Wallis Simpson (born Bessie Wallis Warfield ; June 19, 1896 - April 24, 1986), later known as the Duchess of Windsor , was an American socialite which was intended to marry the English king Edward VIII caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's resignation.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. His father died shortly after his birth and he and his widowed mother were partially supported by their wealthier families. His first marriage, with US naval officer Win Spencer, was interrupted by a period of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during his second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, he met Edward, then the Prince of Wales. Five years later, after the accession of Edward as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman with two life-threatening ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the British Empire and Dominion, and eventually led to his resignation in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love". Upon the throne, the former king was created Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Edward married Wallis six months later, after which he was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, without the style of "Your Highness". He is instead styled as "Your Highness", a style usually reserved for non-royal dynasties and duchesses.
Before, during, and after the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society as Nazi sympathizers. In 1937, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished his post in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Duchess and Duchess flocked between Europe and the United States living a spare life like a celebrity society. After Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in exile and rarely seen in public. His personal life has been the source of much speculation, and he remains a controversial figure in British history.
Video Wallis Simpson
Kehidupan awal
The only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born in Square Cottage at the Monterey Inn, a hotel just across the street from the Monterey Country Club, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. A summer resort close to the Maryland-Pennsylvania border, the Blue Ridge Summit is very popular with Baltimoreans summer escape, and the Monterey Inn, which has a central building as well as individual wooden cottages, is the largest hotel in town.
His father was Teackle Wallis Warfield, the fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a flour merchant described as "one of the best known and personal of one of Baltimore's most popular citizens" nominating the mayor in 1875. His mother was Alice Montague, the daughter of a stockbroker William Latane Montague. Wallis was named in honor of his father (known as Wallis) and his mother's sister, Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until sometime during his youth the name Bessie was dropped.
According to the marriage announcement at Baltimore Sun (20 November 1895), her parents were married by Rev. C. Ernest Smith at Baltimore Saint Michael and All Angels Protestant Episcopal Church on November 19, 1895, even though Wallis claimed that her parents were married in June 1895. His father died of tuberculosis on November 15, 1896. During his first few years, he and his mother depended on the charity of his wealthy brother from his father Solomon Davies Warfield, Baltimore postmaster and then president of the Continental Trust Company and Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him in a four-storey 34 storey house, East Preston Street, which he shared with his mother.
In 1901, Wallis aunt, Bessie Merryman, widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-room house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they stayed for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, their own. In 1908, Wallis' mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of a prominent Democratic boss.
On April 17, 1910, Wallis was confirmed in the Episcopal Church of Christ, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 his uncle Warfield paid him to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls school in Maryland. There he became a friend of RenÃÆ' Â © e du Pont, daughter of Sen. T. Coleman du Pont from the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware. A schoolmate at one of Wallis Schools recalls, "He's brighter, brighter than all of us, and he's decided to go to the head of the class, and he does ." Wallis is always well-dressed and forced to do well. A biographer later writes about him, "Although Wallis's jaw is too much for him to be beautiful, his soft-blue eyes and tiny figure, quick intelligence, vitality, and capacity for full concentration on his interlocutor ensure that he has many admirers."
Maps Wallis Simpson
First marriage
In April 1916 Wallis met Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., a US Naval aviator, in Pensacola, Florida, while visiting his cousin Corinne Mustin. It was at this point that Wallis witnessed two planes falling about two weeks apart, resulting in a lifetime fear of flying. The couple married on November 8, 1916 at Christ Episcopal Church in Baltimore, which is a Wallis parish. Winning, as her husband is known, is a heavy drinker. He drank even before flying and once fell into the ocean, but escaped almost unscathed. After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Spencer was stationed in San Diego as the first commanding officer of a training center in Coronado, known as the Naval Air Station North Island; they remained there until 1921.
In 1920, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited San Diego, but he and Wallis did not meet. Later that year, Spencer left his wife for a period of four months, but in the spring of 1921 they reunited in Washington, D.C., where Spencer was posted. They soon split up again, and in 1922, when Spencer was stationed in the Far East as commander of Pampanga, Wallis remained behind, continuing an affair with an Argentine diplomat, Felipe de Espil. In January 1924, he visited Paris with his cousin who had just been widowed Corinne Mustin, before sailing to the Far East with a troop carrier, USS Chaumont (AP-5). The Spencers briefly reunited until he fell ill, after which he returned to Hong Kong.
Wallis visits China, and while in Beijing lives with Katherine and Herman Rogers, who remain their long-term friend. According to the wife of one of Win's fellow officers, Mrs. Milton E. Miles, in Beijing Wallis met Count Galeazzo Ciano, then the son-in-law of Mussolini and the Foreign Minister, having an affair with her, and becoming pregnant, causing unsuccessful abortion. Rumors were then widespread but never proven and Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini, denied it. The existence of China's "official document" (detailing allegations of Wallis' sexual and criminal exploitation in China) was rejected by most historians and biographers. Wallis spent more than a year in China, during that time - according to Madame Wellington Koo's daughter - she only managed to master one Chinese sentence: "Boy, give me champagne." In September 1925, she and her husband returned to the United States, albeit living apart. Their divorce was completed on December 10, 1927.
Second marriage
At the time of her marriage to Spencer was dissolved, Wallis had been involved with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping executive and former officer in Coldstream Guard. She divorced her first wife, Dorothea (by whom she had a daughter, Audrey), to marry Wallis on July 21, 1928 at the Registry Office in Chelsea, London. Wallis has sent a letter of acceptance on his application from Cannes where he lives with his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.
The Simpsons temporarily set up a house in a furnished home with four servants in Mayfair. In 1929, Wallis sailed back to the United States to visit his ailing mother, who had married law scribe Charles Gordon Allen after the death of Rasin. During the trip Wallis invested in Wall Street Crash, and his mother died without a penny on November 2, 1929. Wallis returned to England and with the shipbuilding business still soaring, Simpsons moved into a large flat with auxiliary staff.
Through a friend, Consuelo Thaw, Wallis meets sister Consuelo, Thelma, Lady Furness, mistress Edward, Prince of Wales. On January 10, 1931, Lady Furness introduced Wallis to the Prince at Burrough Court, near Melton Mowbray. The prince is the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, and heir to the throne of England. Between 1931 and 1934, he met Simpsons at various house parties, and Wallis was presented in court. Ernest began to have financial difficulties, because Simpsons lived beyond their means, and they had to fire a staff member. Relationship
with Edward, Prince of Wales
In January 1934, when Lady Furness was away in New York City, Wallis was suspected of being the princess's mistress. Edward denied this to his father, though his staff saw them in bed together as well as "evidence of physical sexual acts". Wallis immediately removed Lady Furness, and the Prince distanced himself from former lover and confidante, Anglo-American textile heiress, Freda Dudley Ward.
By the end of 1934, Edward was inescapably infatuated with Wallis, finding his way of dominance and harsh roughness toward his attractive position; in the words of his official biographer, he becomes "very dependent on" himself. According to Wallis, during a cruise on Lord Moyne's private yacht Rosaura in August 1934, he fell in love with Edward. At the night party at Buckingham Palace, he introduced it to his mother - his father was angry, mainly because of his marriage history, because the divorced person is generally excommunicated. Edward showered Wallis with money and jewelry, and in February 1935, and again at the end of the year, he was vacationing with him in Europe. His servants became increasingly worried when the affair began to interfere with his official duties.
In 1935, the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch told the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that Wallis was also having an affair with Guy Marcus Trundle, who was "said to be employed by Ford Motor Company". Claims of infidelity are doubtful, however, by Captain Val Bailey, who knows Trundle well and whose mother had an affair with Trundle for nearly two decades, and by historian Susan Williams.
Crisis abdication
On January 20, 1936, George V died at Sandringham and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he violated the royal protocol by witnessing the proclamation of his access from the window of St. James, in Wallis company still married. It became clear to the Courts and the Government that the new King of Emperor intended to marry her. The King's behavior and his relationship with Wallis made him unpopular in the Conservative-led government of England, and made his mother and brother, the Duke of York. The British media remain subject to monarchy, and no stories of infidelity are reported in the domestic press, but foreign media widely report their relationship.
The King of the British Empire was the Supreme Governor of the Church of England - at the time of the proposed marriage, and until 2002, the Church of England disapproved of, and will not, rediscover the divorced if their former spouse is alive. Constitutionally, the King should ally with the Church of England, but his proposed marriage is contrary to the teachings of the Church. Moreover, at that time both the Church and English law only recognized adultery as a legal place for divorce. Because she divorced her first husband on the basis of "mutual mismatch", it is likely that her second marriage, as well as her prospective marriage to Edward, would be considered great if her first divorce was challenged in court.
The British and Dominion governments believe that a politically, socially, and morally divorced woman is not a candidate for consort. He is regarded by many in the United Kingdom as a woman of "unlimited ambition" who pursues the King because of his wealth and position.
Wallis had filed for divorce from her second husband on the grounds that she had committed adultery with her childhood friend Mary Kirk and the mission decision was granted on October 27, 1936. In November, the King consulted British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin on the way to marry Wallis and defend the throne. The king advised the organic marriage, where he would remain king but Wallis would not be queen, but this was rejected by Baldwin and the Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada, and South Africa. If the King will marry Wallis on Baldwin's advice, the Government will be required to resign, causing a constitutional crisis.
Wallis's relationship with the King has become a common knowledge in England in early December. He decided to flee the country when the scandal broke out, and was pushed south of France in a dramatic race to run faster than the press. Over the next three months, he was surrounded by media in Villa Lou Viei, near Cannes, the home of his close friends Herman and Katherine Rogers. In hiding, Wallis was pressed by Lord Lord of in-Waiting, Lord Brownlow, to leave the King. On December 7, 1936, Lord Brownlow read his remarks to the press, which he had helped draft, indicating Wallis' willingness to surrender the King. However, Edward is determined to marry Wallis. John Theodore Goddard, Wallis' lawyer, stated: his " client is ready to do anything to lighten the situation but the other endpoint [Edward VIII] is determined." This seems to indicate that the King has decided he has no choice but to abdicate if he wants to marry Wallis.
The king signed the Instruments of Abdikasi on December 10, 1936, in the presence of his three surviving brothers, the Duke of York (who would ascend the throne the next day as George VI), the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. Special laws passed by Parliament of Dominion resolve Edward's resignation the next day, or in the case of Ireland one day later. On December 11, 1936, Edward said in a radio broadcast, "I find it impossible to bear the burden of heavy responsibility, and to give up my duty as King as I want, without the help and support of the woman I love."
Edward left England for Austria, where he lived in Schloss Enzesfeld, the home of Baron Eugen and Baroness Kitty de Rothschild. Edward must remain separated from Wallis until there is no danger of sacrificing absolute decision making in his divorce proceedings. After her divorce was made in late May 1937, she changed her name by doing a poll to Wallis Warfield, continuing her maiden name. The couple were reunited in ChÃÆ' à ¢ teau de Candà © à ©, Monts, France, on May 4, 1937.
Third marriage: Duchess of Windsor
Wallis and Edward were married one month later on June 3, 1937 in ChÃÆ'  ° teau de Candà © à ©, lent to them by French billionaire Charles Bedaux. The date will be the 72nd birthday of King George V; Queen Mary thought the wedding had been scheduled for later as a bit of a deliberate. No member of Edward's family was present. Wallis is wearing a Mainbocher wedding dress "Blue Wallis". The marriage does not produce a child. In November, Ernest Simpson married Mary Kirk.
Edward was created by the Duke of Windsor by his brother, King George VI, before the wedding. However, the patent letters, endorsed by the new king and unanimously supported by the Dominion government, prevent Wallis, now the Duchess of Windsor, from sharing her husband's style of "Royal Highness". George VI's unequivocal view that the Duchess should not be given the title of kingdom is shared by Queen Mary and George's wife, Queen Elizabeth (then Queen Mother). Initially, the British royal family did not receive the Duchess and would not accept it officially, although the former king sometimes met his mother and siblings after his release. Some biographers argue that Wallis's sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, still feels sad for her because of her role of bringing George VI to the throne (which she may see as the cause of her death) and for being too early to behave as Edward's queen. when he is his lover. This claim was rejected by Queen Elizabeth's close friend, Duke of Grafton, who wrote that she "never said anything bad about the Duchess of Windsor, except to say she really did not know what she was up against." On the other hand, the Duchess of Windsor calls Queen Elizabeth "Nyonya Temple" and "Cookie", alluding to her solid figure and her fondness for food, and her daughter, Princess Elizabeth (then Queen Elizabeth II), as "Shirley", as in Shirley Temple. The Duchess strongly resents the denial of the royal title and the refusal of Duke's relatives to accept him as part of the family. In the Duke and Duchess households, the style of "Your Majesty" is used by those close to the couple.
According to the wife of former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford, who knows Queen Elizabeth and Duchess of Windsor but is only friendly with the latter, Queen's antipathy towards her sister-in-law may be caused by jealousy.. Lady Mosley wrote to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, after the death of the Duke of Windsor, "perhaps the theory of [those Windsors]] contemporaries that Cake [Mitford's epithet for the Queen Mother, comes from a jubilant appeal at a party where Deborah Devonshire first meets with him] kinda loves [the Duke] (as a girl) & takes second best, may be responsible a lot. "
The Duke and Duchess lived in France in the years before the war. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler in Berghof, Berchtesgaden's retreat. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis, "he will be a good Queen". The visit tends to reinforce the strong suspicion of many people in government and society that the Duchess is a German agent, a claim that he mocked his letters to Duke. The US FBI files compiled in the 1930s also described him as a possible Nazi sympathizer. Duke Carl Alexander of WÃÆ'¼rttemberg told the FBI that he and the Nazi leader Joachim von Ribbentrop had become lovers in London. There was even a rather unlikely report during the Second World War that he kept a signed Ribbentrop photo on his bedside table.
Second World War
As German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris house, first to Biarritz, then in June to Spain. There, he told the US ambassador, Alexander W. Weddell, that France had lost because of "internal pain". In July, the couple moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where they lived at the home of Ricardo do EspÃÆ'rito Santo e Silva, a banker suspected of being a German agent.
In August 1940, the Duke and Duchess traveled by commercial ship to the Bahamas, where the Duke was designated as Governor. Wallis performs his role as the Bahamian capital 'lady with competence for five years; he works actively for the Red Cross and in improving the welfare of infants. However, he hates Nassau, calling it our "St. Helena", referring to Napoleon's final exile. He was heavily criticized in the British press for his sumptuous spending in the United States, which was done when Britain was having difficulties such as rationing and power cuts. His attitude toward the locals, whom he calls "lazy, emerging niggers" in a letter to his aunt, reflects his upbringing in Jim Crow South. In 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill strongly objected when he and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean on a yacht belonging to a Swedish king, Axel Wenner-Gren, whom Churchill said were "pro-German". Churchill felt he had to complain again when Duke gave a "defeat" interview. Another of their acquaintances, Charles Bedaux, who had hosted their marriage, was arrested on treason charges in 1943, and committed suicide in prison in Miami before the case was brought to justice. The British establishment does not trust the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge writes that his anti-British activities were motivated by a desire to take revenge against the state that rejected him as queen.
After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the couple returned to France and retired.
Next life
In 1946, when the Duchess lived in Ednam Lodge, the home of the Earl of Dudley, some of his jewels were stolen. There was a rumor that the theft had been masterminded by the royal family in an attempt to retrieve jewelry taken from the Royal Collection by Duke, or by the Windsors themselves as part of insurance fraud - they made a large deposit of loose stones in Cartier the following year. However, in 1960, criminal career Richard Dunphie confessed to committing a crime. The stolen pieces are just a small part of the Windsor gem, which is either bought privately, inherited by Duke, or given to the Duke when he becomes Prince of Wales.
