.RankAwardsEdward VIII, later Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), was and the of the, and, from 20 January 1936 until on 11 December of that year.Edward was born during the reign of his great-grandmother as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later. He was created on his sixteenth birthday, nine weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young man, Edward served in the during the and undertook several overseas tours on behalf of his father. While Prince of Wales, he engaged in a series of affairs that worried his father and the,.Edward became king on his father's death. As king, he showed impatience with court protocol, and caused concern among politicians by his apparent disregard for established constitutional conventions.
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Only months into his reign, he caused a by proposing to, an American who had divorced her first husband and was seeking a divorce from her second. The prime ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions opposed the marriage, arguing a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands was politically and socially unacceptable as a prospective. Additionally, such a marriage would have conflicted with Edward's status as the titular head of the, which at the time disapproved of remarriage after divorce if a former spouse was still alive.
Edward knew the Baldwin government would resign if the marriage went ahead, which could have forced a general election and would have ruined his status as a politically neutral. When it became apparent he could not marry Wallis and remain on the throne, he.
He was succeeded by his younger brother,. With a reign of 326 days, Edward is one of the.After his abdication, Edward was created. He married Wallis in France on 3 June 1937, after her second divorce became final. Later that year, the couple.
During the, Edward was at first stationed with the, but after private accusations that he was a, he was appointed. After the war, Edward spent the rest of his life in retirement in France. He and Wallis remained married until his death. Edward (second from left) with and younger siblings ( and ), photograph by his grandmother, 1899Edward was born on 23 June 1894 at, on the outskirts of London during the reign of his great-grandmother. He was the eldest son of the Duke and Duchess of York (later and ). His father was the son of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later and ). His mother was the eldest daughter of,.
At the time of his birth, he was third in the, behind his grandfather and father.He was baptised Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David in the Green Drawing Room of White Lodge on 16 July 1894 by,. The names were chosen in honour of, who was known to his family as 'Eddy' or Edward, and his great-grandfather King.
The name Albert was included at the behest of Queen Victoria for her late husband, and the last four names –, and – came from the of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. He was always known to his family and close friends by his last given name, David.As was common practice with upper-class children of the time, Edward and his younger siblings were brought up by nannies rather than directly by their parents. One of Edward's early nannies often abused him by pinching him before he was due to be presented to his parents.
His subsequent crying and wailing would lead the Duke and Duchess to send him and the nanny away. The nanny was discharged after her mistreatment of the children was discovered.Edward's father, though a harsh disciplinarian, was demonstratively affectionate, and his mother displayed a frolicsome side with her children that belied her austere public image. She was amused by the children making tadpoles on toast for their French as a prank, and encouraged them to confide in her. Education. Edward as a midshipman on board, 1910Initially, Edward was tutored at home by Helen Bricka. When his parents travelled the British Empire for almost nine months following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, young Edward and his siblings stayed in Britain with their grandparents, Queen Alexandra and King Edward VII, who showered their grandchildren with affection. Upon his parents' return, Edward was placed under the care of two men, Frederick Finch and Henry Hansell, who virtually brought up Edward and his brothers and sister for their remaining nursery years.Edward was kept under the strict tutorship of Hansell until almost thirteen years old.
Private tutors taught him German and French. Edward took the examination to enter the, and began there in 1907. Hansell had wanted Edward to enter school earlier, but the prince's father had disagreed.
Following two years at Osborne College, which he did not enjoy, Edward moved on to the at. A course of two years, followed by entry into the, was planned. A bout of mumps may have made him infertile.Edward automatically became and on 6 May 1910 when his father ascended the throne as George V on the death of Edward VII. He was created and a month later on 23 June 1910, his 16th birthday. Preparations for his future as king began in earnest.
He was withdrawn from his naval course before his formal graduation, served as for three months aboard the battleship, then immediately entered, for which, in the opinion of his biographers, he was underprepared intellectually. A keen horseman, he learned how to play polo with the. He left Oxford after eight terms, without any academic qualifications. Prince of Wales Edward was officially in a special ceremony at on 13 July 1911.
The investiture took place in Wales, at the instigation of the Welsh politician, Constable of the Castle and in the government. Lloyd George invented a rather fanciful ceremony in the style of a Welsh pageant, and coached Edward to speak a few words in Welsh. Edward during the First World WarWhen the broke out in 1914, Edward had reached the minimum age for active service and was keen to participate. He had joined the in June 1914, and although Edward was willing to serve on the front lines, refused to allow it, citing the immense harm that would occur if the heir to the throne were captured by the enemy. Despite this, Edward witnessed trench warfare first-hand and visited the front line as often as he could, for which he was awarded the in 1916. His role in the war, although limited, made him popular among veterans of the conflict. He undertook his first military flight in 1918, and later gained a pilot's licence.Edward's youngest brother, died at the age of 13 on 18 January 1919 after a severe seizure.
Edward, who was 11 years older than John and had hardly known him, saw his death as 'little more than a regrettable nuisance'. He wrote to his mistress of the time that 'he had told her all about that little brother, and how he was an epileptic. John's been practically shut up for the last two years anyhow, so no one has ever seen him except the family, and then only once or twice a year. This poor boy had become more of an animal than anything else.' He also wrote an insensitive letter to his mother which has since been lost. She did not reply, but he felt compelled to write her an apology, in which he stated: 'I feel such a cold hearted and unsympathetic swine for writing all that I did.
No one can realize more than you how little poor Johnnie meant to me who hardly knew him. I feel so much for you, darling Mama, who was his mother.'
Edward in with returned servicemen, 1920Throughout the 1920s, Edward, as the Prince of Wales, represented his father at home and abroad on many occasions. His rank, travels, good looks, and unmarried status gained him much public attention. At the height of his popularity, he was the most photographed celebrity of his time and he set men's fashion. During his 1924 visit to the United States, Men's Wear magazine observed, 'The average young man in America is more interested in the clothes of the Prince of Wales than in any other individual on earth.' He took a particular interest in science and in 1926 was president of the when his alma mater, hosted the society's annual general meeting.He visited poverty-stricken areas of Britain, and undertook 16 tours to various parts of the between 1919 and 1935.
On a tour of Canada in 1919, he acquired the Bedingfield ranch, near, and in 1924, he donated the to the. In 1929, a leading in the north of England, persuaded him to make a three-day visit to the and coalfields, where there was much unemployment. From January to April 1931, the Prince of Wales and his brother travelled 18,000 miles (29,000 km) on a tour of, steaming out on the, and returning via Paris and an flight from that landed specially in Windsor Great Park.Though widely travelled, Edward was racially prejudiced against foreigners and many of the Empire's subjects, believing that whites were inherently superior. In 1920, on a visit to Australia, he wrote of: 'they are the most revolting form of living creatures I've ever seen!! They are the lowest known form of human beings & are the nearest thing to monkeys.' In 1919, he agreed to be President of the organising committee for the proposed at,.
He wished the Exhibition to include 'a great national sports ground', and so played a part in the creation of. Romances.
Edward in 1920In 1917, during the First World War, Edward began a love affair with Parisian (later Fahmy), who kept a collection of his indiscreet letters after he broke off the affair in 1918 to begin one with a married English textile heiress,.Edward's womanising and reckless behaviour during the 1920s and 1930s worried Prime Minister, King George V, and those close to the prince. George V was disappointed by his son's failure to settle down in life, disgusted by his affairs with married women, and reluctant to see him inherit the Crown. 'After I am dead,' George said, 'the boy will ruin himself in twelve months.' George V favoured his second son Albert ('Bertie') and Albert's daughter Elizabeth ('Lilibet'), later and respectively. He told a courtier, 'I pray to God that my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne.'
In 1929, magazine reported that Edward teased Albert's wife, also named (later the ), by calling her 'Queen Elizabeth'. The magazine asked if 'she did not sometimes wonder how much truth there is in the story that he once said he would renounce his rights upon the death of George V – which would make her nickname come true'. Edward VIII surrounded by heralds of the prior to his only, 3 November 1936King George V died on 20 January 1936, and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII.
The next day, accompanied by Simpson, he broke with custom by watching the proclamation of his own accession from a window of. He became the first monarch of the British Empire to fly in an when he flew from to London for his.Edward caused unease in government circles with actions that were interpreted as interference in political matters. His comment during a tour of depressed villages in that 'something must be done' for the unemployed coal miners was seen as an attempt to guide government policy, though it has never been clear what sort of remedy he had in mind. Government ministers were reluctant to send confidential documents and state papers to Fort Belvedere, because it was clear that Edward was paying little attention to them, and it was feared that Simpson and other house guests might read them, improperly or inadvertently revealing government secrets.Edward's unorthodox approach to his role also extended to the coinage that bore his image. He broke with the tradition that the profile portrait of each successive monarch faced in the direction opposite to that of his or her predecessor. Edward insisted that he face left (as his father had done), to show the parting in his hair.
