I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.
– These were the words spoken by then, King Edward VIII, great grandson of Queen Victoria and Uncle to the current reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. He gave the radio address during the evening of December 11, 1936.
Born in 1896, Edward was groomed for the throne since birth, but remained unmarried as he neared his 40th birthday. In 1934, he met and fell in love with Wallis Warfield Simpson, a married American woman who’d been divorced previously from a Navy Pilot. Though his family disapproved of his married mistress, Edward would take it a step further by making it clear that he wished to marry her.
Unfortunately, Edward, then the Prince of Wales, was unable to speak to his father before he passed away in January of 1936. Though now crowned the King of England and all her territories, Edward’s formal coronation was scheduled for May of 1937. In the meanwhile, his affair with Mrs. Simpson was reported in the press of the United States, but it was kept out of the British Press.
King Edward did all he could, including proposing that he marry Mrs. Simpson, now divorced from her second husband, in a morganatic marriage (a marriage where neither the spouse nor any children produced from the marriage would inherit the title or possessions of the king). The suggestion was made to King Edward VIII over a luncheon at Claridge’s with Esmond Harmsworth. A morganatic marriage would bestow no titles or property on Mrs. Simpson; she would merely have become his wife and nothing more. The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, rejected the suggestion and shortly thereafter, the scandal made the British papers.
With no resolution readily available – King Edward VIII made the difficult decision on December 10 to abdicate his throne and announced his intentions on December 11th. Though crowned, King Edward VIII was never formally coroneted; instead, his younger brother (father of the current reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II) ascended the throne and was crowned King George VI.
In June, of 1937, rather than his coronation ceremony as King of England, Edward, now the Duke of Windsor, married his beloved Wallis Simpson in France. They lived in turbulent times and even narrowly avoided a plot by the Nazis to kidnap Edward, he and Wallis lived out the rest of his life together. He died in Paris in 1972, but was granted a burial plot at Windsor Castle. When the Duchess of Windsor passed away in 1986, Queen Elizabeth II consented to allowing her to be buried at his side.
You often hear of the sacrifices made out of love and perhaps King Edward VIII was selfish in his desire to be with Mrs. Simpson, but when he was pressed to give her up – he could not choose a throne over the love in his heart and for most of us – it doesn’t get more romantic than that.
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