performance. She had to be the woman
worth giving up an empire for. Every single day.
She had to be witty. She had to be perfectly
dressed. She had to keep him happy. Because if
he was unhappy, then the entire colossal sacrifice
was for nothing. That is an absolutely exhausting
burden for any one person to carry. And that
leads us to the final provocative thought for
you, the listener. When you look at the whole
story of Wallace Simpson and Edward VIII, was
the throne lost for love? Or was the love just
a consolation prize for a throne that maybe was
never really possible for a man like him to keep
anyway? That is the question, isn't it? Something
to chew on. Thanks for diving deep with us. We'll
catch you on the next one.