Only a handful of test coins were struck before the abdication, and all are very rare. When George VI succeeded to the throne he also faced left to maintain the tradition by suggesting that, had any further coins been minted featuring Edward's portrait, they would have shown him facing right. Left-facing coinage portrait of Edward VIIIOn 16 July 1936, an Irish fraudster called Jerome Bannigan, alias, produced a loaded revolver as Edward rode on horseback at, near. Police spotted the gun and pounced on him; he was quickly arrested. At Bannigan's trial, he alleged that 'a foreign power' had approached him to kill Edward, that he had informed of the plan, and that he was merely seeing the plan through to help MI5 catch the real culprits.
The court rejected the claims and sent him to jail for a year for 'intent to alarm'. It is now thought that Bannigan had indeed been in contact with MI5, but the veracity of the remainder of his claims remains open.In August and September, Edward and Simpson cruised the Eastern Mediterranean on the steam yacht. By October it was becoming clear that the new king planned to marry Simpson, especially when divorce proceedings between the Simpsons were brought at. Although gossip about his affair was widespread in the United States, the British media kept voluntarily silent, and the general public knew nothing until early December.
Abdication. The Windsors' wedding venueThe Duke married Simpson, who had changed her name by to Wallis Warfield, in a private ceremony on 3 June 1937, at, near, France. When the refused to sanction the union, a clergyman, the Reverend (Vicar of St Paul's, ), offered to perform the ceremony, and the Duke accepted. George VI forbade members of the royal family to attend, to the lasting resentment of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Edward had particularly wanted his brothers the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent and his second cousin to attend the ceremony.The denial of the style Royal Highness to the Duchess of Windsor caused further conflict, as did the financial settlement. The Government declined to include the Duke or Duchess on the, and the Duke's allowance was paid personally by George VI. The Duke compromised his position with his brother by concealing the extent of his financial worth when they informally agreed on the amount of the allowance. Edward's wealth had accumulated from the revenues of the paid to him as and ordinarily at the disposal of an incoming king. George VI also paid Edward for and, which were Edward's personal property, inherited from his father and thus did not automatically pass to George VI on his accession.
In the early days of George VI's reign the Duke telephoned daily, importuning for money and urging that the Duchess be granted the style of Royal Highness, until the harassed king ordered that the calls not be put through.Relations between the Duke of Windsor and the rest of the royal family were strained for decades. The Duke had assumed that he would settle in Britain after a year or two of exile in France. King George VI (with the support of Queen Mary and his wife Queen Elizabeth) threatened to cut off Edward's allowance if he returned to Britain without an invitation. Edward became embittered against his mother, Queen Mary, writing to her in 1939: 'your last letter destroyed the last vestige of feeling I had left for you. and has made further normal correspondence between us impossible.'
The Duke and Duchess at Hitler's mountain retreat at in the, 1937In October 1937, against the advice of the British government, and met at his retreat in. The visit was much publicised by the German media.
During the visit the Duke gave full. In Germany, 'they were treated like royalty. Members of the aristocracy would bow and curtsy towards her, and she was treated with all the dignity and status that the duke always wanted,' according to royal biographer in a 2016 BBC interview.The former Austrian ambassador, who was also a second cousin once removed and friend of George V, believed that Edward favoured German as a bulwark against, and even that he initially favoured an alliance with Germany. According to the Duke of Windsor, the experience of 'the unending scenes of horror' during the First World War led him to support.
Hitler considered Edward to be friendly towards Germany and thought that could have been improved through Edward if it were not for the abdication. Quoted Hitler directly: 'I am certain through him permanent friendly relations could have been achieved. If he had stayed, everything would have been different.
His abdication was a severe loss for us.' The Duke and Duchess settled in France.Second World War In May 1939, the Duke was commissioned by to give a radio broadcast (his first since abdicating) during a visit to the World War I battlefields of. In it he appealed for peace, saying 'I am deeply conscious of the presence of the great company of the dead, and I am convinced that could they make their voices heard they would be with me in what I am about to say. I speak simply as a soldier of the Last War whose most earnest prayer it is that such cruel and destructive madness shall never again overtake mankind. There is no land whose people want war.'
The broadcast was heard across the world by millions. It was widely seen as supporting appeasement, and the refused to broadcast it. It was broadcast outside the United States on shortwave radio and was reported in full by British broadsheet newspapers.On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the Duke and Duchess were brought back to Britain by Louis Mountbatten on board, and Edward, although an honorary, was made a attached to the British Military Mission in France. In February 1940, the German ambassador in, claimed that the Duke had leaked the Allied for the defence of Belgium, which the Duke later denied. When Germany the north of France in May 1940, the Windsors fled south, first to, then in June to. In July the pair moved to, where they lived at first in the home of, a Portuguese banker with both British and German contacts.
Under the code name, Nazi agents, principally, plotted unsuccessfully to persuade the Duke to leave Portugal and return to Spain, kidnapping him if necessary. Wrote a warning to, who by this point was prime minister: 'the Duke is well-known to be pro-Nazi and he may become a centre of intrigue.' Churchill threatened the Duke with a if he did not return to British soil.In July 1940, Edward was appointed.
The Duke and Duchess left Lisbon on 1 August aboard the steamship Excalibur, which was specially diverted from its usual direct course to so that they could be dropped off at on the 9th. They left Bermuda for on the Canadian steamship on 15 August, arriving two days later. The Duke did not enjoy being governor and privately referred to the islands as 'a third-class British colony'. The British Foreign Office strenuously objected when the Duke and Duchess planned to cruise aboard a yacht belonging to a Swedish magnate, whom British and American intelligence wrongly believed to be a close friend of commander. The Duke was praised for his efforts to combat poverty on the islands, although he was as contemptuous of the Bahamians as he was of most non-white peoples of the Empire.
He said of, the editor of the Nassau Daily Tribune: 'It must be remembered that Dupuch is more than half Negro, and due to the peculiar mentality of this Race, they seem unable to rise to prominence without losing their equilibrium.' He was praised, even by Dupuch, for his resolution of civil unrest over low wages in Nassau in 1942, even though he blamed the trouble on 'mischief makers – communists' and 'men of Central European Jewish descent, who had secured jobs as a pretext for obtaining a deferment of '.
He resigned from the post on 16 March 1945.Many historians have suggested that Hitler was prepared to reinstate Edward as king in the hope of establishing a fascist Britain. It is widely believed that the Duke and Duchess sympathised with fascism before and during the Second World War, and were moved to the Bahamas to minimise their opportunities to act on those feelings. In 1940 he said: 'In the past 10 years Germany has totally reorganised the order of its society. Countries which were unwilling to accept such a reorganisation of society and its concomitant sacrifices should direct their policies accordingly.'
During the occupation of France, the Duke asked the German forces to place guards at his Paris and Riviera homes; they did so. In December 1940, the Duke gave of magazine an interview at in Nassau. Oursler conveyed its content to the President in a private meeting at the on 23 December 1940.
The interview was published on 22 March 1941 and in it the Duke was reported to have said that 'Hitler was the right and logical leader of the German people' and that the time was coming for President to mediate a peace settlement. The Duke protested that he had been misquoted and misinterpreted.The Allies became sufficiently disturbed by German plots revolving around the Duke that President Roosevelt ordered covert surveillance of the Duke and Duchess when they visited, in April 1941. (then a monk in an American monastery) had told the that the Duchess had slept with the German ambassador in London, in 1936, had remained in constant contact with him, and had continued to leak secrets.Author claimed that, an agent and spy, acting on orders from the, made a successful secret trip to in Germany towards the end of the war to retrieve sensitive letters between the Duke of Windsor and Adolf Hitler and other leading Nazis. What is certain is that George VI sent the, accompanied by Blunt, then working part-time in the Royal Library as well as for British intelligence, to Friedrichshof in March 1945 to secure papers relating to the, the eldest child of Queen Victoria.
Looters had stolen part of the castle's archive, including surviving letters between daughter and mother, as well as other valuables, some of which were recovered in Chicago after the war. The papers rescued by Morshead and Blunt, and those returned by the American authorities from Chicago, were deposited in the. In the late 1950s, documents recovered by U.S. Troops in, Germany, in May 1945, since titled, were published following more than a decade of suppression, enhancing theories of the Duke's sympathies for Nazi ideologies.After the war, the Duke admitted in his memoirs that he admired the Germans, but he denied being pro-Nazi. Of Hitler he wrote: 'the struck me as a somewhat ridiculous figure, with his theatrical posturings and his bombastic pretensions.'
In the 1950s, journalist heard the Duke blame British Foreign Secretary for helping to 'precipitate the war through his treatment of. That's what Eden did, he helped to bring on the war.
And of course Roosevelt and the Jews'. During the 1960s the Duke said privately to a friend, 'I never thought Hitler was such a bad chap.' Later life. The Duke in 1945At the end of the war, the couple returned to France and spent the remainder of their lives essentially in retirement as the Duke never held another official role. Correspondence between the Duke and, dated between 1946 and 1949, emerged in a US library in 2009. The letters suggest a plot where the Duke would return to England and place himself in a position for a possible. The health of George VI was failing and de Courcy was concerned about the influence of the over the young Princess Elizabeth.
De Courcy suggested the Duke buy a working agricultural estate within an easy drive of London in order to gain favour with the British public and make himself available should the King become incapacitated. The Duke, however, hesitated and the King recovered from his surgery.The Duke's allowance was supplemented by government favours and illegal currency trading. The City of Paris provided the Duke with a house at, on the side of the, for a nominal rent. The French government exempted him from paying income tax, and the couple were able to buy goods duty-free through the British embassy and the military commissary.
In 1952 they bought and renovated a weekend country retreat, Le Moulin de la Tuilerie at, the only property the couple ever owned themselves. In 1951, the Duke had produced a ghost-written memoir, A King's Story, in which he expressed disagreement with liberal politics. The royalties from the book added to their income. Nine years later, he penned a relatively unknown book, A Family Album, chiefly about the fashion and habits of the royal family throughout his life, from the time of Queen Victoria to that of his grandfather and father, and his own tastes.The Duke and Duchess effectively took on the role of celebrities and were regarded as part of in the 1950s and 1960s. They hosted parties and shuttled between Paris and New York;, who met the Windsors socially, reported on the vacuity of the Duke's conversation.
The couple doted on the dogs they kept.In June 1953, instead of attending the, his niece, in London, the Duke and Duchess watched the ceremony on television in Paris. The Duke said that it was contrary to precedent for a Sovereign or former Sovereign to attend any coronation of another.
He was paid to write articles on the ceremony for the and, as well as a short book, The Crown and the People, 1902–1953. President and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1970In 1955 they visited President at the White House. The couple appeared on 's television-interview show in 1956, and in a 50-minute BBC television interview in 1970. That year President invited them as guests of honour to a dinner at the White House.The royal family never fully accepted the Duchess. Queen Mary refused to receive her formally. However, Edward sometimes met his mother and his brother, George VI; he attended George's funeral in 1952.
Queen Mary remained angry with Edward and indignant over his marriage to Wallis: 'To give up all this for that', she said. In 1965 the Duke and Duchess returned to London. They were visited by Elizabeth II, his sister-in-law, and his sister.
A week later, the Princess Royal died, and they attended her memorial service. In 1967 they joined the royal family for the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. The last royal ceremony the Duke attended was the funeral of Princess Marina in 1968. He declined an invitation from Elizabeth II to attend the in 1969, replying that would not want his 'aged great-uncle' there.In the 1960s the Duke's health deteriorated. In December 1964 operated on him in for an of the, and in February 1965 Sir treated a in his left eye. In late 1971, the Duke, who was a smoker from an early age, was diagnosed with and underwent. On 18 May 1972, Queen Elizabeth II visited the Windsors while on a state visit to France; she spoke with the Duke for fifteen minutes, but only the Duchess appeared with the royal party for a photocall as the Duke was too ill.
Death and legacy On 28 May 1972, ten days after the Queen's visit, the Duke died at his home in Paris, less than a month before his 78th birthday. His body was returned to Britain, at.
The funeral service took place in the chapel on 5 June in the presence of the Queen, the royal family, and the Duchess of Windsor, who stayed at Buckingham Palace during her visit. He was buried in the behind the Royal Mausoleum of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at. Until a 1965 agreement with the Queen, the Duke and Duchess had planned for a burial in a cemetery plot they had purchased at in, where the Duchess's father was interred. Frail, and suffering increasingly from, the Duchess died 14 years later, and was buried alongside her husband.In the view of historians, such as writing in 2007, the popular perception in the 21st century that the abdication was driven by politics rather than religious morality is false and arises because divorce has become much more common and socially acceptable.
To modern sensibilities, the religious restrictions that prevented Edward from continuing as king while planning to marry Simpson 'seem, wrongly, to provide insufficient explanation' for his abdication. Titles, styles, honours and arms. Portrait of Edward in the robes of the by, 1912 British Commonwealth and Empire honours. KG:, 1910.
ISO:, 1910. MC:, 1916. GCMG:, 1917. GBE:, 1917. GCVO:, 1920. PC:, (United Kingdom) 1920. GCSI:, 1921.
GCIE:, 1921. RVC:, 1921. KT:, 1922. GCStJ:, 12 June 1926. KStJ: Knight of Justice of St John, 1917.
KP:, 1927. PC:, 1927. GCB:, 1936. FRS:Upon his accession, Edward became sovereign of the various of the British Commonwealth and Empire, including those he had been appointed to prior to becoming king.