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

[Betsypaige]

Here’s some more into that is fascinating and extremely sad...at least to me (read the rest of the article for context). I know the Queen always had affection for her uncle David, so there’s a poignancy there that while he’d fallen out long ago with his once beloved younger brother, at least he did have a relationship to some degree with his daughter.

In fact, she says the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles came together, after a day racing at Longchamps, because they knew that the Duke was dying, and to thank him for recently establishing a Prince of Wales Foundation. No official records are believed to exist of a Prince of Wales Foundation that has any link to the Duke of Windsor, nor of the Queen’s meeting with her uncle in Paris shortly before his death.

“That visit was historic and healing,” she insists. “It was very important because the Duke always said that he loved the Queen.”

Indeed, Schutz, says the Duke had bequeathed everything, once the Duchess died, back to the Royal family. “I had a copy of the will. The Windsors wanted all their money, jewellery, paintings, artefacts to be returned to Britain.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/li...ice-every-day/

[Denville]

Originally Posted by Betsypaige

Here’s some more into that is fascinating and extremely sad...at least to me (read the rest of the article for context). I know the Queen always had affection for her uncle David, so there’s a poignancy there that while he’d fallen out long ago with his once beloved younger brother, at least he did have a relationship to some degree with his daughter.



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/li...ice-every-day/

I dont think that was the case though? I understood that Wallis received everything and it was her own property absolutely.. Because Im sure I've read that Mountbatten tried to persuade her to leave her property back to the RF or in some way, but it was her property and she could choose to do what she liked with it..

[Durham]

Originally Posted by Alison H

Well, there was Charles I ... although I suppose he wasn't really offered the option of just leaving the country! Or Richard II and Edward II, who were both locked up in castles where they conveniently "died". Probably best not to go there! There are a load of "social contract" theories, from the time of James II, about whether or not it's OK to depose a monarch who's deemed to have behaved in a way that breaches the "contract" between them and their subjects, but whether they'd be dragged up over 300 years on is another story.

I was thinking more of a hypothetical constitutional impasse that would arise in the modern age although I take your point about previous precedence with, how would we put it, awkward kings.

Some of these themes are dealt with in the play King Charles III by Mike Bartlett. How would a dispute between the executive & a modern constitutional monarch play out?

It's interesting that you raise the issue over the social contract as these themes have been discussed since at least the time of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan & the upheavals at the time of the civil war. They also had echoes in the American Declaration of Independence. An interesting topic!

[Denville]

Originally Posted by Betsypaige

Here’s some more into that is fascinating and extremely sad...at least to me (read the rest of the article for context). I know the Queen always had affection for her uncle David, so there’s a poignancy there that while he’d fallen out long ago with his once beloved younger brother, at least he did have a relationship to some degree with his daughter.



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/li...ice-every-day/

I don't think the affection lasted all that long. The queen went to see him out of kindness and to show that there was no ill feeling when eh was dying...but I don't think they ever had much of a relationship. Wallis said nasty things about the queen's mother, and was never welcome...

[Durham]

Originally Posted by Denville

I don't think the affection lasted all that long. The queen went to see him out of kindness and to show that there was no ill feeling when eh was dying...but I don't think they ever had much of a relationship. Wallis said nasty things about the queen's mother, and was never welcome...

They didn't see much of each other at all after the abdication. It might even be possible to count up the occasions when they did meet on the fingers of one hand. Sad to think when it seems that they had once been close. Fort Belvedere & Royal Lodge are so near each other of course.

[Denville]

Originally Posted by Durham

They didn't see much of each other at all after the abdication. It might even be possible to count up the occasions when they did meet on the fingers of one hand. Sad to think when it seems that they had once been close. Fort Belvedere & Royal Lodge are so near each other of course.

Of course not. David was pretty much persona non grata - only invited to England and family occasionally and Walis was not accepted at all. I don't think that the siblings were that taken with him once he had left... some brotherly affection remained but overall he was seen as someone who had deserted the ship...And Im sure if the queen was aware of how nastily David and Wallis spoke about her mother she would not retain much of the old affection.

[Betsypaige]

Originally Posted by Durham

They didn't see much of each other at all after the abdication. It might even be possible to count up the occasions when they did meet on the fingers of one hand. Sad to think when it seems that they had once been close. Fort Belvedere & Royal Lodge are so near each other of course.

Yes, I was referring to when she was a little girl.....princess Elizabeth adored her uncle. The whole abdication was a tragedy, such family relationships torn apart forever. I'm glad that David was allowed to return for his brother's funeral and that, ultimately, he and Wallis were both buried on his home soil.

I dont think that was the case though? I understood that Wallis received everything and it was her own property absolutely.. Because Im sure I've read that Mountbatten tried to persuade her to leave her property back to the RF or in some way, but it was her property and she could choose to do what she liked with it..

Denville:

I didn't read this book, but Hugo Vickers, a very well respected Royal historian, essentially confirmed that Wallis was held a prisoner by this attorney, who he called "evil". This French woman (an attorney; her late husband had been the Windsor's attorney) pretty much seemed to do as she liked.

With no family to advise her, the Duchess relied heavily on Blum. She was also terrified of the lawyer. However, on this occasion, as Blum demanded she look through some papers, the Duchess fought back. Without warning, the frail 81-year-old summoned up an extraordinary burst of energy, turned to her and shouted: 'I HATE YOU!'

Blum never dared enter the Duchess's presence again - at least not until the Duchess could no longer speak. But the Duchess would pay heavily for her scorn. After that day, Blum did exactly as she pleased. She sold jewellery from the Duchess's multimillion-pound collection without her permission, set about publishing love letters between the Duchess and the Duke and appointed herself keeper of the Windsor flame.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...sors-days.html

[Denville]

Yes I've read that Suzanne Blum took over and was not very nice to Wallis who became demented and helpless in her last years... but the point was that Wallis inherited all of David's property. If he had wanted his money etc to go back to the UK, he could have left the estate to Wallis for her lifetime and then the jewels etc mgitht have been left back to the queen and some to charity. Im not sure where the Windsor fortune went after W's death but I don't think ti went back to Britain.

I doubt if the queen continued to adore David as a grown woman, esp when her mother was very hostile to him and Wallis...

[Betsypaige]

Originally Posted by Denville

Yes I've read that Suzanne Blum took over and was not very nice to Wallis who became demented and helpless in her last years... but the point was that Wallis inherited all of David's property. If he had wanted his money etc to go back to the UK, he could have left the estate to Wallis for her lifetime and then the jewels etc mgitht have been left back to the queen and some to charity. Im not sure where the Windsor fortune went after W's death but I don't think ti went back to Britain.

I doubt if the queen continued to adore David as a grown woman, esp when her mother was very hostile to him and Wallis...

It was supposed to go to Britain, that's the point.......and the Queen was an adult; she could have her own opinions about her uncle that her mother may not have shared. I didn't say she adored him as a grown woman - she didn't know him at that point. I'm sure she still had some affection for him - she didn't have to go visit him as was dying, but she did.

Here's something I find rather moving:

"With great difficulty [the Duke] rose from his bed to give his bow because, of course, she was his Queen now, as well as his niece, and it meant a great deal to him that she paid him this final courtesy," [Hugo] Vickers said in the TV documentary Elizabeth: Our Queen.

[Denville]

of course she had to make a gesture when he was dying... She was in Paris, it would look very bad if she didn't go and see her dying uncle....and he was buried in the UK for the same reason.. together with Wallis....
And the Windsor fortune, it appear went to the Pasteur institute in France mainly, but David could have made arrangements for it to go to Brtiain, had he really wanted to.

[Betsypaige]

Originally Posted by Denville

of course she had to make a gesture when he was dying... She was in Paris, it would look very bad if she didn't go and see her dying uncle....and he was buried in the UK for the same reason.. together with Wallis....
And the Windsor fortune, it appear went to the Pasteur institute in France mainly, but David could have made arrangements for it to go to Brtiain, had he really wanted to.

I really don't want to argue about this, but the man was dead - he couldn't do anything about it. Let's just agree to disagree.

[Durham]

Originally Posted by Betsypaige

It was supposed to go to Britain, that's the point.......and the Queen was an adult; she could have her own opinions about her uncle that her mother may not have shared. I didn't say she adored him as a grown woman - she didn't know him at that point. I'm sure she still had some affection for him - she didn't have to go visit him as was dying, but she did.

Here's something I find rather moving:

"With great difficulty [the Duke] rose from his bed to give his bow because, of course, she was his Queen now, as well as his niece, and it meant a great deal to him that she paid him this final courtesy," [Hugo] Vickers said in the TV documentary Elizabeth: Our Queen.


I find that moving as well. Despite everything he revered the institution. Who knows what thoughts or regrets he may have had at the end.

[Betsypaige]

Originally Posted by Durham

"With great difficulty [the Duke] rose from his bed to give his bow because, of course, she was his Queen now, as well as his niece, and it meant a great deal to him that she paid him this final courtesy," [Hugo] Vickers said in the TV documentary Elizabeth: Our Queen.


I find that moving as well. Despite everything he revered the institution. Who knows what thoughts or regrets he may have had at the end.

In a way, bowing to “his Queen” was kind of like bowing to his brother, who he never gave the proper respect to when he was on the throne.

He always did look so sad to me as an old man...he may have seemed to have it all, but he really lost everything. I’ve spent a lot of time being angry at him (I used to love him as a kid, when I thought that he was involved in the Greatest Romance) but right now, I mostly feel pity for him, sadness...and some relief that he did come home again.

[Durham]

Originally Posted by Betsypaige

In a way, bowing to “his Queen” was kind of like bowing to his brother, who he never gave the proper respect to when he was on the throne.

He always did look so sad to me as an old man...he may have seemed to have it all, but he really lost everything. I’ve spent a lot of time being angry at him (I used to love him as a kid, when I thought that he was involved in the Greatest Romance) but right now, I mostly feel pity for him, sadness...and some relief that he did come home again.

There is a lot of regret about the Duke of Windsor for all sorts of reasons. So much thrown away. So many hurt by his actions. And yet, and yet, maybe in the end it was for the best. Best for him & best for us.

I think a lot of people felt real grief over the abdication & didn't want to think about it anymore once the duke had left. Just too raw.

He became a melancholy figure in old age. Echoes of the great (first) Duke of Marlborough in old age looking at a portrait of himself painted in his youth & lamenting that this "was once a man". David was once a king. What a doleful fate. Made all the worse by being self inflicted.

[Curryong]

That seems so to outsiders. However, friends, acquaintances and others have said again and again that David had no regrets about the abdication so long as he had Wallis by his side. She was his obsession to the end.

Quite frankly, although these were two essentially selfish and self-centred people and Britain and the Empire missed a bullet in not having Edward as King, I don't think that regrets about the abdication occupied the ex King's thoughts as an old man, satisfactory though it may be to think so. It was Wallis, Wallis, Wallis to the end.

Her love (obsession) for him wasn't the same at all but she was fond of him and made him happy, and that's what counted with David, empty and vacuous though their lives were most of the time, (after 1936.)

[Denville]

Originally Posted by Curryong

That seems so to outsiders. However, friends, acquaintances and others have said again and again that David had no regrets about the abdication so long as he had Wallis by his side. She was his obsession to the end.

Quite frankly, although these were two essentially selfish and self-centred people and Britain and the Empire missed a bullet in not having Edward as King, I don't think that regrets about the abdication occupied the ex King's thoughts as an old man, satisfactory though it may be to think so. It was Wallis, Wallis, Wallis to the end.

Her love (obsession) for him wasn't the same at all but she was fond of him and made him happy, and that's what counted with David, empty and vacuous though their lives were most of the time, (after 1936.)

I think she grew dependent on him, as they grew older.. and he was there and still in love with her, but I agree that he didn't really regret what he'd done. Mabybe he wished he could have had both the throne and Wallis but didn't care what trouble he had put others to with his abdication... He didn't care about George VI or the QM who had had to take on his work, and he and Wallis sneered at the QM. And he didn't care enough about his family, or England, enough to try to restore his money to them when he and Wallis were both gone... so the fortune went to the French Govt and the Pasteur institute. So I think that the queen's visit to him at the end of his life was mainly a courtesy because they were family and Royal....

[Durham]

There were regrets over the abdication by all sorts of people who didn't want it to happen. Not because of the individual concerned but because of the trauma that an abdication inevitably brings. There was a sense of loss that a king had departed in such a way. How could there not be. People moved on of course & fortunately his brother proved to be just what was needed in the dark days of war that followed.

As to the duke himself towards the end, who knows what he thought & whether he shared these thoughts with anyone else. History needs sources of course & there are none that tell us he admitted his own personal regrets. It would not be surprising though if he did sometimes feel sadness, at least for the vacuity of his later life. Too late now to know for sure.

[Denville]

Originally Posted by Durham

There were re

As to the duke himself towards the end, who knows what he thought & whether he shared these thoughts with anyone else. History needs sources of course & there are none that tell us he admitted his own personal regrets. It would not be surprising though if he did sometimes feel sadness, at least for the vacuity of his later life. Too late now to know for sure.

I think he was bored and lonely but I don't think he regretted what he had done. He had Wallis and she was his passion. He had managed to shake off the weight of duty and responsibility, and I think all he regretted was that he had nto been able to hold onto enough royal status to get back to the UK now and again and probably do the odd engagement when it suited him.
I don't think he liked living in France all that much but he knew he could not live full time in England..

[Prinsara]

He's a cautionary lesson in "careful what you wish for".

Ziegler's biography of him is also good/interesting.

[Denville]

Originally Posted by Prinsara

He's a cautionary lesson in "careful what you wish for".

Ziegler's biography of him is also good/interesting.

I don't think it quite turned out as he hoped but overall I don't think he had real regrets. He had Wallis, he had great wealth and stil retained high rank and a social position. He had shaken off the "heavy burden" of duty. If he had to do it all again Im sure he would.