Books on The Duke and Duchess of Windsor


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Does anyone else think it's fantastic that Wallis opted not to curtsey to the Queen Mother? I just love that. :lol:
 
You know Prim, I aswell have always been glade that Wallis stood her ground and never curtsied to Elizabeth, especially in public that one time (something to do with Queen Mary - anniversary of her death or something ?).
 
I like gutsy women and Wallis was definately gutsy. Some of her comments are pure acid drops.
 
Madame Royale said:
You know Prim, I aswell have always been glade that Wallis stood her ground and never curtsied to Elizabeth, especially in public that one time (something to do with Queen Mary - anniversary of her death or something ?).
Click to expand...
That's right, it was in 1967, an unveiling of a memorial for Queen Mary and it was there that Queen Elizabeth kissed David kindly but chose not to shake hands with Wallis. :dry:
 
Prim said:
Does anyone else think it's fantastic that Wallis opted not to curtsey to the Queen Mother? I just love that. :lol:
Click to expand...
No actually. Its like being in the military. You pay compliments to the officer's commision, not the officer. Anything less is just plain rude. Not gutsy, not fantastic, just ill mannered, rude, ignorant and graceless.
You don't have to like someone to respect who they are, in fact it takes a person of grace to rise above personal animous. Wallis never understood anything about the BRF and its place, which is perhaps understandable, however, she never tried to understand.
In a lot of ways Wallis was a woman ahead of her time. Admirable even. However, she never would accept that she and her history were unacceptable and showed her contempt for the Queen Mother especially, in a comtemptible way. Two wrongs are never going to make one right. :bang:
 
MARG said:
You don't have to like someone to respect who they are
Click to expand...

Very true :) And I agree that two wrongs don't make a right.

Yet on the other hand, the Queen Mother didn't have to like Wallis to respect who she was. No, instead she thought to play a figure of contempt who would have no doubt been much pleased and all too happy to shun Wallis, and why (apart from an abdication and lesser trifles compared ;))? Because she was 'obliged' to abuse her influential authority to make the woman feel unwelcome and unimportant and that to me exhibited a side of Elizabeth which really wasn't admirable or pretty (of course I still adored the Queen Mum. I have no personal reason not to).

But, even Queen's can lack grace it would seem.
 
Last edited:
I still feel that the best choice was made; Edward was a weak man and would had been a weaker king. Wallis would had been a horrible queen. But I do feel that the Queen Mother should had been kinder because she owed her "Queenship" to Wallis. I agree, both should had acted with better manners towards each other.
 
Well, I think that the Queen Mother was wrong to treat Wallis the way she did and I'm glad that in later years she was a little kinder. Not even saying hello and kissing her husband in front of her must have been a real slap in the face to Wallis and so I can understand her refusing to curtsey. The Queen Mother had got her way over the HRH so she should have just accepted Wallis. As Madame Royale said though, I still adored the Queen Mum who in my eyes could do no wrong and was a Grandmother to the nation.
 
You are forgetting that the Queen Mum never wanted to be queen. The Yorks had an idyllic family life and had to give that up. The Queen never forgave Wallis because she felt that the pressure of being King is what killed her husband! She became widowed at a very young age.
 
I haven't forgotten it but I do think that's got a certain mythical substance to it. I know thats what is said but personally I find that hard to believe.
 
michelleq said:
I still feel that the best choice was made; Edward was a weak man and would had been a weaker king. Wallis would had been a horrible queen. But I do feel that the Queen Mother should had been kinder because she owed her "Queenship" to Wallis. I agree, both should had acted with better manners towards each other.
Click to expand...

I think Edward VIII would have been a good king, but he showed extremely poor judgement and character. His duty to the throne and the British Commonwealth should have come first. With time and patience, he might have been able to overcome objections and marry Wallis in due course, but the truth is he really didn't want to be King in the first place. Abdication was inevitable.

I do not think Wallis was an honorable woman, but she certainly demonstrated a strong character and commitment to seeing her marriage through. She was definitely greedy and self-centered, but so was The Duke, so in that sense they were made for each other.