Then they were offered the use of a house by the Parisian authorities. The couple live on 4 routes du Champ d'EntraÃÆ'®nement in Bois de Boulogne, near Neuilly-sur-Seine, for much of the rest of their lives, essentially living an easy retirement life. They bought the second house in the country, the Moulin de la Tuilerie or The Mill at Gif-sur-Yvette, where they soon became close friends of his neighbors, Oswald and Diana Mosley. Years later, Diana Mosley claimed that the Duke and the Duchess shared her views and her husband that Hitler should be given the freedom to destroy Communism; as Duke wrote in New York December 13, 1966: "it is in the interest of Britain and in Europe too, that Germany is encouraged to invade east and destroy communism forever... I think the rest of us can be fencers while the Nazis and The Reds crossed it off. "
In 1965, the Duke and the Duchess visited London as Duke requiring eye surgery for the detached retina; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, visit them. Duke's sister, Royal Daughter, also visited just 10 days before her death. They attended his funeral at Westminster Abbey. Then, in 1967, the Duke and Duchess joined the royal family in London for the opening of a plaque by Elizabeth II to commemorate the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles visited the Windsors in Paris in recent years of the Duke, Queen's visit came just before Duke died.
Widowhood
After Duke's death from cancer in 1972, the Duchess traveled to England to attend his funeral, staying at Buckingham Palace during his visit. The Duchess, getting weaker and suffering from dementia, lived the rest of his life as a hermit, supported by his husband's property and allowances from the Queen. He suffered several falls and broke his hip twice.
After Edward's death, the French lawyer Duchess, Suzanne Blum, took over power. Blum sold Duchess belongings to his own friends lower than market value and was accused of exploiting his client in Caroline Blackwood The Last of the Duchess, written in 1980 but not published until after Blum's death in 1995. Later, the royal biographer Hugo Vickers calls Blum "a demonic figure... wearing a cloak of goodwill to disguise his inner malice."
In 1980, Duke lost the power of speech. Towards the end, she is bedridden and does not accept visitors, apart from her doctors and nurses.
Death
The Duchess of Windsor died on 24 April 1986 at his home in Bois de Boulogne, Paris. His funeral was held at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, attended by his two surviving sisters-in-law - Empress and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester - and other royal family members. The Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, and Prince and Princess of Wales attended funerals and funerals.
She is buried next to Edward at the Royal Burial Ground near Windsor Castle, as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor". Until a deal with Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s, the Duke and Duchess previously planned to be buried in a cemetery purchased at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where Duchess's father was buried.
In recognition of France's assistance to the Duke and Duchess in giving them a home, and in place of death duties, the Louis XVI-style collection, several porcelain, and paintings were made for the French state. The British royal family does not receive a great inheritance. Much of the land went to the Pasteur Institute medical research foundation, at the instruction of Suzanne Blum. The decision made Duchess's royal family and friends surprised, as he showed little interest in charity during his life.
At Sotheby's auction in Geneva, in April 1987, Duchess's remarkable jewelry collection collected $ 45 million for the Institute, roughly seven times its pre-sale estimates. Blum later claimed that Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed tried to buy gems for "the lowest price". Al-Fayed bought many non-financial properties, including Paris house rentals. The auction of his collection was announced in July 1997 for the end of that year in New York. Postponed by the death of his son in a car accident that also claimed the lives of Diana, Princess Wales, the sale earned more than Ã, Â £ 14 million to charity in 1998.
Legacy
Wallis is distracted by rumors about another lover. Playboy American gay, Jimmy Donahue, the heir of Woolworth's luck, claimed to have had a relationship with the Duchess in the 1950s, but Donahue was notorious for his jokes and rumors.
The Memoir of Wallis, The Heart Has Its Reasons , was published in 1956. One of his biographers, Charles Higham, said of the book, "the facts are rearranged endlessly in what is considered a face- a self-made elevator... reflects in the abundance of his misguided but winning and desirable personality. "He describes the Duchess as" charismatic, electric and ambitiously compulsive ". The Daily Telegraph, in their Higham obituary, says: "The themes of fascism, homosexuality and sexual deviance that prove to be very productive in the Flynn [Errol] case are a theme that Higham will mine again, and again, that his motive may be financially advised by his admission in an interview that there is 'of course a difference from a large number of sales' between his poetry books and his biography.
The fictional depiction of Duchess includes the novel Famous Last Words (1981) by Canadian author Timothy Findley, who describes the Duchess as a manipulative conspirator, and the short story by Rose Tremain, entitled "The Darkness of Wallis Simpson" (2006) , who describes it more sympathetically in his final years in poor health.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments