Duke and Duchess of Windsor (1894-1972) and (1895-1986)

[Lee-Z]

Her parents married on 19 nov 1895, she was born 19 jun 1896: mathematically that's less than 9 months but whether she was born premature or her parents had some premarital fun i don't know

But indeed, even if she was conceived prior to her parents' marriage, she didn't have any influence on that

 

[Denville]

nobody said it was hr fault.. but its possible that she was conceived outside wedlock.

 

[Osipi]

It really doesn't matter if she was or wasn't. Millions of people are born out of wedlock all over the globe (even in the decade that Wallis was born) and the only place it would really make a difference in the child's life would be if they were in the line of succession for something.

 

[Lee-Z]

It really doesn't matter if she was or wasn't. Millions of people are born out of wedlock all over the globe (even in the decade that Wallis was born) and the only place it would really make a difference in the child's life would be if they were in the line of succession for something.

I agree that it doesn't matter, but purely because i'm a stickler for detail: she was definitely *born* within wedlock, but possibly *conceived* out of it

In my own family tree, 2 of my great grand fathers married in total 4 times, and in each case the first child was definitely conceived before the wedding
Very common in a time without reliable anticonception and lots of haystacks

 

[Denville]

I can't remember because it is a logn time since I read a book about Wallis..but I thought that she may have fibbed about her age as well so if she was saying that she was a couple of years younger than she really was...and then her real birth date emerged, it might have looked like she fibbed to draw attention away form the fact that she was born a bit less than 9 months after her parents marriage.
Its possible that her parents jumped the gun but it wasn't that common among upper class people.. that was what chaperonage and so on was allabout ...

 

[Sun Lion]

Retro magazine articles about the Duke and his garden.

The Australian Women's Weekly Trial - Powered by Trove

The Australian Women's Weekly Trial - Powered by Trove

The Australian Women's Weekly Trial - Powered by Trove

The Australian Women's Weekly Trial - Powered by Trove

The Australian Women's Weekly Trial - Powered by Trove

 

[Duchessmary]

Is it just me, or does Prince Charles bear a striking resemblance to his great-uncle?

 

[Dman]

Is it just me, or does Prince Charles bear a striking resemblance to his great-uncle?

Yes, even down to the elegant style.

 

[Denville]

I can't see any resemblance.

 

[Curryong]

Neither do I. Even as a man Edward Windsor had rather a boyish look, wasnt bald at all and was pink and white and blondish. Charles has a version of Philip's aquiline nose while Edward's nose had something of a ski run effect when seen from the side. Harry's nose resembles Edward's in profile in some photos, but then, he apparently broke his nose while playing rugby at school and it set that way, so there's nothing genetic about it.

 

[Denville]

True Charles had dark hair and Edward was fair.. face shape was a bit different.. and he kept his hair, unlike the current Windsor men who all seem to have a tendedncy to go bald. Edward in photos seems more wizened but perhaps Charles enjoys better health...

 

[Curryong]

It's true that Edward's face in middle and old age did appear a bit wizened. I think that happens to a lot of people who have smallish features. However, in his youth Edward who was very pink and white blond, looked miles younger than his age, even in his early twenties. I don't think you could say that of Charles, who IMO has a combination of Mountbatten and Windsor features from parents and grandparents.

 

[Denville]

Its hard to say, since I'm a good bit younger than chalres and he always seemed like a "grown up" to me.. but I get a bit of a shock when I see him now loking so gray!
I think that David looked wizened in his later years because of the small features and his health. but I don't think there is much family resemblance.. George VI didn't look much like David either. He was a very handsome man, David was just youthful looking rather than really handsome. And of course Philip brought a lot of "good looking genes" inot the RF.. he and his mother Princess Alice were boht very good looking.

 

[Osipi]

As I'm right smack dab in the middle of reading "King Edward VIII" by Philip Ziegler, a comment the author made is still very fresh in my mind.

The first grouping of pictures of David are from his birth up to around 21 years old. The very first photo is one of him at a toddler and the author remarked that it is "perhaps one of the rare photos where he is pictured looking uncomplicatedly cheerful" and described the rest as being characteristically wistful.

This may sound strange but if I were to compare David with any other British royal from what I've gleaned from the book so far, I would have to say that personality wise, he actually was, in ways, similar to Diana, Princess of Wales.

His fitness was a big concern for him. He exercised and pushed his body to keep fit and ate very little. When things bothered him, they bothered him to a great depth. They both were very concerned with the welfare of the people and as far as service during World War I, I even see Harry in David's thoughts. When David loved, he loved with every inch of himself to the point of obsession. There's other places that related between David and Diana and I found it uncanny. Its the way these people were and its neither good or bad but just the way they were.

I'm only up to the point in the book where he's just met Freda Dudley Ward and have lots yet to read.

 

[Curryong]

Excellent, Osipi. I hope you're enjoying it. I have it on my Kindle having read a library copy years ago. I think Ziegler does a very good job, only rivalled perhaps by Frances Donaldson's biography of Edward, and often refer back to it when the subject of the Duke comes up.

He was certainly a very complex character, restless and without inner resources really, apart from his gardening and sporting activities. He was extraordinarily self-pitying (his letter to Freda Dudley Ward when he was on Empire Tours in his twenties are just maudlin) and constantly felt hard done by. He, like Diana, was immensely popular, almost worshipped. Hard to imagine now.

 

[Denville]

that is an interesting point that they were both rather obsessed with fitness and their bodies, and that they both loved obsessively. Possibly in both cases they had loneliness/unhappiness in their childhood, felt unloved or unwanted by their mothers, and were seeking the devotion and unconditional nature of "mother love" from the people they cared for,
And perhaps both were obsessive about their bodies because they felt the need to be slim and fit so that people would admire or love them and they would not be able ot love themselves if they felt fat or unattractive.
However David seems to have abruptly "switched off" any "caring" for people, that he had had as a yiounger man, when he abdicated. He and Wallis did some charity work when they were given "semi royal" jobs, but it was just the minimum that was expected and Wallis I think would prefer to confined her charity work to giving balls..
Diana still cared for peolpe and wanted ot go on with her charity work after her divorce..and I think she "got something back" form the people that she tired to help or talk to, like when she went ot Bosnia to see the effects of mines.. and even without the language was able to try and communicate her sympathy with the widow lady she met.
David did't seem to have so much of a gift for engaging with people and he didn't seem to have the same interest in helping others once he had given up his being King.

 

[Osipi]

I am no where near the part in the biography about the abdication and Wallis Simpson yet but from what I've read so far, David really never cared for the fact that he was The Prince of Wales and one day would be King and found the role, the duties and the expectations of his status to be "boring" and "tedious".

I would expect that when the abdication did come about, in a way he felt relieved of a role that he never really cared for in the first place but never, ever expected to be exiled from the UK or that life would go differently than it had before. In a way, I think he almost expected to basically "switch" places with his brother Bertie. He wasn't that much of a forward thinker to calculate the causes and effects of actions.

I'll know more as I read more of the biography. I am coming to know David, the man so much better.

 

[Denville]

I suppose in David's defence, abdication had not happened in centuries and it was usually forced.
So ti was hard for him to see what would happen, in the future.. in the sitatution he found himlsef in. his abdication was pretty much voluntary, he wasn't being thrown out for being a bad king or because someone more ambitious had taken over.. Bertie didn't want to be King...so perhaps David didn't realise that there COULD only be one king and that to give his brother a chance, he HAD to step back and at least go away form the UK for some years.
now in Europe, princes give up their place in the succession for various reasons, often due to controversial marriages and its quite common and low key and they aer still considered part of their RFs and still do the odd appearance.
Also, now older kings abdicate.. but at the time and in England it was a new departure and David, not being bright and being pretty selfish, could not imagine how it woud work out. and clearly thougt that it would work out much easier for him than it was likely to. I think he didn't realise that his family would be disappointed and angry and that the public while admiring him in his younger days, would basically either disapprove or just soon forget him once he'd given up the throne..
I tink that yes, he thought that it wodl just mean that he and Bertie would swap places, he'd be still considered a royal and would do a bit of royal work, but he'd be more free and he would have Wallis.. and that eventualy the RF and the public would grown to accept nad like her

 

[eya]

"Inside the Wedding that shook the British Monrchy"
"The world knew the wedding was coming long before the date was announced: when Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated in late 1936 — becoming Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor — the story of his relationship with a divorced American woman, known as Wallis Simpson, had been brewing for months. As TIME explained back then, the press had mostly given the King the traditional respectfully wide berth on the subject when he came to the throne in early 1936, assuming that he would continue his "private life" as many other royals had done throughout history, but he did not play along by keeping their relationship the necessary semi-secret. Because the King could not marry someone who had been divorced, their relationship would have to end or his reign would. He chose the latter, a shocking enough decision to earn the person behind the choice the title of TIME's first-ever Woman of the Year."


http://time.com/4781342/wallis-edward-wedding-photos/


Photograhs seen The then Prince of Wales who was travelling in the Royal carriage during a visit to Australia in 1920 when the train suddenly derailed.


Edward VIII: Photographs show royal escaping train crash | Royal | News | Express.co.uk

A letter written by Edward VIII foreshadowed his abdication 17 years before he was crowned King.

Edward VIII letter FORESHADOWED his abdication 17 years before he was crowned King | Royal | News | Express.co.uk

 

[Furienna]

It is heart-breaking for me to see how controversial the duke and duchess of Windsor still can be to this day, when a whooping eight decades have passed since the scandal with his abdication and their wedding. I will confess that I once saw a nice documentary about Wallis Simpson, that was clearly supposed to make us more sympathetic to her at last. And because I knew only very little about her and Edward VIII before that, I had no prejudices against them going into this documentary. And after I had seen it, I have to say my compassion for her had only grown. For example, one of her two divorces, that would have made her so unsuitable to become a queen back in 1936, was from an abusive alcoholic. Yeah, I believe that you would have wanted to leave such a man too! But when I later read discussions about her and the duke of Windsor on the internet, there was hardly any sympathy for them. It is clear that they still get a lot of hate, and all those accusations of them being Nazi supporters certainly don't do them any good either...

 

[Denville]

why are you heartbroken that they are controversial? I wouldn't say that they're controversial, i'd say that most people who know about them, have little sympathy and don't much like them.
Yes Wallis' first husband was abusive. Her second husband wasn't and if she had not gotten involved with Edward VIII, they would probably have stayed married, with occasional dalliances for life. But she played with fire, letting Edw get nutty about her and then she couldn't get out of the affair. and her husband had grown fed up with her affair and had found himself another woman and wanted to end the marriage.
And while they weren't Nazi sympathisers as such, they were willing to go to Nazi Germany because it meant that Wallis would be treated as the queen Edward hoped she might have been.. and even after the war, Edw didn't have the decency or common sense to keep his belief that "Hitler wasn't a bad chap" hidden.. why would you sympathise with a couple like that?

 

[AdmirerUS]

I agree. I think they no longer divide, rather I think they entertain us. It does not say much about our characters, but they are so very easy to hurl stones at. I think we rather enjoy uniting in our dislike for them.

 

[Curryong]

Perhaps if the Duke and Duchess had done something worthwhile with the latter part of their lives there might be more sympathy for them, flawed though they were. Edward was still admired by a certain section of the British population in a nostalgic sort of way. He could have done so much for wounded and maimed ex servicemen after the war, even if he'd remained in France and done his bit for French servicemen, allies of the British.

If he had immersed himself in that, if she had thrown herself into relief work for the poor of Paris, international refugees of which there were many after World War 2, care of the sick, something, anything heartfelt, then they would at least have shown they were capable of thinking of others beyond their immediate circle.

Instead, there were regular trips on transatlantic liners, long stays at friends' homes in Italy, the US, Portugal, even England. She decorated their two houses, they both entertained, they were great partygoers, etc etc., a completely hedonistic lifestyle that lasted until Edward's final illness. The Duchess was a totally self absorbed individual, she was the centre of his world in a very obsessive way, and that says it all really. No thought for anyone else but themselves ever.

 

[Pranter]

I have read that the Duke expected after a certain time frame that he would be invited to live again in the UK and take up a position in the family doing charity work etc...however as time passed it became clear he was not welcome (with his wife) to live there or be involved with the family.

Now I am sure he could of done stuff on his own...why he didn't ...don't know.


LaRae

 

[Curryong]

Yes, another part of Edward's self-delusion, that after causing this huge constitutional crisis and forcing his reluctant brother to become King in his place, he would be welcomed back with open arms by mother, brother, sister in law! It would have been impossible but he could never see that.

However, the fact is the Windsors settled in France (at a peppercorn rent for their Paris mansion) and after the war lived a totally indulgent lifestyle for the rest of their lives.

 

[Frelinghighness]

They were nazi sympathizers and covorted with nazis both when Edward was pow, king and afterwards as duke of Windsor. That is why they were sent to the Bahamas during the war, they were unreliable with state secrets. They were a terrible strain on Churchill and the king. Their self indulgence, his drinking, made them ok for New York cafe society in the 40's and 50's but in history, truly a sad couple. At least her vast jewel collection went to aids research

 

[Denville]

I agree. I think they no longer divide, rather I think they entertain us. It does not say much about our characters, but they are so very easy to hurl stones at. I think we rather enjoy uniting in our dislike for them.

I woudlnt' say that, I am Irish and we're well known for being critcal but all the same, I don't really enjoy how awful the Windsors were.

They were nazi sympathizers and covorted with nazis both when Edward was pow, king and afterwards as duke of Windsor. and 50's but in history, truly a sad couple. At least her vast jewel collection went to aids research

They weren't Nazi Sympathisers. right wing yes and willing to go to Germany because it gave them semi royal status.. and Edw didn't have enough brain to conceal that he didn't think that Hitlter was all that bad, even after the war... but he ws too dim to have any real political ideas.

 

[duchessrachel]

I just read Arthur Shawcross' biography of the Queen Mother and it talks quite a bit about the Duke of Windsor. After finishing this book, I ordered Philip Ziegler's biography of the Duke of Windsor called "King Edward VIII-A Biography". Is it a good book? I really like Shawcross' biography of the Queen Mother. Where is the forum to discuss her?

 

[Osipi]

Actually I'm still in the process of reading Ziegler's biography of Edward VIII and it does give a good insight into the man he was. I recommend it.

 

[Kronprinz]

After the Duke's death in 1972, the Queen should have invited the Duchess to live in Britain closer to the Royal Family but I'm sure that would have infuriated "mummy".