The Queen Mother was unrelenting for a long time, but the fact is, she too showed some forgiveness and kindness to The Duchess after her husband died in 1972. Given the era and standards of duty Elizabeth had been brought up with, she could not be expected to change her worldview, especially with Queen Mary's influence on her.
 
why should The queen mother change her ways , least she stuck to what she thought , she didnt like wallis full stop . but I would of thought she would of been more off with " David " than wallis because he's the one who let everyone down , not wallis ????
 
sm1939 said:
why should The queen mother change her ways , least she stuck to what she thought , she didnt like wallis full stop . but I would of thought she would of been more off with " David " than wallis because he's the one who let everyone down , not wallis ????
Click to expand...

From what has been written, she blamed The Duchess more than The Duke, claiming, as did Queen Mary, that she led him "astray" from his duty as King. Of course, that is not true. In fact, the evidence is Wallis tried everything to stop him from abdicating, including insisting their relationship end and withdrawing her divorce petition.

At the end of the day, The Duke made the decision to abdicate of his own free will.
 
what goes around, comes around.

it was impossible to marry a divorcee and still a king then.

now they made a wife and a future queen (or whatever title they will give her) out of a mistrees. and still a king!

:wacko:
 
I do remember reading that supposedly Wallis didn't want to marry Edward, but he kept pressing his suit to the point that it became inevitable that they marry.
 
ulik - you should probably know that the divorcee status was a non-issue. Wallis Simpson was never a mistress - she was a girlfriend of the Prince of Wales. The establishment gathered fabricated evidence that Wallis was a Nazi spy so that they could convince several VIPs in the British system to work against Edward VIII. The Establishment needed Edward out of the way because he promised political change, reform and prosperity. He was far too popular for his own good. I remember my great-grandfather telling me that he had met Edward VIII when the King visited the docks in London where my great-grandfather worked. He said that the King had a glass of beer with the docks workers, chatted and laughed with them and this naturally won him many fans.

The people certainly didn't want Edward VIII to abdicate, the establishment did and it wasn't over divorcee status at all. Wallis Simpson was a scapegoat to cover up a coup. And for the record - she was never a mistress.
 
The Labour Party is a constitutional party with a majority in the House of Commons at the time of the crisis. The Sovereign's powers are limited to "advise, warn and consult" and if the Prime Minister tells the King he cannot marry a twice-divorced woman, the Crown must accept the advice.

The Sovereign cannot be a source of independent political power under the British constitutional system. Parliament is sovereign and the monarchy is constitutional with the Prime Minister exercising the royal perogative.
 
branchg said:
From what has been written, she blamed The Duchess more than The Duke, claiming, as did Queen Mary, that she led him "astray" from his duty as King. Of course, that is not true. In fact, the evidence is Wallis tried everything to stop him from abdicating, including insisting their relationship end and withdrawing her divorce petition.

At the end of the day, The Duke made the decision to abdicate of his own free will.
Click to expand...
I believe that Wallis felt that if David did not abdicate that all would "come around" to her/their way of thinking. She could not conceive the situation where a "King" could be dictated to by parliament and the people. Least of all that his wish to make her his Queen could be thwarted.

As for the Queen Mother blaming Wallis..... she did. But on a purely personal level. We tend to forget that David was a dashing, debonaire batchelor who was also a beloved brother, brother-in-law and uncle!

Wallis took him away from his family and his throne, and, in the eyes of the Queen Mother, thrust her beloved husband into a role he had never been prepared for, and effectively removed her daughter from her and turned her into "The Heir". In short, their small, close-knit family (David included) was destroyed forever.

As for Wallis herself? Well, in those days men did not bring their mistresses to the family dinner table. And, like it or not, Wallis was not the innocent (virgin?) they were all expecting to join their family as future Queen.

The Queen Mother and Wallis obviously met, but they were never friends or contemporaries. I doubt they gave each other much thought at all as they had nothing in common.

Fate dealt a hand that both (for love) played out in anger, enmity and probably not a little regret.
 
Has anyone ever read The Private World of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor? If so, please give a good synopsis. I ordered this book back in October and every now and then I get a new ship date. I refuse to cancel my order because I really feel that its worth the wait.
 
BeatrixFan said:
ulik - you should probably know that the divorcee status was a non-issue. Wallis Simpson was never a mistress - she was a girlfriend of the Prince of Wales. The establishment gathered fabricated evidence that Wallis was a Nazi spy so that they could convince several VIPs in the British system to work against Edward VIII. The Establishment needed Edward out of the way because he promised political change, reform and prosperity. He was far too popular for his own good. I remember my great-grandfather telling me that he had met Edward VIII when the King visited the docks in London where my great-grandfather worked. He said that the King had a glass of beer with the docks workers, chatted and laughed with them and this naturally won him many fans.

The people certainly didn't want Edward VIII to abdicate, the establishment did and it wasn't over divorcee status at all. Wallis Simpson was a scapegoat to cover up a coup. And for the record - she was never a mistress.
Click to expand...

I am confused. How was she never a mistress? Are we assuming that they were never intimate while she was married to Mr. Simpson? What's the difference between girlfriend and a mistress when you are married to someone else?

There was definitely enough "blame" to go around." For me, most of it lies at Edward's door. He was King...he knew what was expected of him and what would be accepted by his people, family and government. Furthermore, his family viewed Wallis as an "adventuress." And while that most likely was not true...he never gave them (except the odd times she met his brother's and their wives as well as the time she was presented at court to the King and Queen) the opportunity to meet her. So how could they know her and form an opinion on their own?
 
Last edited:
Well, Edward VIII always asserted that his relationship with Mrs Simpson was no more than just friendship.
 
Isn't that interesting? :lol:

Quote from Wikipedia:

"Wallis allegedly became his mistress, although Edward denied to his father that she was, despite his staff seeing them in bed together as well as evidence of a physical sex act."

Her bio from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchess_of_Windsor
 
Wikipedia is an internet based resource which can be manipulated to suit peoples own ideologies. Whether this is the case (with the above extract) I do not know but it is worth keeping that in mind :)

In other words, its not always the most reliable reference.
 
Last edited:
True it isn't the most reliable source. Heck, I can go and add my own two cents to the story whether its true or not regardless if I cite my references. In this case, the reference is "Diary of Clive Wigram, 1st Baron Wigram quoted in Sarah Bradford, "George VI" (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1989) p.145-147."


Now does that really mean its true? Absolutely not. It just means that it was written down and published.;)
 
Of course :) I just wasn't sure if you were aware (as I have found some aren't).

All the best.
 
Duchess of Windsor

What's the best book on Wallis to get from Amazon? There's two but one looks to shed a more positive light on her and the other seems to focus on more scandalous stuff...
 
“The Private World of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor"
Author: Vickers, Hugo
Publisher: Abbeville Press
August 1996
ISBN: 978-0789202260
 
Opinion?

What do you think of it, Zembla? One review on Amazon was very bad.

I haven't got much time for either of them. I'm inclined to think that she was just a gold-digger and he shouldn't have given up the throne.

Attaining Grace
 
Has anyone read "The Last of the Duchess" by Caroline Blackwood? It's a really great book, though a bit sad. Maitre Blum was psychotic!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
Philip, Prince of Greece: The Duke of Edinburgh's early life and the Greek succession (2021)
Replies
0
Views
600
Addapalla
A
EllieCat
British Tiaras
Replies
3
Views
487
Silverpot
Silverpot
Marengo
Titles of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and Children
Replies
0
Views
244
Marengo
Marengo
Blog Real
King Ernst August I and King George V of Hanover and families
Replies
1
Views
221
CyrilVladisla
CyrilVladisla
A
Duke and Duchess of York
Replies
0
Views
1K
Andrew Lownie
A

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom