This is the untold story of the Duchess of Windsor. Providing you skip past the stories that have already been told many times over. Wallis Simpson is perhaps one of the most notorious and, I believe, most misunderstood women of the 20th century. She is credited with being the temptress that brought down a king. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, it is possible to see her as a saviour of the British monarchy; a heroine who nobly sacrificed herself by becoming King Edward VIII’s lover and, in being the leading lady in his abdication, prevented Britain from having a Nazi appeaser as its monarch.
As a child in Baltimore, Wallis Warfield was subject to many girlhood passions. She fell madly in love with two teachers and several schoolfriends and sent them letters describing them as “beautiful little partridges” that might suggest she was a lesbian. However, there is no reason to believe that either of these relationships ever went beyond the bounds of normal adolescent behaviour or that she was in any way a lesbian and I merely mention them as a way of getting your attention.
Even though she was not well-off nor especially good looking, Wallis dated many beaux. This has led some people to conclude that she was sexually voracious. This is categorically not true. Though she did like to flirt and did once confess that she might have kissed someone, she never deviated from the bounds of decency.
In 1916, Wallis married an airman called Win Spencer. The marriage was not a happy one. Wallis recoiled when Win tried to kiss her on their wedding night and it is her assertion that the marriage was never consummated. There have also been reports that Wallis and Win were once on a receiving line to meet the Prince of Wales who was on a royal tour, but having carefully sifted through the evidence, I have determined this did not happen. There have also been rumours that Wallis worked in a brothel during their time in Peking and that it was there she learned a sexual trick known as the Cleopatra Clip. Again, I can find no evidence to support this.
The marriage broke down because of Win’s alcoholism and sadism. ,Wallis then went to stay with her friend Katherine and her husband, Herman Rogers. Some have suggested they coexisted as a jazz age ménage à trois, but though Herman was undoubtedly the true love of Wallis’s life, I accept her assertion that the relationship, though extremely close, never became sexual. So this is just more idle gossip and innuendo. Later, she met a South American man, Felipe Espil, who also undoubtedly became the true love of Wallis’s life, though she definitely never had sex with him either.
Wallis then moved to England where she married Ernest Simpson. Though she was platonically attracted to Ernest, I also believe her account that the marriage was never consummated. In London, she became friends with Thelma, who was then the recognised lover of the Prince of Wales, whom everyone called David, and became a regular part of the royal social scene. She even sent him letters addressed to PW – code for Prince of Wales.
When the affair between Thelma and the Prince of Wales came to an end, Wallis stepped in to take her friend’s place. Before long she was buying all his Christmas presents for him to give to the staff, organising his dinner parties and going on exotic foreign holidays with him. Though many in the royal court assumed that Wallis, not being a conventional beauty, must have a sexual hold on the prince, there is no evidence that at any time that their relationship became physical. Indeed, it is my belief that her sole attraction to him was proximity to power, coupled with the desire to save Britain from a Nazi king.
It is also my belief that the prince saw Wallis, a divorcee, as a way out of becoming king and handing over the responsibility to his brother, leaving him free to play golf and dress up in Nazi regalia. This plan was only thwarted by the unexpected death of King George V after a prolonged illness. Once Edward became king, Wallis was horrified by his determination to abdicate. She had never loved him as the only one true love of her life has been Herman and Felipe, both of whom she kept in close contact.
Once the abdication was announced and Wallis was divorced from Ernest, she felt obliged to go through with the charade and marry the Duke of Windsor, as the prince had now become. On the day before the wedding, I can exclusively reveal that even though surgery had made it impossible for her to have babies, she begged Herman, her one true love, to get her pregnant. Herman refused and for the rest of her life, she was – much like Princess Diana – locked in a loveless marriage that was never consummated. Rather she spent her days being unpleasant to all those around her, especially her husband, though they did share a mutual interest in golf, fascism and casual racism.
Wallis was devastated when Herman and Felipe, her one true loves, died, and retreated from the world. She scarcely even noticed when her husband died. She ended her days alone, pining for her one true loves. The 20th century’s most infamous siren died as she had lived. A virgin.
Digested read, digested: Sex, sex and no sex.