- Prince Edward, the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, died in his Paris home in 1972 of throat cancer. The royal family attended his funeral.
- King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in 1936 so that he could marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee (something the Church of England forbade).
- After making amends with Queen Elizabeth II, she allowed the Duke of Windsor to be buried at Frogmore in the Royal Burial Ground, as seen on The Crown season 3.
Season 3 of The Crown is a gloomy chapter for the Windsors. Aside from the occasional scandalous tryst and budding love connection, the Netflix hit's third installment seems devoted to reliving the anguish absorbing the palace during the late '60s and '70s. From the Aberfan mining disaster to Princess Margaret’s descent into despair to the former king’s death while in exile, it’s hard to debate our sentiment. Here, we’re diving a bit deeper into the latter.
In 1931, Edward (then the Prince of Wales) fell in love with Wallis Simpson, an American socialite. Edward became king after his father George V’s death in 1936, but his reign was short-lived, as the monarchy forbade Edward to marry Simpson, who was also a divorcee.
“I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love,” the king said at the time, according to Biography. He abdicated the throne after less than a year of ruling, adopted the title of the Duke of Windsor, and was exiled to France where he wed Wallis.
Enjoying their happily ever after, the two were known to have indulged in a jet-setting lifestyle that took them around the globe. The former king even became a headline standard in the stateside press, which covered him as the “arbiter of men’s fashions, a fearless horseman, tireless dancer, idol of bachelors, dream of spinsters.”
But it wasn’t all rainbows and horsemen, as we learned courtesy of The Crown season 2. Played by actor Alex Jennings at the time, the Duke of Windsor was exposed as a Nazi sympathizer midway through the second season with the Marburg Files, and his ties to Adolf Hitler further forced a wedge between him and the queen, with Her Royal Highness later banishing him from the family.
Played in season 3 by Derek Jacobi (pictured below), the duke once again takes center stage. We catch up with the duke and his wife in episode 8 of 10, titled “Dangling Man.” The opening scene begins with a title screen that reads “Bois de Boulogne, Paris, 1970,” and then pans over to the dapperly dressed former king coughing up blood in the toilet. Shortly thereafter, Edward and Wallis are sitting across from a doctor who’s delivering the sobering news of Edward’s failing health in French. “There is no cure, only palliative care, and once the morphine starts, His Royal Highness will be debilitated much of the time. My advice would be to make the most of the precious time that remains.”
No matter where the accuracy falls on a scale of Not Even Close to Dead On, history confirms that by the year 1970, the end was near for the duke. Below, the truth about his death and where he was buried.
Prince Edward, the Duke of Windsor, died of laryngeal cancer in 1972.
Born in 1894, the son of George V and Mary of Teck died on May 28, 1972 of throat cancer. He was diagnosed a year earlier in France, after being treated years prior for an aneurysm and a detached retina. The duke passed in his home in Paris with his wife by his side. “He died peacefully,” a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said at the time, via The New York Times.
The queen and Edward patched things up before his passing.
The pair endured a restrained relationship, to say the least. So after his marriage to Wallis, Edward pretty much kept his distance from the queen and all the royal family, setting up home base in France. However, just 10 days before he passed, it’s been reported that the queen made a visit for a final reconciliation.
In the documentary Elizabeth: Our Queen (per Marie Claire), royal historian Hugo Vickers set the scene saying, “The Queen went up to see the Duke of Windsor. With great difficulty he 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.”
The Crown’s version of their final reconciliation differs just a bit.
Of course, the screen version of events varies slightly. On the show, Edward requests to be dressed in a suit and tie, and sitting in his wheelchair awaiting the queen for their chat, rather than remain in his pajamas between the sheets. The awkward bow, however, seems on point.
The royal family attended Prince Edward’s funeral.
After transporting his casket from France to the United Kingdom, a private funeral service was held at St. George’s Chapel. The ceremony was short and followed by a small-scale burial, with Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles, and other core royal family members in attendance. When the service was over, The New York Times reported that Wallis “in perhaps the most poignant few moments, stood motionless, head bowed, before the coffin.”
The show covers the funeral in dramatic fashion at the beginning of season 3's episode 9, titled “Imbroglio.” There’s even an eerie shot of the now-widowed Duchess of Windsor seemingly staring through the soul of the onlooking Camilla Shand, the duchess’s black veil dancing in the wind as if to foreshadow the doomed love story between Camilla and Prince Charles that will soon be just a memory. (Of course, we know now, they eventually find their way back to each other.)
Queen Elizabeth II allowed the former king to be buried at Frogmore.
Original burial plans consisted of the couple spending eternity at a cemetery in Baltimore, but the queen allowed them plots at Windsor’s Frogmore in the Royal Burial Ground. When Wallis died years later in 1986, she was buried next to her duke, per Royal Central.
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DeAnna Janes is a freelance writer and editor for a number of sites, including Harper’s BAZAAR, Tasting Table, Fast Company and Brit + Co, and is a passionate supporter of animal causes, copy savant, movie dork and reckless connoisseur of all holidays. A native Texan living in NYC since 2005, Janes has a degree in journalism from Texas A&M and got her start in media at US Weekly before moving on to O Magazine, and eventually becoming the entertainment editor of the once-loved, now-shuttered DailyCandy. She’s based on the Upper West Side.
