Loading summary
Transcript622 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.
- [00:08]
B
Hello and welcome to the show.
- [00:10]
A
This is Beckett and this is Susan. And we are here because next week we're going to have a special treat for you with the author of one of the books that we use in this particular episode. So we thought that that was a wonderful tie in to Wallis Simpson.
- [00:27]
B
Sometimes authors we've loved in the past come out with new work that we really love. Such a one is Anne Seba, who next week Susan interviewed her and we will have a special interview show. She has a book coming out about the women's orchestra in Auschwitz, so stay tuned for that. But she also wrote a spectacular book about Wallis Simpson. And so from the wayback machine of 2017, which seems like yesterday, Frank, but in fact is the better part of a decade ago, we bring you our formerly double episode, but currently single episode on the controversial Duchess herself. And so now, without further ado, on with the show. And here's your 32nd summary.
- [01:20]
A
He was just a boy with a silver spoon standing in front of a girl from Baltimore asking her to love him.
- [01:27]
B
The end. Let's talk about Wallis Simpson.
- [01:32]
A
But first, let's drop her into history. In 1937, Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for her first and only novel, Gone with the Wind. The first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman's Aerobile, took its first successful flight. But that year, the Hindenburg disaster and Amelia Earhart's disappearance occurred. The World's Fair was held in Paris. The Lincoln Tunnel connecting New Jersey to Manhattan and the Golden Gate bridge opened on May 12. The spare British royal King George VI had his coronation. And on June 3rd of 1937, the former British king who had abdicated that throne married the woman he loves, American Wallis Simpson. And the greatest or messiest love story of the world takes a permanent place in history. Bessie Wallace Warfield was born on June 19, 1896, the first and only child of Tico Wallace Warfield and his wife, Alice Montague Warfield Wallace was born in a small house named Square Cottage in the then summer resort town of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania.
- [02:40]
B
Papa, who was always known as T. Wallace, was the youngest son of an extremely wealthy man who had been a member of the Maryland state legislature. His family was an old dating from 1662 and was generally full of the sort of prominent men who added glory to the name and money to the safe, I guess, but not a lot of joy and not a lot of humor. You know, this family works hard and we Achieve and be triangular and carry a big stick kinda. And poor old T. Wallace had a lot to live up to. And you know this. You know those kids whose older siblings were, you know, prom king, captain of the football team, student council, straight A's. Uh, T. Wallace is handsome and all, but not the star his brothers had been. And I really feel quite sorry for him. When he was diagnosed with, quote, consumption, his oldest brother just pulled him out of school and got him a random job as a lowly clerk in some uncle's financial office. Not that there was an effective treatment for what we know now is tuberculosis other than a change of climate, but he did not even get that. What does he have? We'll just. Just put him someplace. What a loser kind of, you know, what a sympathetic bunch that is.
- [03:52]
A
Yeah, well, he was the baby, so he was not the one that was given a lot of opportunities like the older brothers might have because they were healthier. He. His whole life was not a very healthy child. He was kind of frail. So this was probably just another thing like you just said. Although Teekle, that's a cool name, right?
- [04:10]
B
No, it reminds me of Treacle or Tinkle.
- [04:14]
A
Oh, okay. So no longer a cool name.
- [04:17]
B
Well, let's see. Let's talk about mama a second. Mama's family, the Montagues, I love that name at least, was even older in America, if you can believe that. So they got a land grant from the King of England in 1621. So not nobody's either. That's what I'm saying. I assure you this will come up later. The Montagues kept their name as old family, kind of all their history, and it seems like most of their good humor, thank goodness. But they just hadn't hung onto any of their money, which is a bummer.
- [04:47]
A
Yeah.
- [04:48]
B
One book I read referred to them as southern eccentrics, so I like the idea of that. I'm always on board for an eccentric.
- [04:53]
A
Well, they were living in the, you know, the ancestral homes, and these houses were like falling apart. And they were still having parties in.
- [05:01]
B
Some parts of the old South. It's super chic not to have your house painted, I want to say, on the coast. If your house stays unpainted, it's actually chicer than if you try to fancy it up every other year with a coat of paint because the sea is just going to rip it right off. And if you feel that's unfortunate, evidently you're nouveau. I don't know.
- [05:18]
A
And you like to pay to have your house painted.
- [05:22]
B
Well, Alice, thank goodness, had the Best of everybody. She was beautiful and blonde and always laughing. She was known as a witty and clever girl who nonetheless was attractive to the men. Let's point to that. Witty and clever, but nonetheless attractive. And I should say, by the way, that Mama was exactly the same age as Emily Post and in the same city.
- [05:44]
A
I know. I kept trying to look for ways that they might have crossed paths somehow, and they probably did, but I didn't find any.
- [05:52]
B
Did you? Well, no, but I think Emily Post ran a little higher. They probably ended up at the same event, but I doubt they would have been friends or anything.
- [06:02]
A
Yeah. No, I imagine them passing in a punch bowl.
- [06:05]
B
Yeah. Now, so how these two, Alice and T. Wallace met, we do not know. A dance, somebody's dinner party, I don't know. But it was quick attraction, followed quickly by true love, followed by objections from both families. Son, those monarchies are frivolous and they have no money. A younger son has no business marrying a poor woman for love. That's not how it's supposed to go. And then, of course, her family. Alice, dear, you could do so much better than this clerk who has consumption and is sure to die and leave you destitute. And you know, that last sentence actually makes a lot of sense to me.
- [06:38]
A
It does. Well, even his family knew that, you know, he wasn't going to live much longer. And that was actually one of their complaints too, is because he was taking on a wife, possibly a family, and that's going to be a responsibility. Who's going to take care of them? Pretty realistic. And even though the families were both so opposed, they were kind of on the same page.
- [06:58]
B
And so amid such family objections that it took place in the preacher's drawing room instead of in his church. Alice and T. Wallace were married quietly, with none of the relatives present. And no announcement of what was, after all, a society wedding in the newspapers. Nothing. And honestly, they might not have even told their families about the wedding beforehand at all. Like, what good could come of that? Just prevention. Which is not what they wanted. Seven months later. We can count, right? Seven months later, while they were staying at a resort up in the mountains, Alice gave birth to a baby girl. So a pre honeymoon baby, which obviously we don't care so much about today. Seriously, we don't. But the Victorians would have had strong opinions about. Except for the fact this is okay. This is curious to me. Neither papa nor Mama had made any arrangements about anything. So there's no doctor on call, there's no local woman that's ready to Drop by with hot water and they're far from home.
- [07:53]
A
And now they had gone up to the mountains for Teekl's Hell, because the city in the summer is just really bad for people with, you know, congestion problems and tuberculosis. So I think they were just concentrating on, you know, being a couple away from their families, trying to get him healthy. And like you said, they didn't line up any care at all.
- [08:16]
B
So little Bessie Wallace Warfield could have been just premature or both things. I mean, who cares? Who cares, you say? Us too. Except for it seems to be a thing canvassed by every biographer you encounter, like, for a whole chapter worth of things. Well, and anyway, if you're born when your parents are married, aren't you, quote, saved from being illegitimate anyway?
- [08:36]
A
Yeah, but that doesn't stop people from doing the math. And the baby wasn't even celebrated. There was, like, no birth announcements in the paper, just, like, for their wedding.
- [08:43]
B
If this person, this little baby, hadn't grown to be so prominent and people hadn't been poking around and digging around for the least little crumb of whatever, we probably wouldn't have even said any of this. Because it wouldn't have mattered to anyone, right?
- [08:56]
A
Nope.
- [08:57]
B
No.
- [08:57]
A
No, not at all.
- [08:58]
B
Okay, so moving on. Moving on. By the time the family moved back to Baltimore in the fall, T. Wallace was so sick that it was thought best to never let the baby be in the same room with him. Isn't that.
- [09:11]
A
It's super grim.
- [09:12]
B
He went downhill so very fast. Alice, he said, alice, please have the baby photographed so I can see her before I go. And she did. And he looked at the pictures for a long time.
- [09:23]
A
He. He's known for a while that this end was coming. And now he can feel it. He knows it's here. They're living in this crappy hotel. He knows he's going to leave his wife. He's going to fulfill what the parents said was going to happen. And, I mean, that alone had to put him in a really bad place.
- [09:40]
B
Well, Bessie Wallace's father, regardless of his feelings on the matter, died two weeks later after the photo session, and she was only five months old. So now what? Seems like Mama had burnt some bridges with her own family, which is really sad, I think. And anyway, they weren't going to help her now, which is really terrible. Luckily, T. Wallace's mother had a large sense of duty, I guess, and stepped in and invited Alice and Bessie Wallace to live with her in her fancy big house. Not a fancy big mansion house on a rolling lawn like you're probably thinking this is Baltimore. So it's a terrace townhouse, sort of like you might see in England, only red brick, right on his street.
- [10:20]
A
Did I ever gush about how much I love Baltimore? I went there when I was like after college and I just thought I was going to live there at some point in my life for some reason there was something about the city, you.
- [10:30]
B
Know, Lest we forget again, Baltimore, Maryland is considered the South. Right. In the house, family wise, were Grandma Warfield and her oldest son, Solomon, let's call him Uncle Saul, because everyone else did. Who was. He was the man of the house and the boss of all the money. And he gave his sister in law an allowance and also felt free to demand to be shown how she spent it and lecture her about her choices. See how it was. Women were treated as big children who had to be scolded and guided. And there was really not a lot you could do about it if you didn't have the right education to find some other way.
- [11:06]
A
Yeah. Her options were like nothing.
- [11:09]
B
Right.
- [11:09]
A
And you have to remember her personality. She came from this Victorian, hippies kind of, you know.
- [11:15]
B
Yeah.
- [11:16]
A
And suddenly she's in this house. Think of the most cram packed Victorian decor that you can, you know, Oriental rugs everywhere, little things you have to be dusted all the time. You know, it's very formal house. And that's a clash right there. Her past and her personality with these very strict people. I can't imagine the tension in that house right then.
- [11:38]
B
How sad for a laughing, happy person to be in a house where laughing out loud was considered very bad behavior. Mama is having her own troubles, we can be clear on that. But the baby is treated quite well. Fancy clothes, several nurses and nannies. This is a house with a whole staff. I mean, the main nanny had also brought up Bessie Wallace's father and her grandfather. That is old money.
- [12:04]
A
And that's a woman who must do her job very well because she's held it for a very long time.
- [12:09]
B
What do they do between generations? I've always wondered about that. Knit.
- [12:12]
A
I don't know. Maybe they get lent out to another family.
- [12:16]
B
Timing is everything. I don't know. Well, Grandma was always impressing upon baby Bessie Wallace how important it was to be a lady and a Southern lady, what that meant not touching her back to a chair, back 10 to grandma.
- [12:31]
A
Every time I read that, I thought of you and your grandma.
- [12:35]
B
And please, please, please, please don't marry a Yankee. She's four years old. What does she know from Yankees but evidently, whatever a Yankee is, I'm never going to marry one. Yes. Yes, ma'am.
- [12:44]
A
As she got a little bit older, Grandma's big event of the week was going to do the shopping on Saturdays. Now, it's not like us, you know, with our sneakers and our shopping carts. You know, she dressed for the event. There was gloves, and she dressed little Bessie Wallace, too. And they went off together and, you know, Grandma would point to the things that she needed and the servants walking behind her would purchase them for her so she never had to touch anything. But it was a kind of a be seen event because that's what all the matrons did.
- [13:14]
B
And Bessie Wallace was a very admired child. She was quite beautiful. Giant blue eyes, nicely curled blonde hair. Well turned out well. When Bessie Wallace was five, her world changed completely. She and Mama moved out of Grandma's house and back to that seedy cooking smells in the hallway apartment building where they lived with Papa, where he died when she was a baby. And what happened? There's no money. Mama's doing sewing to get a little salary. Gone were the nannies. Gone was the nice house and the calm days and the shopping trips. And you can still have the nice dresses until you grow out of them. And good luck to you. Bessie Wallace didn't know this. Of course she didn't. She's five. But old Uncle Saul had begun, how shall I say, an unwanted interest in his sister in law. And Mama had felt that the only escape was just to move out.
- [14:06]
A
Yeah, it had to be super uncomfortable. Their room is on the same floor as Saul's room, so they had to go down to use Grandma's bathroom and not the one on the floor their rooms were at. But Saul was right there, you know, next door in the hallway. And they would pass each other and, you know, Alice was beautiful and he was never married. He was kind of humorless. He probably didn't attract a lot of women's attention because he didn't try. But here's an easy one. It's easy, Pickens. She married my brother. She'll marry me, right?
- [14:40]
B
Well, Saul paid her back for her rejection, as he termed it, by randomizing her allowance. Passive aggressive. Some weeks would be purposely shorted so she could never be secure and pay her bills and never be happy, I guess is his goal. Dirtbag. They struggled along like this for about a year until Mama's older sister, Bessie Merriman, which is the Bessie part of Bessie Wallace's name, who was a widow, invited them to live with her. Yes, and at this point I think we need to start referring to. Since there is another Bessie in the house, let's start referring to her as Wallace, which is in fact what she started to go by.
- [15:18]
A
Too many Bessies in the house and too many cows named Bessie, she said.
- [15:22]
B
Right. And they're back to stability at least, if not splendor. You can still see Bessie's house. It's now the University of Baltimore Shaffer center for Public Policy. You can still study there, but you can't live there. Sorry. So Wallace went to a fancy co ed primary school called Ms. O'Donnell's that Uncle Saul was I guess, guilted into paying for. Hooray.
- [15:46]
A
She did have the Warfield name. So that's his family that's being represented. He had to have her go to a good school.
- [15:52]
B
Oh, I see. So it was selfish? Kind of.
- [15:55]
A
Oh totally. And plus it gave him more control over the. Over Alison Wallace.
- [16:01]
B
No gifts without strings, right?
- [16:04]
A
Not a single one.
- [16:05]
B
Well, she was top of the class there. And at 10 she was sent to the prestigious Arendelle School for girls with the daughters of the who's who. Again. A very popular girl who led the in academics and sports teams. She was remembered as being always cheerful, very thoughtful of others. And I think that might be her grandmother's Southern lady emerging. She was always taught to regard others feelings above her own. How to make small talk. It started early, that education, and only reinforced at her two fancy schools as she got to be a teenager. Much seemed to have been made of her quote, unfortunate and angular mannish features, by which I guess they mean high cheekbones and a beaky nose. And this criticism follows her through her whole life. But I want you to look at pictures of her. Seriously. I don't know where people are getting it. I think she's just beautiful. But maybe I was wondering if she has that print model face that the camera just loves. Unlike mine, no angles and I look like a balloon in photos.
- [17:12]
A
I don't recall ever thinking she wasn't attractive.
- [17:15]
B
It's a weird criticism that I've never understood. The same criticism always follows Maria, that third Romanov sister. And I thought she was the prettiest one of the bunch. So I don't know, maybe I have a different standard of beauty. It doesn't matter. But. Well, anyway. Alice and Wallace had a brief adventure in a respectable apartment house where mama tried a catering scheme but forgot to account for supply costs. Just like a child with a lemonade stand. Like she made fabulous food, she charged little prices. And then when the groceries Bills came. She's like, oh. And she had to be bailed out of debt by her sister Bessie.
- [17:54]
A
That was like, oh, that was a bad idea. But she was doing, you know, her sewing brought her a few pennies a month, and she was very good at it. Every time that Wallace saw an outfit on another girl and asked her mother to make it, she did. And nobody could tell the difference between the expensive store bought one and the one that Wallace was wearing.
- [18:16]
B
So she always looked great. But this thing, this little adventure in cooking got her daughter later tarred with the daughter of a boarding house landlady brush forever. I mean, honestly, later on, after what would happen with the king? People raked over her past for any little dang thing, you know, Illegitimate boarding house. And her mother had her drink cow's blood since it was thought to prevent consumption. She was worried she'd go the way of her father. And I am surprised they didn't just call her a vampire. I just like, oh, you okay?
- [18:55]
A
I'm, like, so grossed out by the thought. I think they did that on Survivor before they mixed, like, blood and milk and they had to do drink it.
- [19:02]
B
Oh, please don't give me a gag right now. My people make black sausage out of it.
- [19:10]
A
Well, that's cooked. And you know there's that in steak, right? You eat that instead. Yeah, it's different.
- [19:17]
B
Oh. Well, anyway, if you drink blood and milk willingly, please send us a message. Well, anyway, Mama bought a house at last. At last. Again, still there. We should just provide a list of addresses. Well, it was a far cry from anywhere Emily Post was living. It's about, let's see, I did the math. It's about a sixth of the price of Emily Post's house at this time. And Wallace thought, you know, hooray, hooray. At last, it's just me and my mother. We're a family. We're together in our own house. Oh, country air. Poor Port Wallace. Unbeknownst to her, her mother had been seeing, respectably seeing, this isn't a hole in the corner type of thing. A wealthy man named John Razin. And they were going to get married. Dropped the bomb.
- [20:03]
A
You know, once her period of mourning was over, she was actually dating, which was another thing that Grandma Anna wasn't really fond of, because Grandma Anna wore her widow's weeds her entire life, just like Queen Victoria. After her husband died, that was it.
- [20:17]
B
I know, but you can't. I mean, Alice needs security in an era in which women of her class had not been given the means to make their own way. A man, a husband is pretty much the only career you're going to be able to take after. And freedom at last from the war. Fields, you know, now the other guy's the boss of me and not uncle Saul. Well, Wallace lost her. Crap. No way. She freaked out. Slamming doors, running up and down the hall. She was going to run away. She would not go to the wedding. They couldn't drag her there like a total freak out. That created this all hands on deck kind of situation. To get her to dress up and show up downstairs in the parlor for the ceremony, like all the lady relatives possible had to come and tap dance and persuade and like, oh, your mother's happiness and blah, blah, blah. But finally they got her downstairs. But Wallace, during the wedding, snuck into the dining room where the wedding cake and the punch was little cucumber sandwiches and the like. And she stared at that cake. Boy howdy, she stared at it. And it was, and it still is, accustomed to bake little good luck charms in a wedding cake. Like little monopoly sized piece, things that you might get in your piece as a fortune telling thing. So like a heart for new love, a fleur de lis for prosperity, a little red bean for good luck, I assume not cooked because you could really miss that one.
- [21:39]
A
But it's also like the baby in a king cake, you know, down in New Orleans. Yeah, same thing.
- [21:45]
B
Yeah, well, I would hope to get an anchor for adventure, but nowadays they tie ribbons to them and they call it a cake pole. So you can just pull them out, I guess, because of choking hazards, you know. But back then they were just baked in wherever you couldn't determine with the ribbon where they were. And something came over Wallace fan and she just ripped that cake apart with her hands looking for all those dang good luck charms. And she was so intent on getting rid of them that she didn't hear everybody come in behind her. And she turned around and her hands are all covered with cake. And there was this moment when anything could have happened. She stared at them, they stared at her. And Mr. Razin started to laugh. And he grabbed her up and spun her around. And I guess he'd passed some kind of test because Wallace accepted, if not loved him from then on.
- [22:37]
A
I love that story.
- [22:39]
B
I was reading it.
- [22:40]
A
I'm like, you go, Mr. Razin. I don't care if you're like sipping from a bottle.
- [22:44]
B
Well, he had a trust fund. He didn't need to work, so he didn't. You what? That's the dream of us. All right. Like, yeah.
- [22:50]
A
Mr. Razin was also able to afford to send Wallace to a prestigious summer camp. So, you know, now that she's on board, there are perks to having this man in the house. She would rode horses, she played tennis, she had afternoon teas and formal Sunday dinners. It kind of sounds like a finishing camp if there was such a place where they learned manners and how to interact with boys and all that. And she.
- [23:16]
B
It's a glam.
- [23:17]
A
It is a glamp. And I will say she excelled at interacting with boys.
- [23:22]
B
Yes, but not in a skeevy, like, out of control way.
- [23:26]
A
Right? Correct. But she was quite flirtatious. She was very charming, an excellent conversationalist. And going to these camps just kind of gave her confidence in those abilities that she had because she was getting reactions.
- [23:40]
B
Yeah. And I just think it's telling that, yes, everyone can dig up dirt. Dig up dirt on her, but everyone approach says that during school, Wallis was charming. Everyone loved her. She took care of people. She was generous with her things. She was generous with her time. She was a nice person. So. So at 15, Wallace was sent to the most fashionable finishing school around, a boarding school called Old Fields, which is still operating today.
- [24:09]
A
Yeah, tuition, room and board for a year is $56,400, and it's about 20 miles outside of Baltimore. So if you want to send your girls to a very nice finishing school, there's one. It's very old.
- [24:21]
B
Well, she again, was a good student, reasonably popular with the other students, especially one. Mary Kirk. The daughter of a silversmithing magnate was a lifelong friend. We'll see her later. Just make a note of the name Mary Kirk. And like a later subject, Zelda Fitzgerald, she was adept at bending the rules. She would sneak out and in undetected to meet boys. Though it must be said, she did not develop a promiscuous reputation at all. She is remembered for being independent, for thinking rules were a nice guideline to start from, almost.
- [24:55]
A
That's like, the baseline. Let me exaggerate it just a little bit. She started to develop her sense of fashion at this time. She would wear, you know, men's shirts and bow ties with long skirts to be a little different, to be a little more stylish.
- [25:09]
B
There was a flirtation with wearing a monocle one semester.
- [25:12]
A
Okay. I love a monocle.
- [25:15]
B
That's funny.
- [25:16]
A
And she was also, you know, pushing those boundaries. She would. At one point, she got her mother to write her a note so that she could get out of algebra class, because math gave her the Hives, according to the note.
- [25:29]
B
Well, and here's what's kind of sad, is that they accepted that.
- [25:33]
A
I know. It reminds me of your math story that you. Your math teacher in high school.
- [25:39]
B
Oh, okay, I gotta just tell this story. This is 1985, so it's not 1955, let me just say. So here I am in 10th grade trigonometry class, and the teacher, first day of school must be said, he was an extraordinarily old man. So it's just his generation. I hold him, no ill will or whatever, but he gets up the first day and says, guys, I teach all levels of math at this school, so I'll be with you through your whole career. Then his next sentence was, girls, this will be your last year of math, so try to keep up. And if you can't keep up, please try to be quiet. So anyway, yes, this whole dismissal of ladies need to take math is not restricted to the old field academy.
- [26:21]
A
No.
- [26:22]
B
So her senior year, Mr. Rosin died, and Wallace's mother was inconsolable. Wallace herself handled the funeral arrangements and her mother's grief. It was kind of a surprise to Wallace, I think, to realize that her mother had actually loved Mr. Razin. She had thought it was more like a financial arrangement. Speaking of that, unfortunately, upon her return to school, she found out that Razin's trust fund was only for his lifetime. He had nothing to leave, and so mama had had to give up the house and move to an apartment.
- [26:53]
A
That just made me so sad, because once again, they need to rely on Uncle Saul and the Warfield money.
- [27:00]
B
Well, after Oldfield, there was never a thought of college, probably for nobody. Is that even a. Is that a double negative? There was not a thought of nobody. Nice girls came out, and then they got married. The end. And Alice thought that this was possibly the most critical period in her daughter's life. Wallace was sent herself to deal with Uncle Saul, who gave her enough money to get started on a season.
- [27:24]
A
He gave her two crumpled up ten bills to go buy a dress. I mean, but he did, you know, fund the rest of it. But he was watching all those pennies, that's for sure.
- [27:34]
B
Well, we started with the prom at Princeton, to which a male cousin was pressured to take her even though he had a girlfriend. And he rebelled. He's like, no, thank you. And he convinced a friend to take her instead, which is fine, fine, whatever. Who cares? She's at the Princeton prom, right? And good for her cousin for being like, you know what? I can't leave my Girlfriend not going to the prom? I'm not gonna do it. I'll find you an alternate. Well, she was off, man. Luncheons and teas and dances and football games, seeing and being seen. And in between, at home with her mother, ripping apart and remaking her limited wardrobe, keeping up appearances. Everybody else had a new dress for every occasion, and so did she. But it was the same old stuff she just wore last time, only taken apart Pretty in Pink style and put back together.
- [28:16]
A
And again, if she had met Emily Post, they could have, like, designed dresses together.
- [28:22]
B
Yep. Seemed to be a thing. Well, the big event was the main debutante ball in Baltimore called the Bachelor's Cotillion. And no matter how many debutantes applied to appear there, hundreds and hundreds. Evidently, only 47 would get invitations. And the rest would cry into their champagne glasses, I guess, and hide and.
- [28:42]
A
Pretend they had something else to do.
- [28:44]
B
Well, it was very stressful waiting for that invitation. But it came. It came. Her name was pretty powerful, and she'd been to the right schools and knew the right people, etc. So the dress was made after one that Irene Castle, a dancer, had worn. And the debutante was launched. Every one of the girls was expected to give her own ball. But Uncle Saul actually published in the newspaper, in the society pages that he wasn't about to foot the bill for such a thing. Which seems cruel, like, fine, don't pay, but just let it go. You know, like.
- [29:16]
A
Yeah, make people think they weren't invited.
- [29:18]
B
Oh, he is something else. Okay, so Wallace had more bows than anyone for a couple of years. She was really the belle of the ball. Here's a quote from one of her friends. She was so sophisticated that she made the rest of us feel a little bit like clumsy schoolgirls, which I think kind of came naturally, maybe to her.
- [29:34]
A
No, I think so, too. I think the one thing that kind of worked in her favor is that the US entered World War I the year that she debuted. So all of the balls that were notched down a little bit, the whole country was a little more serious. People were a little more cautious about where they were spending money. These are people that have a lot of money, and there were still people spending it. But to say that you were making, you know, it's part of the war effort, was probably an excuse she used.
- [30:02]
B
Uncle Saul actually put that in his little advertisement, too. Like, in these times of trouble, I think it's foolish to spend money on something so frivolous. So I guess she could use that as a legitimate excuse.
- [30:14]
A
Yeah, it's like blaming your parents when you don't want to go to that party because you know the police are going to come. My parents won't let me go.
- [30:21]
B
Is that what it's like? I don't.
- [30:22]
A
No, not really. It's the only thing. I just sent my kid off to college. It's the only thing I can think of.
- [30:27]
B
I was like, wow, I went to the wrong high school. I never had that scenario. Okay, all right.
- [30:32]
A
Oh, wait, you didn't.
- [30:33]
B
No, seriously, that.
- [30:34]
A
You. You mean the. The police coming in, breaking up the keggers?
- [30:38]
B
No, I don't think I ever went to a party where there was a keg.
- [30:42]
A
Now, I'm not talking a keg. I'm talking like 17 kegs.
- [30:45]
B
Oh, well, then, no.
- [30:47]
A
There was an epic one at my high school graduation out at Bolton Stables. Oh, epic all night long.
- [30:55]
B
What was I doing with my time?
- [30:56]
A
You were, you know, in grade school.
- [30:59]
B
I was going to say I was drinking vodka, but not in elementary school.
- [31:02]
A
No.
- [31:02]
B
Okay. So one of her mother's cousins finally took. Not pity. I don't think it's pity at all. I think one of her mother's cousins finally felt like, know what? I. I'm gonna do this. And she held this big, what they call a tea dance for her at last in Washington, D.C. with no expense spared. I mean, everyone came from Baltimore, and it was quite the occasion. And it was a triumph. I mean, hooray. So then Grandmama Warfield died, and Baltimore for her became this place of family obligations. Satisfactory behavior expected and stifling, kind of. After her recent long awaited triumph. Until another of her mother's cousins invited her for what would turn out to be a fateful visit to Pensacola, Florida.
- [31:46]
A
This is probably a good place to take a break. And when we come back, we'll find out what happens in Pensacola, Florida. Foreign.
- [32:33]
B
So Wallace is in Florida at her cousin Corinne's house. Of course, the household includes the man of the house, her husband, Lieutenant Commander Mustin, and their three children. There's lots of beach going. This is the first era of the tropical tan being fashionable. Saturday nights out to dances at the San Carlos Hotel, where Wallace learned to tango. That sounds fun. Museums and shopping. It's a true vacation. And sometimes Commander Mustin would bring some officers home to lunch with him. Probably his wife was like, can you please bring some dudes around? Some whimsical young men.
- [33:06]
A
Like, if you could bring so and so and so and so and so and so. They might hit it off with Wallace. I'm sure she Was playing matchmaker.
- [33:14]
B
Well, one day the angels sang as she was introduced to one of these men at the family lunch. To Win Spencer, who was a pilot for the Navy. What is a pilot exactly? Remember, this is 1916. So how many pilots can there even be in the universe? So remember how much of a lady magnet the Pan Am pilots were in Catch Me if youf Can. Did you ever see that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio?
- [33:41]
A
Oh, yes, I loved it.
- [33:42]
B
Okay, so that's the 1960s. So now amplify that with the machismo of unreliable equipment and a new frontier. And they are nearly irresistible.
- [33:55]
A
Oh, definitely. And Win, whose entire name was Earl Winfield Spencer. And Wynn is kind of, you know, cute and stylish, but his name was Earl Winfield Spencer. Just saying. He was actually one of the first pilots to earn their wings in the Pensacola Air Base, which I believe still exists.
- [34:14]
B
Well, at the time, it was the only air base in the country. He was handsome, and he had that allure of danger and sort of remote, which I think is always a red flag. He was playing it like he medium interested.
- [34:28]
A
Yeah. Oh, he was playing her. There's no question about it. He knew how to manipulate people.
- [34:34]
B
Well. And he would lose his crap if she went out with anybody else, which I think is a giant red flag.
- [34:40]
A
Yeah, but Wallace didn't see it that way.
- [34:42]
B
Well, two months of the back row at the movies and long walks on the beach, and I don't know what all the first kiss on the veranda at the dance led to. A proposal of marriage. This is two months after lunchtime.
- [34:56]
A
I know. It didn't take Walt long. He tried to teach her how to play golf, and she tried to pretend to be interested in the game. So they were both, you know, kind of faking things going a long way here.
- [35:07]
B
That is a very good start to a relationship. That's what I think. Well, her mother tried to talk her out of this. You know, the war is on. You'll probably be a young widow. Did that work with you, Alice? Did that work? That little argument?
- [35:22]
A
Maybe Alice had learned from her mistakes, and she didn't want the same future for her daughter.
- [35:27]
B
Well, and also, it's only been two months. And she said, for this, we sent you to the best school so you can live in temporary housing at a naval base with no money and no security. And then she said, and the book says, bitterly, I don't know if they were there listening. She says, mama supposedly said, I suppose you'll get what you want. You always do. Oh, poor Mama. Whose own life, her love life too, had gone so wrong. So wrong. Well, she did get what she wanted. Old Wallace. Because after a spectacular but quick two month round of parties for the new engaged couple, Wallace Warfield was married to Wynn Spencer in a society wedding with six bridesmaids, an orchestra, and a shower of rose petals as they left. I mean, it was the real deal.
- [36:16]
A
She designed her own wedding dress and it was made of white velvet, which seems an unusual choice for a wedding dress, but it was stunning. She knew how to dress for her figure, which was very flat.
- [36:29]
B
Angular.
- [36:30]
A
Okay, that's the word we're using. Yeah, she did have a lot of curves going on. But she looked very stylish in her wedding gown.
- [36:38]
B
I have to tell you, the 20s and the 30s were the perfect time to be super angular. I mean, those dresses with the bias cut and the drapery, I would look terrible in them.
- [36:48]
A
But she, look, go look at the Pinterest board. Because she knew how to wear clothes.
- [36:54]
B
So it was the first night of their honeymoon when the new Mrs. Spencer realized that her new husband had a serious drinking problem. Oh boy. Merry Christmas.
- [37:05]
A
You know, he pulled out a flask because it was a dry resort, but he had that all planned. He knew that was going to be a problem. So he covered himself and they. And started drinking.
- [37:15]
B
On base in Pensacola, the preparations for war were ramping up and Wynn was training new pilots. There was a crash almost every week. Think about how stressful that is. A plane would crash somewhere on base and there'd be a bell and you're forbidden from getting on the phone when you hear it. That's like a base rule. You must not get on the phone when that bell is ringing because it ties up the lines for people that needed to use them. And so here she is sitting there. Is he going to be dead? Is he going to be dead? And every wife was like, is it mine? Is it mine? Is it mine? And it never was. It never was. But this period of her life gave her a fear of flying so intense that she hardly ever took an airplane for the rest of her life unless pressed and probably medicated.
- [37:55]
A
Well, he was sure showing her how to medicate.
- [37:58]
B
Well, he was under a lot of pressure because all these new pilots were his responsibility. And he started coming home drunk almost every. And if you think about it, you know, if you lose a student in that way almost every week, I guess that is, that is stressful. I don't mean to make light of his work. By day, he was single handedly creating a large part of the U.S. air Force or airborne war effort. It wasn't the Air Force, but so he got a promotion to Boston. He continued to drink and built something magical. And then to California, another promotion in quick succession again where she didn't know.
- [38:29]
A
Very many people, but she kind of got over that. Wallace was always an expert. She was very skilled at getting the names of connections, you know, so and so told me to look you up. She kept track of them all. I can't imagine how big that. Like now we have it all on our phones. Right?
- [38:44]
B
Right.
- [38:45]
A
Should she hauling like this big Rolodex around this big old fashioned spinny Rolodex? I don't know. This is how she built her life, you know, how she built her social circles. They were moving around quite a bit. And having introductions to people in society that were at the place she was going only led to more introductions. That's what she was doing with her time. In addition to trying to learn to cook from the Fanny Farmer cookbook.
- [39:11]
B
I think it's funny that she used to take that book to the butcher shop to show the guy how to cut meat. And I'm like, he probably knows. But okay.
- [39:19]
A
She had to micromanage it, you know, she wanted all the portions to be exactly the same size so nobody would feel weird when they came to the buffet.
- [39:28]
B
People just don't think that much about the buffet. I'm here to tell you, as the wife of a wedding caterer, it's like, oh, look, a big spoon of whatever nobody's examining for the biggest piece of chicken. I don't think. I guess I'm not there all the time. So even though he himself was training hundreds of men to go fight, Win was ashamed kind of of himself, I guess, and angry that he wasn't being sent to Europe. He just couldn't comprehend that he was more help making a hundred guys to go than going himself. Like 99 times more valuable. But he just became, I guess, sulky. Like he would take it all out on Wallace. He wouldn't talk to her for days at a time. And here's his new wife, left mostly to herself all day, mostly to her social endeavors. But I. I think she'd rather hang out with her husband. But he didn't give her that option. But especially after the war when he didn't have as many responsibilities, Wallace and Wynn would attend social events together. When's the commander of their base, you know, Even though all he wanted to do was empty his flask, he couldn't avoid those kind of Social obligations.
- [40:32]
A
She made him look good, but I don't know that he ever actually acknowledged that.
- [40:37]
B
No. And he found a way to make sure that his wife would be on edge. Like, he'd say something to her right before they went in the room, and he wanted to make her be nervous about what he was going to say and how he was going to act. And his whole goal, I guess, is to make sure she didn't have any fun. He'd accuse her of flirting and of disrespecting him in front of people. And often he would just abandon her at the party or whatever. Like for days, just leave, take the car and go. So she'd have to ask for a ride home. And everyone on the base knew was the thing. You know, you can smile and you can keep up appearances, whatever you can. And your friends aren't going to say anything to your face because everybody's well brought up. Right. But your home life is the subject of gossip. And I have to say, from here, get used to that, sister.
- [41:26]
A
But, yeah, it lasts a long time.
- [41:29]
B
But it was so painful for her at this time and good training for later, but so sad. And then it escalated again. He would lock her in the bathroom and leave the house for hours at a time. Smash things while yelling at her. And so much drinking. So much drinking. Well, the next year or so got so much worse. Physical violence, throwing furniture at her. You've gone beyond. Right? We can all agree this is not a red flag anymore. Accusing her of conspiring with his bosses to make his life hard at work, which is ridiculous. When she went to her mother and then her Uncle Saul to tell them she was going to file for a divorce, the responses were, how dare you bring this disgrace upon us? Listen to that. Rather they would rather she get abused than divorced.
- [42:17]
A
Right. They thought she was being dramatic. And it can't be that bad. You don't want to disgrace the family. And Uncle Saul's like, I'm gonna cut you out of my will.
- [42:25]
B
Yeah. There were firm warnings that no one in the entire family would help her financially if she went through with it. And think how desperate this is if you're in this situation and the only people that can help you think you're the crazy one. She's like, I'm not going back to him. So you know what, Mother? You say, all you have is a sofa. I'm gonna sleep on that sofa. And how about not worrying about emotional support or anything? Obviously, you're not going to give it to me. So she did. She Took up a space in that tiny living room of her mother's house. She had to work now, Mama hostess at the Chevy Chase Club in Washington, dc. She was working for a wage, you.
- [42:59]
A
Know, but she was able to pay her bills and she didn't have to go crawling to Uncle Saul every time. So that might have felt good.
- [43:06]
B
I don't know. It might have felt desperate. She hadn't been brought up to it at all, that's the thing. So when from a distance, he'd been sent to Hong Kong, the further the better, I say. Sent her money every month at least. And with him gone, Wallace began to go out. And she knew quite a lot of people here in Washington, and soon kind of had friend of a friend at herself, into the highest of society. And it was at one Embassy Ball. We're at an Embassy Ball. That's where we are. She met a diplomat from Argentina who was a junior ambassador named Felipe.
- [43:40]
A
Felipe Espil, who's so exotic.
- [43:43]
B
I don't have a picture of him, but I picture a young Desi Arnett.
- [43:46]
A
Oh, that's funny. Yeah.
- [43:49]
B
Well, he soon became her known escort, companion and tutor into the finer things of life around town. And Wallace really thought I. She really genuinely thought that they were on track to be married once she was free of win. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, said Espiel. Not so fast. This is. This is not at all that. No, no, no, no, no. Sorry I gave you that impression. You know, Wallace realized that it was just because she was married that this had even started in the first place. A delightful interlude, he thought. Whereas she had thought this was her freaking salvation. It was a horrible blow to her. And as much as we've been led to see her as calculating, etc, it seems so innocent to me. Sort of like I found a life raft. This person makes me feel beautiful and happy, and he and I will be married and this mistake will be fixed. Do you know what I mean? It's not like she set out to trap him or anything.
- [44:45]
A
No, no, not at all. And I. But I always think it's interesting that for a woman who was raised to learn about societal expectations and, you know, keeping up the family appearances and all that, that she would think that divorcing her husband and marrying this guy that she was dating while she was married would fly.
- [45:05]
B
I think she felt secure enough in her position in Washington, D.C. like, maybe it was a little naivete.
- [45:11]
A
Yeah, well, she was very determined and she was very confident. So if that's the plan that came up in her head. Yeah. Fortunately. Fortunately, I can't believe this sentence is about to come out of my mouth. Fortunately, her cousin Corinne, who she'd gone to visit in Pensacola, her husband died. Huh. I know. It's very sad. You know what kind of surprised me in her story is her relationship with her cousins. Even as a child, she would go with them on vacation. So she had this. A larger family that she was involved in that we don't usually hear too much about her. We think of her as being like this lone wolf. And that wasn't the case at all. But Corinne decided that she wanted to go to Paris. And would Wallis like to go with her?
- [45:54]
B
And note to self, find influential cousins who want to travel and pay my way. Note to self, that's right.
- [46:01]
A
When she came back from this vacation excursion, whatever. Wynn had sent her a pile of letters. He wasn't drinking anymore. He wanted her back. He'd given her all this thought.
- [46:14]
B
I miss you. I'm sorry. Please come back to me. Come live in China with me. And, like, what are you gonna. You know, what are you gonna do? She agreed to go. Word is she may have also been entrusted with some official papers to carry. Pointed to later is like, she was a spy. That was a very common scenario. And her husband had been the commander of a base. The commander's wife is certainly trustworthy to carry papers in her luggage across the ocean. That was not Wallace meeting someone at Perkins and getting a briefcase, you know.
- [46:47]
A
In the parking lot behind the dumpster.
- [46:49]
B
I know.
- [46:50]
A
It wasn't even like Josephine Baker, you know, transporting the documents written in invisible ink in her bra. She did go and it took six weeks to get there. She said it was a slow boat to China.
- [47:04]
B
And it literally was a slow boat to China.
- [47:05]
A
It was literally, yeah.
- [47:08]
B
So when met her after her long trip and the first thing he says is he's bragging that he hasn't had a drop to drink since he'd heard she was coming. Which, of course, fell apart almost immediately. Almost immediately. A, quote, kidney infection from the bad water caused her to have to seek help from a doctor. And the word is that. That evidently Win had kicked her so hard in the abdomen that she was bleeding internally. So, of course we're going to say out loud that it's a kidney infection. Of course, of course. He's all, forgive me, forgive me. But as soon as she recovered, she told Win she was filing for divorce and all bets were off. And now he would hit her in public and embarrass her and insult her and laugh. He just Became a super winner. And I want to tell you, this is not. This is not a part for children. I think this whole. I don't know, maybe next five, 10 minutes. I don't think children. I. I think removal from the room of the under 18s is called for here. Or, you know, turn the volume down for a little while. Come back later. But get this, I'm just. I hope all the kids are out of the room. Cover your ears, kids, if you're still here. So either Win dragged her to brothels, making her watch all his action. Under threat of killing her in her sleep, she fled to friends and took care to keep away from when, you know, with a friend from the Pensacola days who was in China, or Wallace visited these places willingly, undergoing a course of specialized training in erotic massage, among other things, where she became a prostitute herself for both men and women. What? Where did that come from? You asked that last thing. Wait, I did not expect that. Swerve. No, where did it come from? It came from the British intelligence Service. Later, in 1930s, 11 years after this, a report on Wallace that was commissioned by the Prime Minister to see what the Prince of Wales's girlfriend had been up to. And you know what? I absolutely buy that you'd want to investigate someone you might one day end up, you know, being your queen. But this quote China dossier, as this report was called, no one's ever seen it themselves. It's my cousin's friend saw it, or I've heard it exists, or people I know say she was selling drugs. I mean, I guess heroin, opium and gambling and sleeping with the Chinese general and posing for nudie pictures. The whole thing is so confusing to me. And it is here that I want to say that fully half of the biographies that I have read sort of gleefully talk of blackmail and boyfriends and botched abortions and spying and when's really gay. And I don't know what all I'm just like. I do not know, like everything possible is being thrown at the wall in hopes that something will stick, I guess. Release the dossier then. Where is it? I refuse to accept any of this until it is public domain.
- [50:05]
A
Right? And even then, however, the purpose of that dossier wasn't to find that Wallace had this sparkling past. It was to make her look bad. So any little teeny tiny nugget of that they could spin with their imagination into something bigger. Like maybe she walked by these massage parlors, which she would have because she's in this exotic city and they're there. But oh, here she was. I did see her walking by there. Oh, that must have mean that she was going to take these lessons and learn the art of love and.
- [50:41]
B
Well, and I just think like her friend said that when used to drag her there on pain of a beating. Which actually sounds more like the narrative that we've had so far.
- [50:52]
A
Yeah, that one I. That one I believe. I can't even step into believing that she did all this on her own, like.
- [51:00]
B
Well, other books say, if not more truthfully, because honestly, who knows, but at least more logically that Wallis kind of skates over this period in her memoirs a little bit. So she hints at travel and flirtations. I mean, can't a person just have a simple affair if she wants to, without all of this other stuff being dragged in? I almost think her biggest crime was not keeping up appearances. I guess like being careful to have someone with you, maybe to prevent talk, but I mean, how were you supposed to know that all this talk was going to happen later? You're just living your life and you know, maybe she did have a lover, but you know, how many people in their 20s and 30s have a boyfriend or met someone at the club? It's not like an unheard of crazy, bizarre thing to happen. It's just. Why does this all have to be. I don't know.
- [51:48]
A
Well, you could also spin somebody's husband is taking you out for lunch and that suddenly becomes an affair. No, it's just a meal.
- [51:57]
B
So geez, who knows? You know what? Nobody knows. And anyone who tells you definitively is pulling your leg. That's all I'm saying. Poor old Wallace. Well, this expose made up or not, is all in the future. So for now let's go back to good old 1926, which is actually not that good because she had two bouts of, how shall I say, intestinal bad health in two different cities. A month in Shanghai and one in Seattle, which for the gleeful gossips are going to paint as an abortion that left her infertile. So during a stay back at her mother's house in D.C. she learned that Virginia, the state of Virginia, had a liberal divorce law. And if she could prove that Wynn had, quote, deserted her for three years and she had been living in the state for a year, she could get a divorce. So Win provided her with a backdated statement two years back, dated that he chose not to live with her ever again. And so Wallace set up house in a residential hotel in Virginia to await her paperwork and I guess read a.
- [52:58]
A
Lot of books, having that information and having read them gave her a lot of fodder for cocktail talk, right?
- [53:05]
B
Oh, I guess that's true. Well, until. And then we need. Here's what we need. We need a fateful event sound effect. So maybe I'll add that in post. Like a thunder sound or electricity. We'll have to think what it could be. Hold on. I've got a lelly waiter. If you guys ever hear a bunch of elevators, I'm sitting here in public in front of a glass window, right in front of a pretty major elevator at the center Central library. And I feel a bit like a little monkey in a zoo because everybody's looking at me. Sometimes they back up and look again at me. Hi, everybody. So if you hear an elevator, I don't know what to do about that there. It's right outside the door. No one has banged on the door yet, so that's the best I could hope for. I wish this was live. If somebody came up here with a cup of coffee for me, I'd let him in and let him sit in my little, little, little chair here.
- [53:59]
A
Or if they just waved a history chicks flask outside the window, would that work?
- [54:03]
B
I think that would get you the express. You could sit in my chair. You could talk podcasts.
- [54:08]
A
Oh, yes, of course. I have to say, if you're ever in Kansas City, you should definitely go to that library. It is so cool. I take my out of town visitors there. Yeah, it's an old bank, right. And they rehabbed it into a library, but they kept a lot of the architectural elements. Bar, marble floors and guilt and all kinds. It's so fancy. It just feels like important to be in that library.
- [54:33]
B
Yes, I feel super important in this class.
- [54:36]
A
Hi.
- [54:37]
B
Hi. I got another person. I'm always getting smiled at. I think it's because I have this microphone with this giant green thing like a Muppet on it. It's pretty clear I'm doing something, but nobody knows what. Okay. So anyway, let's go back to this. Let's go back to Wallace. Well, I don't know. Okay. I don't know if you remember Mary Kirk. Kirk from high school. Mary of the silversmithing fortune. Well, she's not Mary Kirk anymore. Now she's Mary Raffray of New York. And Wallace was invited to spend Christmas with them. She had turned 30 that year. Hooray. Mary introduced her to a couple she knew named Ernest and Dorothea Simpson. And at first she hung out with both the Simpsons, but after a bit of time, it became just Ernest that she'd meet up with.
- [55:22]
A
And Ernest was tall and he was handsome. He was very well dressed. He was intelligent and sophisticated. He loved to go and show Wallace all the art at galleries and museums and then take her out to a fashionable lunch. And Dorothea, the wife of Dorothea, was like, oh, no, this isn't working at all. She saw it. I don't think she was surprised.
- [55:46]
B
You know, who he looks like to me is a handsomer version of the Muggle from Fantastic Beasts.
- [55:52]
A
Okay, I can see it.
- [55:53]
B
My marriage is in trouble. He said, don't worry. It's not important that I'm married.
- [55:58]
A
And they also had a child.
- [55:59]
B
It's like, you know, a. They always say that it could have been true, but still. Then he said, won't you marry me when we're both free? First Ernest was divorced, and then Wallace's came through, and he asked her again. And she said to her mother, which seems so subtly to me, I guess, what are you gonna do? I'm very fond of him and he's kind, which will be a contrast. She said, I really feel tired of fighting the world alone and with no money. It's not really a love match, you might say. But still their senses of humor matched. He was half British, half American, so he was super interesting and exotic. In fact, he had become a British citizen so he could fight on that side in World War I.
- [56:38]
A
He dropped out of Harvard to do.
- [56:40]
B
That, so he had enough money so she didn't have to scrimp and worry anymore. And I can see the allure of that. And. And it was genuine companionship. And they liked being in each other's company. And so really, that is probably at this time and anytime maybe a really good basis for a successful marriage.
- [56:58]
A
Yeah, I think he loved her. Yeah, I. I mean, I. I think she liked him a lot, was very fond of him, like a lot, a lot. Yeah. But she is, like, emotionally damaged. Her entire life didn't prepare her to be a loving, warm, fuzzy woman. You know, it taught her that she's gonna have to scheme a little bit. She's gonna have to always try and get think up for herself first. And that's not really a good way to enter a marriage either. But I think they worked very well together. And I. But I think the love was on his side.
- [57:33]
B
Right. I think those trust issues just never faded. When was a monster, he was a monster. And so I don't blame her.
- [57:42]
A
No, I don't either. And those wounds, they don't ever heal. You're like left with Scars and physical and emotional.
- [57:48]
B
And so they were married. Not in a fancy ceremony. That's okay, though. But after a first year of being kind of on the fringes of things, they kind of had a house not in the right neighborhood. And she felt out of place and awkward. Wallace decided to take things in hand. And I guess what we'd say now is network toward her goal of creating a circle of friends again and being a part of things things. And so when she was determined, she just made a plan. They moved to five Bryanston courts, which just sold for £6 million, by the way. She had a cook and a valet and a ladies maid and housemaids and a chauffeur. And soon she has worked up to hosting and being hosted by titled aristocracy and diplomats and other society hostesses.
- [58:37]
A
Yeah, she was really making a name for herself as a. As a hostess because her parties were different. She brought her American aesthetic to them and her creativity, and they were unique because only Wallis Simpson could throw that party. She would call her cocktails KT's, but she would shake her cocktails and make a big dramatic show of it and have these exotic, weird combinations of American and posh food on the buffet and just, you know, make sure everybody was mingling and everyone was having a good time. And they were. And so once that word got out, that's shot her right up and, you know, the hostessing echelon, her house became.
- [59:21]
B
Quite the place to be. All right, well, I think it's time to take a little break now that Wallace is finally on top. And when we come back, we'll see if there is going to be another fateful event sound effect in Wallace's future. People in my house know that I am the one that does the laundry. And the hilarious thing is that nobody has made me do the laundry. It. I find it very, very satisfying what you like, gather things, you put them in, things happen while you're doing other things.
- [60:13]
A
Okay?
- [60:14]
B
And then fresh smelling clothes come out and I got this laundry sauce. And then when you open that dryer and that smell comes out, it just feels fancy. So not only do I like laundry, now there's like that little tiny dopamine hit of opening dryer. My favorite scent is the Italian bergamot, which until about 30 seconds ago, I pronounced bergamot. There you go. Y'all earn learn a little something. It has notes of mandarin and pink peppercorn in it and cypress and, you know, think how fancy that is when your laundry detergent has notes of anything except same old same Old. True.
- [60:56]
A
Well, laundry sauce is a premium scented laundry pod that doesn't just clean your clothes, it elevates them. Which is basically what you were just saying. You can say goodbye to that stale, overused detergent scent and hello to luxurious cologne quality freshness that lasts. And I tell you, I also took the Italian bergamot and my boys, they were fighting over the Siberian pine. And to have boys fighting over the scent of a laundry detergent just blew my mind. It smells that good.
- [61:30]
B
Laundry sauce is not just about being fancy, it is also about function. The stains of summer are no match for laundry sauce. The grass stains, the mud stains from gardening, all of those inevitable wine and barbecue sauce stains are going to get from entertaining outside. None of it is too much for laundry sauce sauce.
- [61:53]
A
It's not just laundry pods. Laundry sauce also has fabric softener, dryer sheets, regular scent boosters, and fabric fresher spray. So they have a full range of.
- [62:04]
B
Fabric care products and they offer a full money back guarantee. So if you don't get better smelling cleaner laundry, you get a full refund, no questions asked. And for a limited time only, our listeners get 20% off your entire order when you use code chicken chicks@laundrysauce.com.
- [62:23]
A
That'S 20% off your order@laundry sauce.com with promo code Chicks. After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you.
- [62:34]
B
It's time to make laundry day the best day of the week. We are back. Society hostess extraordinaire, Wallace on top of her game. Hooray. One of Wallace's friends, an American named Consuelo Morgan Thaw, who I would guess was named after one of our two previous Consuelos Vanderbilt, or is Naga. See episode nine. Anyway, my dear, my sister's hosting a hunting party and asked us to go as chaperones, which I. We gotta kind of explain this because Consuelo's sister, Lady Thelma Furness, was married, but that's not who she was going to be there with. Aha. So thus, you need a chaperone. Maybe this was Wallace's mistake in China. Remember I said a nod to appearances sometimes covers a lot of sins? So Wallace is the COVID for a lot of sins. Let's just put it that way. So, Wallace, we cannot go. My husband's mother has fallen ill. We need another married couple. Can I count on you? The Prince of Wales will be there. Aye aye. Aye, aye, aye. Wallace was sort of petrified. Like, no freaking way have I Reached level five on this thing, this social timing. I am not there yet. I mean, I sort of know your sister, Lady Fern, but the Prince of Wales, it's like she broke out in a cold sweat. Like, oh, no, I don't know. And they persuaded her, though, Lady Furness and Consuelo. And on the way out there on the train, she asked to be shown how to curse you to a member of the royal family. And her friend just laughed like, you're American. You don't have to curtsy. And she's like, I swear to God, if you don't show me this instant, I am gonna throw myself off this train. Okay, Dang.
- [64:30]
A
Like, everyone's laughing.
- [64:31]
B
Here's how you curtsy, if it's that important to you.
- [64:34]
A
God dang. Her husband was British, and this was her adopted country, so I can kind of see. Plus, she was really nervous and, you know. You know how your mind spins, right?
- [64:49]
B
I know. Poor old Wallace. She'd had stress headaches and had worked herself up into a major cold by the weekend. But it went really well. It went really well. People loved the Simpsons. Even the prince, who was known for liking Americans anyway, as he was currently sleeping with two of them that were.
- [65:07]
A
Married, including Lady Thelma Furness.
- [65:10]
B
Yeah, they were a thing.
- [65:11]
A
He liked his American married women. They were probably very safe for him.
- [65:16]
B
And so there is an apocryphal story about central heating that I just really want to say. Although everyone says it didn't happen because she was, A, too nervous and B, too well brought up to start in on him like this. And so, purportedly, the prince opens up his conversation with, I imagine you miss central heating out here in the country. And she is supposed to have said, I'd expected something more original from the Prince of Wales, which was supposed to have delighted him with her brashness and bravery. And evidently that never happened.
- [65:46]
A
But I bet she did say some brash and brave things, because that's her kind of. Her personality.
- [65:52]
B
Yeah. Maybe. It took a couple cocktails in, though, because she was pretty dang nervous. But really, it did. It went okay. Her first real country house hobnobbery with the official knobs was good, and Thelma had really appreciated the last minuteness, and they started hanging out a little bit more. And since Lady Furness was the prince's mistress, which was a pretty open situation, which seemed to be okay with every human on earth except for Thelma's husband, Marmaduke.
- [66:23]
A
Sorry, I shouldn't laugh. That's like an old established name that.
- [66:28]
B
Is A name that has a zero chance of making it to the preschool backpack hook rack these days. I mean, prove me wrong. Send me a picture of Marmaduke in preschool. I. Man, I don't know.
- [66:42]
A
At least you could call him Marmaduke Duke.
- [66:44]
B
Oh, that's true.
- [66:45]
A
Which is kind of cool, I guess.
- [66:47]
B
Although a little confusing if you're running with the titled aristocracy, but so be it. So Wallace is now, as we say, level five social climbing. She was actually presented at court to the king and queen. Yes, with the feathers on her hair and the white dress. And you can bet she took lessons on this curtsy because it's more of a big deal now. See, according to British law, she had become a British subject upon her marriage. And luckily the rules had loosened up. It used to be if you were a divorced person, you could just forget it. Well, now, as long as you could prove that you were the, quote, innocent party, that's fine. Okay, welcome. Bienvenidos. And Wallace had that handy dandy note from Wynn that had gotten her the divorce in the first place that said, basically, I myself choose to never live with you again. I'm the one who leaves. Blah, blah, blah. Proof enough for the committee. And this actually did happen. I actually do love this little brash statement. While people were walking around and doing their thing, the Prince of Wales said to one of his companions, something ought to be done about these lights. They're making the women look ghastly. Well, later he complimented Wallace's dress. Yes, and she had the most Elizabeth Bennett moment of all time. She said, but, sir, I understand that you think we all look ghastly.
- [68:11]
A
See, it's comments like that. She was making them back at the hunting weekend. I'm telling you.
- [68:16]
B
Well, she made the boy blush. That's all that you need. Well, Thelma kept inviting them places over the next few years, and of course, often including the Prince of Wales. And the Simpsons were soon in the Prince's inner circle. Isn't that amazing for these two middle class people to be swept up into this world? I mean, the Prince even threw her a surprise 37th birthday party.
- [68:38]
A
That's a big deal.
- [68:39]
B
Now old Thelma was headed back to her hometown, to old New York City, to help out her twin sister, Gloria Vanderbilt, with an ugly custody battle over her daughter. Little Gloria Vanderbilt. That's the one you're thinking of. Of little Gloria. Pink jeans with a swan on your butt. Still my heart. And a gold stretchy belt. You're talking about little Gloria Vanderbilt. So Thelma asked Wallace to keep an eye on the prince while she was gone and left. Oh, sister, you just left a mistress shaped hole in a very lonely man's life. Maybe we should talk about this man right now. Let's. Let's call him David. Because his close friends did. Did Flails and his family did.
- [69:26]
A
They couldn't call him by his full name. His full name was Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David.
- [69:32]
B
Yeah, it's probably best just to stay with one, isn't it? He was born the oldest of the six children of George V and Mary of Tech. And I keep reading that his parents were affectionate, but I do not see it. Maybe it was by the standards of the day. Literally, it took them three whole years to discover that the nanny was pinching him every time he was brought in for the children's hour. You know, that one hour day that parents would see their children clean, children sort of tired, children perfect. That same nanny that used to pinch him right before he went in so he would be grumpy and the parents would send him out to her again, was purposely starving his next younger brother for three years.
- [70:12]
A
Yeah, that's not really affectionate. That's not even the standard of the time.
- [70:15]
B
Yeah, I don't think so. I think everybody was afraid of their dad and. And not that into talking to their mother. So anyway, he became Prince of Wales at 16 and he served in World War I, though no one would let him anywhere near the danger to which he is supposed to have said, my father has three more sons. Who cares what happens to me? So the affection wasn't there anyway. Like, he assumed, I am a cog in this machine. I don't know that anyone's gonna give one crap. Can you please just let me be a man? Nope, they wouldn't. They would not. They would not. As a young man, he became quite popular among the working classes because he traveled through impoverished areas and seemed genuinely concerned for them. He listened. I think that's so critical. He was a popular member of the royal family, though they themselves saw him as sort of a loose cannon who wouldn't toe the line. You know, he was also given the hairy eyeball for all of his capering around with married women and his generally kind of breezy attitude toward tradition and basically kingship worried his parents exceptionally much.
- [71:25]
A
Yeah, there was like two faces to him because the people just adored him because he did what the other rulers did not do and he met with them. There's that other side of people who know him and know what his responsibilities are supposed to Be and seriously question his ability to do it.
- [71:43]
B
I know, I know. And they're not going to let him change anything. You know, I just don't think people I. E. Princes next in line were given any kind of proper training. Like, they were just kind of thrown in that, like, the. The rulers didn't want to have an assistant. If it was me, I would be like, please take all this over one less thing. But, like, they seem to not want that to happen.
- [72:05]
A
Well, maybe history speaks thanks to that reason. You know, Am I? That's like a good way to leave your job that you only have until you die.
- [72:16]
B
Oh, I guess that's true. Surely we're beyond that in the 1930s, but maybe not. Okay, so. So now it begins. The Simpsons and the prince were best friends forever. And this is what Wallace wrote back to her aunt Bessie on the occasion of Ms. Furness's abandonment. We've inherited the young man from Thelma. He misses her. He's always calling us up when the result is one late night after another. And by late, I mean 4am Ernest has cried off a few, but I have had to go on. I'm sure the gossip will now be, I'm the latest. It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriend's bows. I'm the comedy relief and we like to dance together. But I always have Ernest hanging around my neck, so we're all safe.
- [73:00]
A
Well, that's a little whitewashing of it, isn't it?
- [73:02]
B
Yeah, because honestly, Thelma was out the backup lady, Frida Ward, also American and married, gone. Ernest Simpson was no fool. You know, the prince isn't coming to your house to see you. The Muggle. Yeah.
- [73:18]
A
At the beginning he was like, this is very exciting. You know, let's ride this as long as we possibly can. You know, hanging out with this circle of in society. This is really cool. And then he's like, well, wait, what? And he's kind of backing off. He's got a lot of problems at work. The shipbuilding business or the ship brokering business is not as busy as it always has been. He's losing money. He's got pressures there. And this is just like, okay, I got too much going on. I'm going to back away from this because that's just a lot to deal with that I have to fight for my wife from the future king of England.
- [73:53]
B
Yeah. What a weird position to be in, Right? Like, historically, I guess. Strangely, it's an honor. I'm putting up a Question mark or honor to have your wife favored by the king. I mean, you know, he's the future king. But evidently, Wallace had reassured him that she wanted to stay married. Like both hymns, Ernest and the Prince. I do want to stay married to Ernest. I mean, he was. Ernest was now in the inner circle. But I just like, how embarrassing. Although everyone was kind of used to it. Do you know what I mean?
- [74:24]
A
Oh, yeah, it was. It was an old tradition.
- [74:27]
B
So I just.
- [74:28]
A
Why mess with tradition, Beckett?
- [74:30]
B
So meanwhile, Wallis is so in charge at the prince's houses that one long term butler was fired for not obeying her. I mean, this is no joke. The royal florist, Wallace, had called to request something specific. And the florist called and said, do you have some new housekeeper named Mrs. Simpson? And the person on the other end of the line is like, let's just put it this way. Orders from Mrs. Simpson should be followed. You know what? If it works for everybody, I guess let's just keep going. Sounds fun.
- [75:07]
A
Except for the fired guy.
- [75:09]
B
Except for the fired guy. That doesn't sound fun at all. Well, everyone else learned their lesson. I guess that was an education in. Oh, I guess. Okay, so both Simpsons got catapulted right on up there in society. They were guests at Prince George's wedding, the youngest brother in the family. What? I. Okay. You know, the king and queen objected. They. They saw the name, they took the name off. There was a state ball ahead of the wedding. They're like, these people are not coming to the state ball. They're not coming to the wedding. And Wallace's boyfriend, the heir to the throne, told his father, then I'm not going to the state ball. Then I'm not going to his wedding. And then you can explain that.
- [75:51]
A
And also, besides, it's really good for American and British relations for us to be accommodating to this American, which was fooling nobody.
- [76:00]
B
But I guess that's a good excuse.
- [76:02]
A
Okay, sure.
- [76:04]
B
So I don't know if this is tone and deaf or what. Wallace was loving her glamorous new lifestyle, even to her husband's face. She called herself Wallace in Wonderland. I. And I really just see this whole season of her life. I guess she saw it as this amazing but temporary, temporary visit to the other side of the mirror, you know, and its lifestyle. But I think for David, the Prince of Wales, now that we know him better, let's just call him David. I think for him it was true love. And it's not some China dossier magic massage trick, right? I Mean, just so many books want to make this weird and inhuman and strange. I mean, you'll read any number of theories that are more lurid than the next about how could someone so ugly keep him interested. It must be brothel education. It's like, God dang.
- [77:01]
A
And then that's when they start talking about her looks as being unattractive and her voice is being brash and her manners rude and her background is from nothing. This is really the time in her life when all that is starting to get out there. And like, you know when you step on some bubble gum on a hot sidewalk and you scrape it off on your foot and you get it mostly off, there's always just a little pit that sticks. And that's going to stick. It's going to stick with her forever.
- [77:27]
B
My theory is that David was nothing more or less than a very lonely man deep inside. You're really raised not to trust that many people. I think he and his brothers, they, you know, what are people wanting from you? That's always got to be in the back of your mind. So she was a Southern raised woman, taught the arts of what? Flattery and drawing out of conversation by being a good listener. She was interested or pretended to be. I don't know, I don't think it matters in his work. I think it was genuine. And sometimes it's the head you have to get to note, not the pee pee, you know what I mean? And was anyone there but them? No. So what? I don't know. What, what is all this talk about like, oh, well, it must be these exotic tricks of china. I don't think so. I just don't think so.
- [78:18]
A
He was 40, he was older and this is really the first time he had ever fallen in love. So he's going to fall hard. Well, I take that he's fallen in love, but not like this kind of, of adult love.
- [78:30]
B
Well, it was a strange balancing act between Ernest and David anyway, as you might guess. And Wallis just went too far. Once she went on an extended ski vacation without Ernest with the Prince after her husband specifically and seriously asked her not to. Like, please, please, this one thing is all I ask. I don't fight many battles. I would just really prefer if you didn't go on this one. I feel humiliated, I'm feeling small. I need you to kind of stand by me. And she tossed her head and went anyway. And I think that's what tipped the scale, I really do. The excitement and the glitter had gotten to her mind. I mean, there's famous people Everywhere there's parties, there's exotic locations and unlimited money. The people who inhabited this level of society were aware of the relationship, and mostly they disapproved at the beginning. But some society hostesses sort of took her in hand. I guess I'm gonna say she had her art friend, her music friend, one lady, pretty well my fair ladied her overnight, kind of in fashion and party planning and who's who and who's cousins with who and married to who and sleeping with who and blah, blah, blah. That's important knowledge. And last but not least, and I cannot remember exactly how much we talked about her in the Gilded Age Heiresses podcast, but yet another American, Emerald Lady Cunard, formerly Ms. Maude Burke of San Francisco and New York, was her political friend. Her gatherings were controversial at worst, simply lively political debates at best.
- [80:09]
A
And again, this is like one of those parts of his double faceted, like life. He's being courted by Hitler. In a nutshell, Edward was German. He spoke German fluently. He considered it his mother language. He had seen a part of his family, the Romanovs, murdered by communists. He hated Russia. Okay?
- [80:32]
B
And I guess all other things being equal, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
- [80:37]
A
Germany, which he considered his homeland, was between them and Russia. They could provide help to keep the communists away from England. And. And David liked that. He thought that a relationship with Hitler and his buddies was going to be the best thing for England, is an alliance between the two of them, which. Oh, no, they're Nazis.
- [81:01]
B
It was here that Wallace met Mr. Von Ribbentrop, special envoy from Mr. Hitler over in Germany. Now, if we're going to assign blame at all to a woman, which I think we shouldn't, we should probably blame Emerald Cunard for bringing David into the orbit of this Nazi. Anyway, if we're assigning this sort of blame to a woman. There are assertions that not only did Wallace sleep with von Ribbentrop, the rumor of which is enough, by the way, to prevent her house getting one of those little blue oval historical markers. Did you know that? That.
- [81:36]
A
No, actually, I didn't.
- [81:37]
B
Just the rumor of this relationship with von Ribbentrop, which has never been proven. I mean, they're called blue plaques or English Heritage plaques. Charlie Chaplin has one, Benjamin Franklin has one, Jimi Hendrix has one, but not Wallis Simpson. And interesting. Well, so not only that, that she was sleeping with the enemy, literally, but that Hitler and his organization had paid her to influence David toward their cause. You know what, the fact is, Jack, David was already there. And Hitler also had been working on David for years. Think about all these German cousins. His family tree is full of Germans because that's where you go if you need a prince or a princess to marry your royalty. All those little principalities of Germany, that's the shopping mart for a bride, right? And this man had so many German cousins that had been sent, sent to England specifically for the purpose of feeding him a line of thought and reporting back also. And he was not alone, by the way. He had admired the social reforms and the economic reforms of the Nazis. And the time is past now for us to think that it's only the rosy side that anyone was seeing. It was very clear that Hitler wanted to rid Germany of all Jews. It was very clear that he wanted to expand his territory. And David was known to be anti Semitic. Many upper class people in Britain were. I don't understand it. I don't understand it. And before this week, I didn't think I was going to have to explain that Nazis are bad guys. I thought that was a given. Like you're supposed to be shocked when I say that the future King of England was a Nazi sympathizer. That was supposed to make you you appalled and shocked. You were supposed to understand exactly what that meant. Their platform is totalitarian government, anti Semitism, Aryan supremacy, uber nationalism, anti liberalism, anti democracy and territorial expansion at any price. Hitler had also killed his political enemies by now in 1934, which was not a secret, which was out there. We are past pretending we don't know now. You know what I'm saying.
- [83:54]
A
I know what you're saying.
- [83:57]
B
So I don't even want to go into this anymore. As books have been written about this subject, I'm just going to recommend a book called Seventeen Carnations by Andrew Morton, which talks really just about David and Wallace to a lesser extent and their relationship with Nazis and Nazi Germany. All I'm gonna say is to say Wallace caused it is ridiculous. You know. Did she agree with it? I'm not even sure it matters.
- [84:24]
A
Oh no.
- [84:25]
B
But she didn't create David's pro Nazi stance. If anything, he got that from his father, who was at least determined to stay on good terms with Germany and avoid another war at any cost. Pro German, I must say, not pro Nazi. At least when it came to George v.5th. That's where they are right now. I want to get back to garden variety level scandal. Okay? Can we please. Yes, please.
- [84:52]
A
Because pick one.
- [84:54]
B
Too much for me. Wallace had asked her old friend Mary Kirk to watch over Ernest while he was in New York. Have we not learned what this cause is? Well, Mary watched all of Ernest, if you know what I mean.
- [85:07]
A
I love how Mary is all. All in the story, you know?
- [85:10]
B
Yes.
- [85:12]
A
From the beginning. And, yeah, she just keeps popping up. I kind of like it.
- [85:17]
B
So nothing about the relationship of Wallis and David were appearing in the British papers. It was kind of a gentleman's agreement. But everyone who was anyone saw Wallis dripping with jewelry, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, presented to her by her boyfriend. She's now chic in her simply cut dresses. She now holds a room as if she was a princess. Her poise, her. What do you even call it? She has really become what she had only dreamed about becoming. You know, she was a personage at this point. And the royal family was kind of alarmed at what they saw as something potentially damaging. This isn't like the other ones. They. They saw this as serious. And that's when they started surveillance of Wallis and investigating her and digging up the dirt. They wanted to see what they were dealing with. King George V began to decline. He had some lung trouble also. I think it's all these cigars is what I was guessing. And David was there when his father slipped into a coma and was euthanized by his doctor at 11:55. So the notice would get into the right papers. Yes, you heard me. These people are cold.
- [86:34]
A
Yes, but they were affectionate parents.
- [86:37]
B
I think that's funny, because if they'd waited till after midnight, they would miss the deadline for the good newspapers. I man. So David was now, from the moment his father took his last breath, nothing else being necessary, he was now King Edward viii. And so he invited Wallis to come see the proclamation. And the heralds go to different parts of the city, read out a statement, which there is a video of that I will link you to. You can actually listen to the statement, although they just show the heralds at the first three locations, and then the fourth one, you get to hear the whole proclamation. So don't think the movie's been. I mean, it's been cut up weird, because they didn't want you to hear the thing four times. But Wallace and the King watched the proclamation from a window together. I do believe that Wallace thought this was the end. We're wrapping it up. You know, this can't go on any further. He's the King of England. He's got to marry a princess, They've got to have an heir. Everyone thought, okay, this is where it ends. But alas, Edward, the King of England, had Some other plans. It is spring. Spring at last, real spring, not fraudulent spring that we always get in February, I think. And the flowers agree that spring is finally here. And as we all gather ourselves and regain the will to leave the house, get back into the open air, it might just be time to get dressed up again. And our great outfits always start with great shapewear. And what I do not have time for is the roll down shapewear. I don't have time for it or the will to wear.
- [88:41]
A
No, no. And once you know that there's shapewear out there that doesn't roll down, that stays, that does its job without any discomfort, you got to stick with it. And that's what I'm doing with Honeylove. Honey Love's best selling super power short is my go to for weddings, for our dinner cruises that we do on our field trips, for any time that I need to dress up and I just want to feel special. I'm putting on my superpower shorts.
- [89:09]
B
They're designed to work with your body, not against it, so you can still breathe. Miraculous. You know, it's amazing and I like.
- [89:19]
A
That it isn't squeezing my natural curves trying to make me a shape that I'm naturally not. It's my shape just kind of refined.
- [89:29]
B
And they're not just about shapewear. They also have extraordinarily comfortable bras. Honeylove's best selling classic crossover bra gives all the support of traditional bras and it doesn't use any underwires. This is the one bra that you'll actually enjoy wearing and won't have to take off the second you step inside your door.
- [89:50]
A
And that's what I wear when I travel. I wear the Honeylove crossover bra when I travel because it is so comfortable and there are no underwires to dig into me when I fall asleep in that weird position in my seat. Yep, that's my go to for that too.
- [90:08]
B
So treat yourself to the most comfortable shapewear on earth and save 20% off site wise@HoneyLove.com HistoryChicks.
- [90:17]
A
Use our exclusive link to get 20% off@HoneyLove.com Historychicks. After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you.
- [90:29]
B
Treat yourself to Honey Love because you deserve it. Well, the king took up his new job and he didn't do it the same way his father did. And the old guards really disapproved of his populist attitude and the fact that he didn't really necessarily like to do all the formal things. I mean, he didn't do them as graciously, perhaps, as the kings of old. He wanted to focus on things like unemployment, poor relief, help for wounded soldiers. He wanted to be among his people more. He wanted to walk around, he wanted to hear how things were going. And his detractors said he was unseemly. His detractors said he was not being very regal. Sounds a lot like what people used to say about Princess Diana, I think.
- [91:18]
A
Oh, definitely. There's a lot of similarities with Princess Diana in this story that she just kept popping into my head. But going back to where you said he was, you know, the peoples kind of the people's king, he wasn't really offering any solutions to these problems, though. He was kind of like shining a spotlight on the poor and things that were needed in the country. But he wasn't saying. Saying this is what we could do. He wasn't offering anything.
- [91:42]
B
But I think that's probably fine. That's not his role. I. I can see it. He's like, look, I'm going to use the power of my position to shine some light on these problems. What will you do about them? I mean, he was kind of shaming Parliament, I think.
- [91:57]
A
Yeah. Oh, yeah. They didn't want him in the first place. That wasn't. Not that they had a choice in the matter, but they weren't looking forward to that particular moment in time. Even right before when his father died, he said, after I'm dead, the boy will ruin himself within 12 months.
- [92:14]
B
Oh, did we know that he had ESP?
- [92:18]
A
That's not exactly a vote of confidence, that's for sure.
- [92:21]
B
Oh, their relationship, in fact, does fill several books. I will link you later to some biographies. That relationship is not a good one.
- [92:29]
A
No.
- [92:30]
B
So behind this whole next year, the year of rumination, also let us remind you that the Germans under Hitler continued to work on making an alliance, I guess, with Britain, at least a good relationship for which Wallace takes a lot of unwarranted flack in the history books. We talked about that in the first half. Again, I'm going to refer you to the book Seventeen Carnations by Andrew Morton for details on that. I just wanted to let you know that this was going on kind of ticking away in the background. He really thought that the whole responsibility of his generation is to do anything possible to prevent another war, because right before him is a whole generation of missing men because they're dead right from World War I. It was so devastating to Europe that They. They thought anything we can do to prevent it from happening again is the least we can do. So, back to Wallis's atmosphere. It started to become apparent to those in the King's inner circle that. Hey, hey. That lady's influence is not exactly waning like we thought. David's under pressure with all of his new responsibilities and opposition from those in the know. And he leaned on Wallace more than ever, I'm even gonna say, saw her as one of those. It's like the white stripy things, Lifesavers. Like a floaty. Like you throw off a boat to save someone that's drowning. Onlookers are not comprehending this at all. I just. I'm gonna go on a tangent here. I once read an article that asked little kids, little kids what true love was, and this really stuck out to me. One of them said, grandma's back hurts too badly to paint her toenails, so Grandpa does it for her. And I do have a point.
- [94:19]
A
I know. I know exactly what your point is, but I have it written down myself.
- [94:23]
B
Friends of the King, baffled by this whole relationship, which they shouldn't be. Anyway, we're shocked one day to see him painting her toenails by the pool. And I have to say, if even a little kid can see that this was true love, at least on his side, I'm still on the fence. If she loved him, even if a little kid can see that that's true love, I don't understand how anyone else couldn't see it. He genuinely loved her. And she fulfilled a need in him for someone strong, someone to tell him what he should do and to listen to him talk, which I don't think anyone ever listened to him and how he felt.
- [95:02]
A
No, I don't think so either. And I think a lot of the people in his life weren't even looking at him as a man. He was a man second. He was their King first.
- [95:10]
B
Just an institution.
- [95:12]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [95:13]
B
Well, Wallis needed a break from the weird situation she was finding herself in, you know, adjunct to the institution, which is really quite strange position to be in. So she went out of town and her husband. Do we remember that she has a husband? His name is Ernest. He took this opportunity to call on David and he laid it out like, look, dude, what are your intentions here? I myself have a life. I need to see where I fit in here. And the King told Ernest that he intended to marry Wallace. And Ernest agreed to divorce her. And the King said, you know, I really appreciate this, I will settle some money on her so that she can be independent until we get married. Operating costs, I guess, were covered.
- [95:57]
A
They made a decision while she's away in Paris.
- [96:00]
B
When Wallace got back and found out what the plan was. I'm sorry, I'm going to say this. She was pissed.
- [96:08]
A
That is exactly the word I have in my notes, too.
- [96:11]
B
She was.
- [96:11]
A
Was. They decided for her in their little summit, or whatever we're calling it, you know, they decided what her fate was going to be, not just their own.
- [96:21]
B
Whoa.
- [96:22]
A
And this is a strong woman, Remember.
- [96:24]
B
She didn't want to divorce Ernest. Rather unfairly for him, I'm going to say legitimately. Ernest was her security blanket, and that's not fair to him. Her fallback position. What is that they say about having cake and eating it, too? Which I always think is reversed. I think it would be more powerful of a statement if you said, I want to eat it and still have it on the.
- [96:46]
A
Oh, yes. That is a more accurate statement, isn't it? Yeah.
- [96:50]
B
So she wanted to stay and be the mistress. Well, now that option's gone. I'm not entirely sure that was a legitimate thing to hold on to. What do you think?
- [97:00]
A
No, I. I don't. No, I don't think so at all. Because what she was doing to Ernest was just kind of cruel. But she just wanted to keep everything status quo. She was having fun, and can't we just keep having fun? You know? But you. We've all had those relationships. You get to a certain point that you have to actually poo or get off the pot, you know, and it was her time, and she wasn't ready to give it up. Wow. How's that for a metaphor?
- [97:25]
B
Well, so basically, someone has shoved her off the pot. Anyway, Ernest. Ernest has already moved on in a move I can only call 1970s sitcom. I'm talking. Talking 3's company level of what? Old Mary Kirk, Wallace's high school friend. Ernest's. Ernest's.
- [97:45]
A
Ernest's.
- [97:46]
B
Hard to say mistress, wrote a thank you card to Wallace and a love letter to Ernest and put them in the wrong envelopes by accident. Sure she did. Is anyone believing that?
- [98:04]
A
No, I did not believe it. And Wallace came home from Paris and there's that letter from Mary, and it's like, oh, wow, this has really escalated. But still, she didn't want to divorce him. She still tried to hold on. That's the part that's getting to me. Life is happening, woman. You have to go with it. But she didn't.
- [98:21]
B
So the life raft is leaving the ocean. Can you see Wallace, based on her previous struggles in life, kind of looking around anxiously. And here's David, sort of cheerfully, naively. I don't even know. He is so funny. He's just disregarding obstacles like they're not there. He's moving forward with his plan to marry Wallace, which, honestly, I'm not even sure she was really into.
- [98:46]
A
No, no, no. I mean, I don't think we can say that enough.
- [98:50]
B
Here he is showering her with jewels engraved with their initials. It's kind of an in joke. W E Wallace and Edward, or the royal We. They always spoke about themselves as we a little unit. Also, things were engraved inside, like, be strong, hold tight. He's introducing her as his future wife to people who frankly don't want to hear it. The Prime Minister doesn't want to hear it. His next youngest brother, married to the woman we all know now as the Queen Mum, didn't want to hear it. David was in love and he admirably so. He was open about his intentions. He's not pretending.
- [99:27]
A
Oh, no, he didn't pretend at all. He had her as the hostess for a dinner with the Prime Minister and his wife.
- [99:34]
B
He included her name in the official record of visitors and guests, called the court circular.
- [99:38]
A
I mean, we need to meet the Prime Minister. So let's have this official dinner. And when those official things happen, that's when they get into the register. It's. It's an official event.
- [99:47]
B
Well. And he kept saying he had the intention to be a public king with a private life. And no one seemed to be able to explain to him that that's not how it works. You're a public king with a public life. The end. Well, David put a lot of pressure on Wallace to get going with her divorce timing. He was under a lot of pressure. He's supposed to be crowned in May, so he wanted to get married in April. And if you back off from that, it takes six months to finalize a divorce in Britain. So chop chop, we're running out of time. And they had to do this weird little piece of theater. According to British law, somebody has to be the bad guy. There's none of this irreconcilable differences crap, right?
- [100:27]
A
Somebody had to have cheated on the other person. So what happened was Ernest took a weekend trip to France. He checked into a hotel room with one quote, Buttercup Kennedy, and then he returned to Wallace. And when he did, she had left a note saying that she had learned of his affair. That's how the story goes on which to a court would probably sound okay, except Wallis already knew about the affair. This whole thing was so staged. It's not even. It's so transparent to us right now. Ernest thought he was doing his duty as a subject of the Kings. He had to do it. He had to take the fall, not her.
- [101:06]
B
Well, and it was the gentlemanly thing to do anyway. Well, and also, he was cheating on her, just like she was cheating on him. I just think it's funny that the letter that she left on the table basically said, I know you're cheating on me. Someone saw you. This is the end of everything. Place the back of my hand on my forehead, which is super rich, since she was parading around with the most famous man in the world.
- [101:26]
A
I know, right?
- [101:27]
B
But there you go.
- [101:28]
A
Here's a piece of documentation that says, I'm leaving you because of this reason. Yeah.
- [101:34]
B
Oh, it's a house of cards. So people are starting to close ranks. They're starting to choose sides. The first female member of Parliament spoke out against Wallace in the House of Commons. Also rich, I think. Nancy Astor, 100% American. Who said the only acceptable Americans come from Virginia? Where does she come from? Virginia. Is she divorced and remarried, this Nancy Astor? Yes. The hypocrisy kills me.
- [102:01]
A
Yeah, her. Her hypocrisy stuck out to me, too, because. Because she, of anybody, should have a soft spot for Wallis. She should be at least be able to empathize with her. She could be in the same position. But, no, she was not a fan of this marriage. I think it's really interesting that they're still able to hold back the British press at this point. There's a gentleman's agreement between the British press and the royal family that the mistresses were not allowed to be covered at all. And the word in the rest of the world is starting to leak out, but in. In England, it's still kind of being held back. And that alone, I think, is a remarkable accomplishment. Well.
- [102:38]
B
And you know what? Even later, okay. If anyone's watched the Crown, decades later, there's a scene in the Crown where Elizabeth and her husband Philip have an argument which is caught on tape. And the reporter literally hands the tape to Queen Elizabeth, like, takes it out of the machine. Sorry, we got that on tape. Here it is. We're not using this. This.
- [102:57]
A
Yeah, I. I love that show, by the way.
- [102:59]
B
Interesting. Yes, I love it, too. I do. Well, okay, so the Duke of York, the second brother, father of our Queen Elizabeth, and his wife were absolutely against Wallace's existence in their lives. Speaking of Hypocrisy. The thing is, it was all haha, raise a glass with old lady Furness, you know, but with Wallace it was the cold shoulder. At least now it was because David was open about wanting to marry her. She's nobody. Said her critics from nothing. Well, clearly we saw that wasn't true. Her family name was well respected. She'd come out at the most exclusive event of the year, you know, which meant a lot then she'd been to the best schools. Her family's as old as you can get in America. And honestly, she might have more illustrious ancestors in England than half her critics. But they said she was vulgar and was, quote, Becky Sharping it up, which is a reference to a sort of desperate social climber from Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Highly recommend on audiobook, by the way. Now I have a soft spot for Becky Sharp because you had to do what you could and use your wiles, especially in Becky Sharp's time period, you know, but she had to use the assets that she had. And maybe that's why I feel a little sorry for Wallace. Also, I think she was unfairly treated. There was prejudice is what I'm saying, because people that came to her with an open mind still loved her, just like always. We just need to remember, people that met her thought she was freaking charming. They thought she was very appealing, that she was gracious in person, she could hold a room in person, she could make people fall in love with her. And I just think we get caught up and forget about that.
- [104:44]
A
Oh, definitely. Even the Prime Minister's wife. After having that. That official dinner I was talking about earlier. After that, she said, I think we have lost the fairy prince. You know, she knew that the relationship that they had not only was Wallis charming in person and very likable, but their relationship together was one that was visibly good, I guess is the word.
- [105:06]
B
Well, you know, the rumors started to swirl. David, never a man for protocol, was kind of leaving those boxes of state papers laying around, leaving open the possibility that Wallace and friends were pawing through it. Did she? I just don't know why she would. That woman has access to state secrets, you know. Is she a spy? One of her supporters wrote the Simpsons Scandals growing and poor Wallace looks unhappy. The world is closing around her. The flatterers, the sycophants and the malice. Wallace is getting hate mail, death threats to the point where somebody even wrote 200 years ago we would find a way to deal with you. Unfortunately, now we have to go through legal channels and of course they're like, no one can deal with that kind of hate mail. Remember, this is pre Internet. And now we're all kind of used to it. We're all hardened now.
- [106:01]
A
That's true.
- [106:02]
B
There's nothing she can do. Kind of her appearances in public are just setting people off. It's not so much the mistress thing as the refusal to be a secret thing. Everyone's like, it's because she's American. She doesn't know that she's supposed to bow out right now. Any British mistress would know he's the King. You step aside, that's what you're supposed to do. But this fool is not understand the most basic rules of etiquette. Oh, God.
- [106:27]
A
In that vein, they decided at one point they were going to take a vacation together. Traditionally, he would have gone as the king not far outside of his own kingdom's backyard. You know, maybe go to the Isle of Wight or Edinburgh and then sometime at Balmoral Castle. But he didn't want that. He wanted to go to the sun and the surf. So they rented, even though there was a boat at their disposal, they rented a yacht, like almost 300 foot yacht with eight staterooms on it to cruise the Dalmatian coast coast, which I had to look up is off the coast of Croatia.
- [107:02]
B
I did.
- [107:03]
A
I was like, oh, I never heard of that one before. And yes, the dogs did come from there, but you know, the international press is following them the whole time and she's doing whatever she would do in a normal relationship, which, like you just said, is not what they expect of their king. They don't want to see that stuff. And the whole world is seeing it.
- [107:25]
B
And David, who is so proud of her, her is putting her constantly in these positions where she's sort of between a rock and a hard place. And she made a lifelong enemy of the lady we know as the Queen Mom. I think we should just call her the Queen Mom. Nobody did then, of course she's Queen Elizabeth, but that's a little confusing now. So let's call her the Queen Mom. So Wallace was the hostess at one of David's parties and welcomed her graciously to the party, which I guess was presumptuous protocol being what it is. She blew by the Queen mom and said, I came here to see the King and didn't shake her hand or anything. And David stood by her. He did. And he watched the distance grow between himself and the rest of his family. And oh my, you better get used to that F them then, right? I guess it's we Wallace and Edward against the world.
- [108:16]
A
Yeah. At that party you were just talking about, he had kind of broken family protocol and had her there in the first place. It was usually something that was just. That dinner was just for the family and the Archbishop of Canterbury. And David kind of just totally circumvented tradition and had her there and kind of lied about his whereabouts so that he could send his brother to do something that he was supposed to go do some official business. And David went to go meet Wallace's train instead. So David's not being very conventional at all. And for the Royal family, that's a big no. No.
- [108:54]
B
Well. And so I just want to clarify again, he's flouting these conventions and making people mad all on his own, which people like to blame Wallace for, Right? Well, Wallace is not a stupid person. In fact, she's not a robot either. And her feelings have got to be getting hurt on a daily basis. So, yes, yes, she asked for this by dating the Prince of Wales, but now she's in over her head, I think. It's like a whirlpool, and she's just a little ship going round and round and looking over to the left at her doom, I think.
- [109:28]
A
Yeah. Well, she was in Paris, and I like to think of it as the backhand of reality. Hit her upside the head when she realized how much she was in the press outside of England. It really just sealed her fate almost at that point, because she's. There's no place for her to go.
- [109:44]
B
Well, and she said, and I quote about this, I told him I didn't want to be queen. All that formality and responsibility. I told him that if he stayed on as king, it wouldn't be the end of us. I could still come and see him, and he could still come and see me. We had terrible arguments about it, but he was a mule. He said he didn't want to be king without me and that if I left him, he'd follow me wherever I went. Went. What could I do? What could I do? What did you do?
- [110:13]
A
Yeah. She could have called his bluff, I suppose.
- [110:16]
B
Well, Wallace wrote a breakup letter to David. Yes, she did. Yes, she did. I must really return to earnest, she said. I don't 100 think that was even optional. But whatever.
- [110:29]
A
We're.
- [110:30]
B
We're so awfully congenial, Ernest and I, and we understand getting on together very well. I'm better with him than with you. You must understand, in a few months, your life will be just like it was before. I'm sure, you and I will only create disaster together. I want you to be happy. I feel sure I can't make you so. And I don't think you can make me happy. How. How much clearer do we want people to be?
- [110:54]
A
That is about as clear as she could possibly get. And that's the letter that he said. It's not going to happen. If you leave me, I. I'm going to kill myself. And here's a whole bunch of jewels to make you feel better. It's that simple. I can't live without you. Basically, he wouldn't have it.
- [111:09]
B
He wouldn't have it. He insisted it will be all right. And what did she know, really? Would it? I mean, he said so he knew all the people that could make it all right. He told her they'd be married and crowned and live happily ever after. Queen Wallace, I mean, that must have sounded pretty cool regardless, right?
- [111:27]
A
I think, yeah.
- [111:29]
B
Queen Susan. Queen Beckett. Queen Beckett. And he loved her. He loved her so very much. So very much. I mean, everyone thought, even Winston Churchill said that Mrs. Simpson was as necessary to Edward's happiness as the air he breathed. He was a completed being instead of a sick soul. I mean, everyone knew she did complete him. She made him a different guy. And also, Ernest was done. There were no backsies. He's literally living with Mary Kirk. The English press was still maintaining a dignified silence about this whole thing, but the American press was either tearing her up or like betting on her like a racehorse. Like, how sweet would that be?
- [112:17]
A
You know, the Queen of England is one of our own. And that's where this rags to riches story started to be created internationally. And, and it's a heady thing.
- [112:25]
B
The divorce from Ernest was done kind of discreetly out of town. They were careful not to link the King to the divorce in any way. As a special favor. When the king calls you in and you're a publisher for a special favor, that's kind of flattering, I guess. I don't know.
- [112:42]
A
Maybe he thought he'd get the scoop on another story. Or maybe just tradition. Maybe that publisher was upholding tradition better than David could himself.
- [112:51]
B
Well, the next day, the very next day that the divorce was final, David gave Wallace an engagement ring engraved we are ours now 2736, which referred to October 27, 1936.
- [113:06]
A
And he didn't go to Jared, he went to Cartier. It was an almost 20 carat rectangular shaped emerald ring with diamonds around the outside, set in platinum. Him.
- [113:17]
B
That reminds me of that scene from Titanic where she Showed him the ring and he goes, you would have gone straight to the bottom.
- [113:24]
A
Yes, it was that big.
- [113:26]
B
So everyone's getting super agitated. The Prime Minister down through the House of Commons were on the whole absolutely objecting to David marrying Wallace. They wrote him a note. It's a very long note. It basically says, I'll just quote a little part of it. It says, says even those who sympathize with your majesty as an individual would deeply resent the damage which would inevitably be done to the crown, the cornerstone on which the whole empire rests. So they're like, we feel ya, but it can't fly. They warned that the wholesale resignation of the government would take place if he went on making the kings. I hate how they even unwholesome relationship they call it it with this woman. The main issue in elections. And of course half of me is like, don't let the door hit you. Like, who cares? But you know, if you think about it, if every single member of, well, I don't know, maybe that wouldn't be so bad if, if everybody in congress just left one day and had to be replaced. I'm like, actually, now that I think.
- [114:31]
A
About it, yeah, we can start with a fresh slayer.
- [114:36]
B
So I just, just from here cannot fully comprehend what the big deal is. But I want us all to know that for this time and in this place, the twice divorced Wallace marrying the head of the Church of England, never mind the King is shocking to people and it's upset making to people and no one can believe it kind of. It just is that bad for the time, we just have to accept that it is that bad.
- [115:03]
A
Divorce was not an option. And she had two living husbands. You know, if her husband had died, it would be one thing, but she had two living husbands and he has no option at this point.
- [115:15]
B
Well, even the Archbishop of Canterbury was just not wanting to crown him over this whole thing. Like, if I anoint you with holy oil, I am literally lying to God. That's how bad it. I mean, you know, that's how seriously people were taken it.
- [115:30]
A
Yeah.
- [115:30]
B
Helpful lady friends were urging Wallace to clear out. She was causing David so much trouble by staying. And Wallace is like preaching to the choir. I've offered to go and he says he'll come after me and then he'll kill himself. If you want scandal, you watch what happens if I try to leave him. Like, you tell me my solution. There's no way out of this deal. Well, on the throne or off, he said, I'm going to marry you. If they Stick on this. I'm ready to go. He literally, in mid November, said that very thing to the Prime Minister. How shocking is this? The last abdication in Britain was in 1688. It was James II and it was certainly not voluntary. He, like, fled the country in fear of his life. And they're like, oh, you left, you're left, you've abdicated. So not really an abdication, probably for saying things like this. Suppose there should be a law made that all black men should be imprisoned. It would be unreasonable. We have as little reason to quarrel with other men for being of different religious opinions as for being of different complexions. Tolerance gets you abdicated.
- [116:32]
A
The fact that that was so far away in time, it blows my mind.
- [116:37]
B
Yes. We also covered another pretty famous Church v King problem in our coverage of Catherine of aragon. That's episode 22. And Anne Boleyn. Notoriousness follows noteworthy to fight with the Church. Everyone, including David's mother, was digesting this news when David went on another one of his. His democratic walkabouts. You know, see the people, go into the mines, shake the hands, get the dirt on the face. I don't know what it was about that trip that made him change his mind. I don't. The love of the common people for him, I guess, like, realizing that all the bad feeling was kind of limited to the upper classes, all the good he thought he could maybe do for them as king, he came back all fired up to stay with Wallis. And kind of a battle ensued again. And Wallis had. Had suggested to her a way out of this mess for everybody. So the short explanation of a morganatic marriage, which really hadn't been done in England for a long time. You're married to the King, but you're not the Queen. You're a private person, you're not a royal person. You have no royal titles, you have no ranks. Think unless your husband gives you one, any children you have, do not enter the line of succession. To me, and I think to Wallace, this did seem like having your cake and eating it too. You're. You're wearing the jewels, you're living in the palaces, you know everyone. You don't have to do all the boring stuff. I don't know what the downside is.
- [118:07]
A
Well, unless you're David and you wanted her to have a crown on her head. Yeah, I don't see the downside of that one either.
- [118:12]
B
Everyone weighed in. The fighting got intense. One of David and Wallace's friends said they looked like two people who just wanted to get married innocently. And here Wallace is getting death threats in the mail and bricks were getting thrown through her window. There were threats that somebody was going to come kill her. Credible assassination threats.
- [118:32]
A
Credible assassination threats. But there was also one in there that was kind of a ruse that was set up by Parliament. Like, let's just see if this happens. You know, just keep it on the down low and send this out. Yeah.
- [118:43]
B
And you know what? I'm just gonna put another quote in here. This is from H.G. wells, okay. He said of Wallace, at this point, I never have yet heard one single word or suggestion that Wallace was anything but a perfectly honorable, highly intelligent and charmingly mannered woman. Why shouldn't the King marry her and make her his queen? Mrs. Simpson's far better fitted to be the King's wife than any, any possible bride that might be forced upon him to replace her.
- [119:12]
A
Wow. Too bad he didn't have a vote.
- [119:15]
B
Then. Two things happened at the same time. The British press stopped being gentlemen.
- [119:20]
A
Yeah.
- [119:21]
B
And the rejection of the morganatic marriage idea came down.
- [119:24]
A
It would take a special bill to pass for that to happen, and we're not going to do that bill. So it's not an option for you, David.
- [119:32]
B
Parliament thought that if they agreed to a morganatic marriage, it would be a public apology for the poor quality of the King's choice.
- [119:42]
A
Wow. That was. That was fun. By some PR person, I think.
- [119:47]
B
Well, the storm broke. Imagine your life, imagine your face, your past being raked up and commented on by, quote, experts, by perfect strangers, really, by people hoping to sell papers. So you know what that does to the truth. Their country house, the Fort it was called, was not a retreat anymore. It was a prison. There were reporters and looky loos and critics outside all the time. And Wallis had to flee to friends in France. Unfortunately, the press found her.
- [120:19]
A
Well, how could they? How could they not find her? She left in the King's car. So as the King's car is leaving, you know, the press follows it and the driver's doing those, you know, know, down a side street, down another side street, trying to shake them. And he couldn't because they were on him. This reminded me so much of Princess Diana.
- [120:38]
B
Yep.
- [120:38]
A
You know, I mean, as they're trying to flee London because of all this turmoil. And Wallis wouldn't fly, so she had to get on the ground from London to France with this horde after her, really.
- [120:54]
B
So all the way there to France, she would every stop, just call David and beg him at every stop not to abdicate. Don't throw away your heritage don't throw away your country. I'm not worth it. This isn't worth it. This is ridiculous. You can't do it. David was just convinced. If he could just talk to the common people, he could convince them he was a man in love and they'd accept his wishes.
- [121:21]
A
He was based in reality with that because there was an element of the populace, the lower classes, that thought that, you know, he's. He's a man, let him live his life, you know, that's fine. It's fine with them.
- [121:32]
B
So I think that the government thought so, too. I think that the government, because they said no, that would be setting us against the people of the country, which is probably true. I think. I think if he'd been allowed to speak to the people, he could have made a case because he was charming and, you know, they have loved him since he was a little boy.
- [121:53]
A
Right. And then what they've seen so far in this last eight months as king, eight or nine months, is that he was visiting them. So they had hope that maybe he was the perfect ruler for them.
- [122:05]
B
So while Wallace cried and regretted and got even thinner in France, David asked the Prime Minister if he could push up the date for Wallace's divorce as part of an abdication. And the way was clear. And David and the Prime Minister sat on a sofa and cried together.
- [122:24]
A
Yeah.
- [122:26]
B
At the same time, Wallace had been making plans of her own.
- [122:30]
A
She decided that she would do what she could to end all this. And she actually wrote a letter. There's some debate over whether she actually wrote it, but she signed it, sent to the Prime Minister that basically signed, Said with deepest sorrow. Mrs. Simpson wishes to announce that she has abandoned any intention of marrying His Majesty. Again, pretty clear she's willing to withdraw.
- [122:51]
B
Her divorce petition to block him from marrying her. In fact, stay his mistress, flee to China, whatever it took to get free of this situation. And I want to ask if this sounds like a conniving, scheming, social climber to you. There are responsible, respectable witnesses to all of this. This sounds like a desperately unhappy and trapped person to me, not the Wicked Witch of the West.
- [123:16]
A
She was doing everything in her power to try and make this stop and make him stay on the throne.
- [123:21]
B
But without telling her, David officially set things in motion to abdicate. Papers were sitting on his desk to be signed before he called to tell her. And Wallis fell apart. She felt like she'd be the most hated woman in the world. And she wasn't wrong.
- [123:38]
A
This is probably a good time to take a break and when we come back, we'll find out if they do have a happily ever after. You know those times in life when you learn something new that carries you for years and you're so glad that you found it? That was the situation when I first tried Lumi deodorant. It was years ago, long before Beckett and I started talking about it on the show. I heard an advertisement just like the one you're listening to right now, and I said, okay, I'll give it a try. I loved Lomi Whole Body deodorant from the very first stick that I got. I love that it was created by an ob GYN who saw firsthand how normal body odor was being misdiagnosed and mistreated. I love that I could use it from the top of my head to the tips of my toes and all the bits in between. I love that they're all baking soda free and paraben free and all ph balanced. Balanced. I wish I could remember what my very first scent was, but I have an entire wardrobe of Lumi deodorants that I wear, depending on what other scent I'm wearing. I love clean tangerine, and my very favorite is lavender sage. And when I first started, this wasn't the case. But now you can find Lume deodorant at Walmarts or Targets or other retailers around the country. So give it a try. Lume's starter pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a solid stick deodorant, cream tube deodorant, two free products of your choice like a mini body wash and deodorant wipes, both of which I use when I travel. And you'll get free shipping on that starter pack as a special offer for our listeners. New customers get 15% off all Lume products with our exclusive code. And if you combine the 15% off with the already discounted starter pack, that equals over 40% off their starter pack. Use code chicks for 15% off your first purchase@lumide.com that's code chicks at L U M E D E o d o R-A-T.com Please support our show and tell them that we sent you Smell fresher, stay drier, and boost your confidence from head to toe with Lum.
- [126:34]
B
All right, we are back on December 10, 1936. At midnight, Edward VIII of England was no longer the king.
- [126:43]
A
There was a little negotiating. He had to kind of have an exit interview with his brother, who was now king. They needed to talk about money. You know, how much was the government going to give David, as an allowance, he was forced to give up his inherited properties, which totally makes sense because he got them because he was going to be king.
- [127:00]
B
Right.
- [127:00]
A
But he wasn't anymore, so that was done. David kind of undervalued his personal wealth. He had money hidden in places, although on paper he didn't look like he was worth all that much. But looking at the bubbles that hung off of Wallace, you would get a totally different image. Right, right. They did settle on £25,000 a year, which is kind of over 2 million now.
- [127:28]
B
That'll do.
- [127:29]
A
You would think so.
- [127:30]
B
His speech to the country afterward included these famous words. You must believe me when I tell you I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I wish to do, do without the help and support of the woman I love.
- [127:47]
A
We'll put the video to that up on our show Notes. But that's pretty famous. If anybody's ever heard anything about this, they've heard that particular portion of the speech.
- [127:55]
B
And he did go on to explain in that speech that Wallace, as he says he calls her, the other person most nearly concerned in the matter, had been trying to persuade him against it, that the decision was mine and mine alone own. He was open about it. People just were in shock, like what has happened to the world, you know, Remember that in England itself, the press hadn't really been covering this for very long, so it was all kind of a sudden shock out of nowhere. And I want to say that many of the common people felt, I guess, betrayed, maybe like thrown away. They had to grieve for a little while.
- [128:33]
A
Absolutely. And you can totally see where the hatred for Wallace would develop even stronger now. They have been dating for years, but like you said, the common person just found out about it and now they've lost their king. Yeah. What do you do if you're David? You know, turn the microphone off. He's now the Duke of Windsor. He, in his head at this point, believes that he's going to leave England, as was directed to him, and come back at some point and assume a role in government worthy of his status. He really believes that. So he kind of just takes off without his usual entourage. This is kind of a weird time for him because he was king, he had all those staff, and when he left, he didn't. He was just a guy on the road with no home.
- [129:20]
B
I think that David thought he'd sort of go on like before, just with Wallace and without the responsibility and all the boring parts. But he Was hemorrhaging friends like no tomorrow friends in quotes. He was hemorrhaging hangers on like no tomorrow. Were they really his friends? I'm gonna say no, then. They were there for the power and the glory. They weren't there for the man.
- [129:41]
A
Exactly.
- [129:42]
B
So he had gone to Austria. Wallace and David had to stay apart until her divorce was final, or I guess it might get reneged. It seems like the cat's out of the bag on that one.
- [129:53]
A
Haven't we broken enough rules already that we just throw out the rule book? Yeah, that's true.
- [129:57]
B
So I don't know they're crossing the T and dotting the I on that one, but people had. L celebrated Wallace's existence at their houses a couple months ago, and now they're all like, wallace who? How do you say? Edward the Eighth. Who is this person? You know, obviously not their real friends, right? I mean, it's. They're dirty. Especially Emerald Cunard, I'm sorry to say. Our American heiress that was Wallace's super good friend. Tried to act like she met her twice. Yeah, and everyone's like, girl, we saw you doing shit shot. Come on.
- [130:31]
A
It was a royal ghosting for sure.
- [130:33]
B
God, so bad. Well, obviously not their real friends, so, you know, via con Dios, whatever. But the press, of course, blamed Wallace for the whole thing because women get blamed for it. It should be noted that Ernest, of all people, wrote Wallace a note that was truly and heartfeltly. That's not a word. I know. Sorry for what she was going through. Ironic, I think, that her truest friend seems to be the one she wronged the most thoroughly.
- [131:00]
A
Yeah, he was such a nice guy. He was open minded about everything. And that letter just continues to show. I mean, he really cared for her.
- [131:09]
B
Yeah, well, I really do think David was under the impression he could just sort of slip back into life as, like, a spare brother. Everything's the same. But now I'm the king's brother and my brother's the king. Hey, presto. But he was slowly starting to realize. Realize this was not really gonna happen. Wallace had felt the bad juju all along, you know, but David was sort of just now getting it. Like his own mother had hardened up at his. I don't know what she saw as his lack of respect for the office. I guess I'd say failing at duty, being an embarrassment.
- [131:43]
A
Yeah, well, I think it boils down to he was supposed to make this sacrifice in his personal life, life for his country. Just like every soldier that gets wounded or killed in Battle did, and David didn't do that. So she was, I would say, embarrassed. Kind of like a parent would be ashamed of what their kid did. Yeah, well, and David's part, he was calling his brother like every day to just chat and see what's up. And his brother, now, the King was like, dude, no, I'm not talking to you. This is not going to work. We need to separate. You need to go your way and I need to rule this country that you left me and I am ill.
- [132:23]
B
Prepared for poor old Birdie. His brother, the King is like, you can't still be the king. This was your choice. You have to stop calling. In fact, I'm going to prohibit them from putting you through to me. You have to let it go. I don't want your advice. You have no say. You're no nobody. You know, you can't have your KKDA too. On this. The new king was determined to do a good job in the shadow of all this controversy. And his more charming brother, I mean, admittedly, I mean, come on. David could hold a room. The new king had a stutter. The new king had not really planned on this happening. His wife, Queen mom, as we're calling her, was angry at being thrust into this role, at the stress on her husband, the changes in her life. She did not sign up for this. All the scrutiny, all this duty. And now, of course, she's a responsible person, she's going to take it up, but she resents greatly being made to do so.
- [133:20]
A
I think they kind of instituted the, the royal block button kind of, you know, in modern language. I mean, they just were done. You, you kind of like exploded this place, you know, that meme with the cat, with, with the explosion behind it, that was David. David was a cat just walking away. And he left all this calamity in his wake because of what he did. And they are the one that have to pick up the pieces.
- [133:44]
B
Well, Wallis and David wrote to each other almost every day. They've been collected into a book, as a matter of fact. I'll cite that in the media section. Part of it covers this time period and it's a, it's an interesting read. Published after her death. And this is where we learn that Wallis called the Queen Mom Cookie because she looked like a fat cook, she said, and dressed like a rag bag. Yeah, hilarious. But among other things in those letters is a serious worry for David's future, for her own future. She was seen in public, perhaps as domineering and harsh to him, but David was sort of flailing. Someone had to be strong. We've seen how strong gets perceived. If you're a. You're a woman, right? Like. Like, she's a. She's bossy. She's a termagant. I want you to use that. In a sense.
- [134:33]
A
I don't think I've ever even heard that word before. Termagant, huh? Excellent vocabulary points. You know, you scored well above me on that vocabulary. That online vocabulary, it was respectable, but it wasn't as good as you guys.
- [134:49]
B
So Wallace kept writing to Ernest throughout this whole period. She had a nickname for David, too, but she only used it with Ernest. She called David Peter Pan, the boy who never really had to grow up.
- [135:02]
A
Ouch.
- [135:04]
B
So here is the least maternal person on earth who has ended up with functionally a big child to take care of for the rest of her life.
- [135:15]
A
Yeah. Wow. That's so true. Yep. And, you know, a lot of people have taken those letters that she sent to Ernest and kind of. And I can see how it's easily done, you know, whipped it up that Ernest was the love of her life. Life. And she totally, you know, had left him. And she would. But she still loved him, which I know she did, but I don't know about the love of the life. I don't. Was. Is Wallace capable of that? I don't know.
- [135:37]
B
I think Win Spencer was the nail in the coffin on Wallace's true heart. That's what I think.
- [135:44]
A
Yeah. I do, too, completely. So that's what I'm saying. I don't know if she has the emotional range to deeply love someone that much. I mean, she can be fond, but I don't know that she could do it. It. Which is really sad in and of itself.
- [135:58]
B
I think her past life is kind of made her into this person that has to be protective of her heart and protect it and, you know, think ahead a couple steps to protect her future, kind of, I guess.
- [136:08]
A
Oh. Oh, yeah, yeah. And she was really good at that. See her social climbing resume? Yeah. Look. Plan ahead. Oh, yeah.
- [136:16]
B
Up until now.
- [136:17]
A
Yeah.
- [136:18]
B
Well, Wallace's divorce was final in May, and David announced their engagement to the world the very next day. The very next day after their engagement, they listened to the coronation of the new King George VI and the new Queen Elizabeth on the radio. What a weird thing that might have been, right? I mean, they just used the old date.
- [136:40]
A
Oh, I know that. Well, the. The party was already in the works for David's coronation. There's actually a memorabilia out there there from David's coronation It's out in the world.
- [136:49]
B
Ooh.
- [136:51]
A
Yeah. Because it was starting to be produced, but then they just kind of had to switch things around and change the pictures and change the title and get everything else out. So as far as party planning goes, they really kicked Heiney to get to that May coronation date for George vi.
- [137:06]
B
I really, really, really want an Edward VII coronation teacup.
- [137:11]
A
Yeah, I, I, I. Okay. Yeah, I'm thinking that's going to be a pricey item.
- [137:18]
B
Dang it. You're not going to find it at the thrift store is what you're saying.
- [137:21]
A
No. Should we start a GoFundMe so you can get a teacup?
- [137:24]
B
I could probably just paint one. Be easier.
- [137:27]
A
Oh, yeah, that's true.
- [137:29]
B
So they upped the stakes on the coronation this time, though. Sort of made it more of a grand spectacle than it would have been to counteract David, I guess they called it, tainting of the royal image. Well, on to the next major ceremony. We've come all this way and we've walked through fire to get here. I guess it was time for the wedding. They had been staying at this beautiful chateau, the Chateau de Candeille in France. Wallace had signed a prenup. Just gonna say this proves she wasn't out to trick David out of all his money, which seems to be all his family thought of her, and Adventurous, they called her. So, no, I'll go out with the money I have. You go out with the money you have. Seems pretty legitimate to me.
- [138:17]
A
Yeah, me too. When they'd sent out the, you know, the invitations, they had imagined that it would be this big family wedding, you know, big family thing. But one by one, everyone associated with the royal family sent their kindest regards that they could not attend. And eventually, the king actually forbidden anyone from the royal family from attending the wedding.
- [138:37]
B
That's harsh.
- [138:38]
A
Super harsh. I think him saying nobody is allowed to go is kind of his way of saying, look, I am king. I'm in charge here. He caused all this drama. We can't even associate with him, and none of you can. He had to establish himself as the king. Right. And that's a pretty kingly move, I would say.
- [138:57]
B
I think it's a dick move you do, but I do. It is the wedding of your freaking brother. Maybe the king doesn't have to go. I could see that. But, like, no one in the royal family is allowed to go. Your younger brothers can't go. I mean, it just seems from the.
- [139:13]
A
Royal side, that's the level of betrayal. It's like when you have a breakup, you have to. Like, a really long relationship breaks up, you kind of have to assume that they're dead. You can't run into them for a while. Right. So that's kind of the same thing. Thing.
- [139:27]
B
Is this the, like, dividing of the couple friends thing?
- [139:30]
A
Oh, definitely the dividing of the couple friends, yeah. And King George got the family.
- [139:37]
B
Well, David never saw you coming. He never did, though it seemed like Wallace did. He always seems to live in this rosy glow of oblivion and cannot believe his family would act like this. Whereas Wallace is like, those people. Are you kidding me? Me? That's kind of her. Like, of course they're going to act like that. But David's like, no, this is my family. Unfortunately, he does realize, but he. He's just not there yet. It's so crazy to me. But not only that, although the new king had created David his Royal Highness, the Duke of Windsor, upon her marriage, where she's supposed to take the rank of her husband. Tradition and law state. As a matter of fact, I think at this point, wives had to take the name of their husbands. There's none of this, like, Ms. Maiden name. The new duchess would not be called her Royal Highness. It was unprecedented that she would not be called her Royal Highness. It was a vicious slap in the face to deny a husband's status to his wife.
- [140:37]
A
Yeah. And David is the one that felt that the most, that slap, because he lost his crap. When that came down, he broke down crying.
- [140:44]
B
And I think a little piece of his hope got finally chipped off his heart part. I was wondering what it was going to take. I'm like, dude, how many times? But this is what it took, I guess. Well, at last, David and Wallace were married in the beautiful music room of the chateau with friends. They weren't all alone. Her wedding dress was a special never been given to another client. Blue that the designer Mainbocker had created just for her, called Wallace blue. That dress is so simple and so beautiful. It's at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Actually, curiously, it's no longer blue. Isn't that weird?
- [141:23]
A
What is it now? Faded to white?
- [141:25]
B
Yeah. Chemistry, man. It's white.
- [141:28]
A
Yeah. Well, obviously we'll put a picture of that up on the website. But it was a fitted dress and she had a tight cropped jacket over her. It was perfect for her figure. And it just looks like it was painted on almost.
- [141:43]
B
How significant are you when your wedding dress is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?
- [141:48]
A
Well, I think it's pretty significant to have a color named after You.
- [141:51]
B
So the Metropolitan Museum of Art, speaking of that, has a Pinterest board called the wedding a Visual Feast. And there are other wedding dresses in there from different eras, but I think Wallis Simpsons might be the only one actually attached to a notable figure that's there. Well, designers had competed to make this dress. Dress. Chanel didn't make it. Chaparelli didn't make it. Although Schiaparelli did make a lobster dress designed with Salvador Dali also, by the way. And it seemed to be a shocking dress. It had a. A red lobster in a very provocative place. It's one of my favorite things she owns. I don't know why it was so scandalous. Like it looked like her hoo hoo or something. I don't know. You'll have to look at it.
- [142:36]
A
Well, I mean, it just. Whenever there's a new fashion like that that could be, you know, perceived as, you know, stripper wear kind of thing, it's always a shock. Remember the first time that women celebrities were wearing those dresses that were cut down to their belly button and they glued them to their body so that they didn't flap open? It was so scandalous. But now you see it everywhere.
- [142:57]
B
Well, this is just literally a printed on lobster. Okay, well, whatever. They. Schiaparelli actually re released a version of this dress this year. People who did know are like, oh my. To the 30s. They knew it was a pretty famous dress. But anyway, Schiaparelli didn't make the wedding dress despite the royal family's snubbing. It was a happy day. It was a happy day. By French law, you have to have even now, a civil ceremony, like a government ceremony. That's the real one. That's the one that counts. And then it's. If you, if you want to have a religious one, you know, layer that on too. But it's not required. Actually. It had been hard to find a minister willing to marry them because in addition to the king, I'm sorry, being a dick, the Archbishop of Canterbury had kind of also been one. I'm not going to say that when I refer to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He had put it out that it was a no go area. But they did find one brave soul to perform their ceremony. So two ceremonies later, actually. Hooray. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were in the house or Don le Chateau.
- [144:06]
A
I love. You know what? She had a coin from the coronation that never was in her shoe. A very traditional bride.
- [144:14]
B
Ah. And her dress was blue. That's something blue. And I think she borrowed some lace From Aunt Bessie. And that was the borrowed and old. Old.
- [144:21]
A
Oh, there you go.
- [144:23]
B
Well, and there was a certain degree of fairy tale ending, at least in America. One of our own is a princess. We'll see that a little bit later when Princess Grace becomes a princess, you know. Oh, me. Well, the whole world would watch from now on to see if it had all been worth it. That's some pressure. This reminds me of the Hunger Games, when Katniss has to keep pretending to love Peter to save her bacon. Just like Wallace. I mean, you're on the train now. You're living out the greatest romance of the entire world. A man gave up a kingdom, an empire for you. So here's Katniss having to love Peeta to save her life. And here's Wallace. I mean, really, despite her feelings, is gonna have to love this man in public to save her life, I think.
- [145:10]
A
Yeah, definitely. I mean, she has to make it work because. Because it would have been all for naught if it appeared as a really bad marriage.
- [145:18]
B
Well, Wallis is starting to realize that she herself alone is going to have to take the place of England, his entire family, centuries of history, and pretty much all of his friends that she's replacing all of that. If that's not a trapped feeling, if that's not a feeling of having to climb a mountain, I don't know what it is that it's complicated. Beginning to everything. I think her feelings were complicated. And the royal family of England started this, I have to say, kind of a campaign against them. We saw the opening shot with the forbidding of the marriage, you know, attendance. And Wallace, I think, was already expecting this to some degree. But David just kept getting slapped over and over and over. The ignoring, the leaving out, the forbidding of honors. I mean. I mean, I don't know really what he thought was going to happen. Except maybe they'd come round after the shock wore off. But they never did. The Queen Mother called Wallis nothing more than that woman. And his mother persisted in calling her Mrs. Simpson. And another female relative was quoted as saying, I hope she really enjoys her bathroom because that's the only throne she'll ever sit on.
- [146:32]
A
That was my royal laugh. It was pretty lame.
- [146:35]
B
I mean, geez, you guys, you won. You won, right? I thought there was all this graciousness. You don't have to really like them, but can't. You cannot hold it in. I just. I'm getting irritated at them. And I'm not even David and I'm not even Wallace. But I can tell you if Your husband is in pain because his family is being dirt bagged. I mean, Wallace is mad on his behalf.
- [146:56]
A
Oh, yeah, well, she was mad on her own because they snubbed her. Her the whole time. So, like you had been said a couple times, this was not a surprise to her.
- [147:05]
B
The feeling of betrayal was just too great for them, I guess, and. And they were scared, this is my opinion, that David would be kind of a duplicate king. Like, he had the look, right? He had the history, he had the charm, at least half the people's goodwill to come live in England, walking around being him, taking attention away from the proper king. And I guess they had to make sure he stayed away. They had to make sure he stayed down. And this next move of David's seems crazy, given what they've just been through. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor traveled to Germany on a visit that ultimately included a visit with Hitler.
- [147:42]
A
It wasn't an official state visit, obviously, because he's not a representative of the kingdom, but in his head, he thought it was kind of a back door, you know, kind of state business. Maybe we can smooth over things. Maybe I can, you know, do some diplomacy while I'm there. It'll be great. They'll see what I can do. Maybe they'll give me a good job and. Wow. No.
- [148:06]
B
Meanwhile, as far as official channels were concerned, David might as well have been Dennis Rodman going to North Korea. Well, I mean, I don't even know. What does it all mean? You'll read everything from he's a spy to Nazi sympathizers to. To dumb. Like, honestly, it seems like no one can agree on how serious this was we talked about earlier. The English position is, even now, right before what we know is World War II is about to happen, they're like, peace at any price, you know? Yes. You've got David on film doing the Nazi salute. He said it was just like when you're in China and you bow, you do what people do at the place. It's polite, it's protocol. Call. I'm going to direct you for analysis of this back to the 17 carnations book again and just that tell you they visited factories and officials. They were likely used as photo ops to bolster the legitimacy of the Nazi regime, I guess. And British officials had visited both before the Windsors and after them to try to keep the peace. So it's not like. Like an unprecedented thing to do. It's not like he's their friend and went like no one ever had, because that's not true. But yes, I can see how the king already jumpy about David taking over or like beating him or whatever. He'd hate this. He'd hate this. Like, David and Wallace weren't even met by the British ambassador in Germany. He was forbidden to take notice of their visit. They were given no official advisors that could tell them how bad this was. They were flailing on their. So it's kind of the king's fault too.
- [149:48]
A
Well, David had no advisors at all. At least when he was, you know, a king. And even as a prince, he had people that were. That would give them smart opinions. But he didn't have anybody except Wallace at this point that he could trust. So, yeah, I. I'm going with option C that you gave before that. It was just a stupid boneheaded move to go there.
- [150:11]
B
Well, and for Wallace's part, and this is a very small thing, I think she was a lot less concerned about than he was. But everyone in Germany called her Her Royal Highness.
- [150:21]
A
Huh. Yeah. Well, that was another point in the pro column for David, going because his wife would be treated like royalty when he was there. He knew that so she could have that experience. So he got it. It was super fancy and she was treated amazingly.
- [150:38]
B
But yikes, forget curtsey ing. The Germans gave her courtesy, which the royal family of Britain never had. It had been quite a while since anyone had treated her with this much respect. So it was bad optics anyway, even if it was innocent. David's wanting to do some good. The government of Germany liked him. You know, as a private citizen, maybe I can build some bridges over here. Although later he said, I acknowledge with too many other well meaning people, I let my admiration for the good side of German character. Dem. What was being done to it by the bad. I thought the rest of us could just sit on the fence while the Nazis and the Reds slugged it out. He kind of admitted that he had, this is after the war, that he had misinterpreted the whole situation, I think. And he wasn't alone.
- [151:26]
A
No, no, not at all.
- [151:28]
B
But he, and to a lesser extent, Wallace wanted to be of service somehow. Somehow. I don't wanna. I don't want to just languish. A planned visit to America shortly afterward was squashed by the King as well. You can't come back home. You can't go on these parallel diplomatic missions. You can't visit any member of the royal family. So I guess it was just exile in Paris, like, you made your bed, now lie in it. It was humiliating for him, I think.
- [151:55]
A
And I think at this point David was still thinking that, that two year mark, right, that once they got to two year years that things would have calmed down enough back in England that he could go back. So they pretty much cooled their heels in Paris and in France for two.
- [152:09]
B
Full years, she said, about making an alternative reality for them both. They led a life that I would really like. Dinner parties, coziness, you know, they're sitting on the sofa, there's the fireplace, reading. They've bought dogs. There's fabulous interior design, there's pink wine. I mean, come, come on.
- [152:28]
A
She was actually named one of the 10 best dressed women in the world in 1938. Yeah, that's how popular she still is, you know, to the press.
- [152:37]
B
Here is a critical element that I think her servants loved her. And I'm always firmly in the court that you can tell a lot about someone by how they treat waiters or salespeople or in days gone by, servants. So, yes, Wallace was developing quite the bitter and hardened shell. I'm not, you know, don't get me wrong. But somewhere still that nugget of solid gold. I think she could hold a room with fun and with humor and, and wit. And she was trying to make this little universe for them both that was kind of glittering to, you know, a shiny thing to take the attention off his troubles with his family. Well, along came the war, World War II. And David immediately put himself at his brother's disposal for England. Anything I can do, put me to work. I am your man. Wallace and David were summoned to London and after a completely, I'm sorry, Queen Elizabeth, your dad here, where no one picked them up at the dock, no one offered them a place to stay.
- [153:44]
A
I know David.
- [153:46]
B
Even though he volunteered to work with a unit in Wales. He was the Prince of Wales. Wales seemed natural to him. He was assigned to a unit in France, like out of the country and back they went. Wallace later wrote, this was tragic that David's humble offer of help was allowed to go to waste out of jealousy.
- [154:05]
A
So, ah, did we stop and discuss that? Was it jealousy or was it the king saying, I'm not going to make anything that looks like you have a position in this regime. I guess I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to give you a public position because of what you did. Did. Is it jealous? I don't know. Or is it just good king?
- [154:23]
B
Okay, so I don't know. I guess I am fighting through this whole thing that so much of this trauma could have been prevented even after the abdication by a little more gracious behavior and forgiveness.
- [154:37]
A
Oh, I have to agree. I will agree with that 1,000%.
- [154:41]
B
And if we, the king, the new king King, are the respectable head of the Church of England, which seemed to be the whole problem with David in the first place. Right. We should exhibit as an example the greatest degree of forgiveness, as I believe that would have been a better pathway.
- [155:02]
A
Yes, I can agree with that.
- [155:05]
B
So that's all I'm saying. I don't know if it's jealousy. I don't know what the motivation was. The degree and length of the punishment did not fit the crime time as far as I'm concerned. But then again, I wasn't there. I didn't get pulled out of my cozy private home with my wife and two daughters and made to do a job that I felt unfit for. You know what I mean? I'm not that guy. I guess I, I, I can only see it from the outside.
- [155:29]
A
Yeah, you were spot on.
- [155:32]
B
Well, Wallis herself in France participated in supply drives. She volunteered to make up, they called them comfort packets for soldiers. You know, socks, box, cigarettes, a scarf, a hat, some cookies. I guess they were biscuits. I still can't get my head around that. And she even learned to knit so she could make some of these things herself. And she bought games and records and gramophones and books for soldiers in hospitals and brace yourself for this. She delivered medical supplies and plasma to units at field hospitals near the front in her own car.
- [156:09]
A
How about that? I, this, this part totally shocked me. She was a major part of the war effort. I mean, it's not like she was doing this for a photo op at all. She would get in her uniform every morning and go do work, actual work for the war effort. And that was, you know, she did what she could, but this was amazing to me.
- [156:30]
B
I know. And wounded soldiers just loved her. They wanted to have their pictures taken with her. It's proto selfie time. I mean, obviously you're not getting your film back for a while, which is super sad and you can't put it on Instagram, but you got a picture of yourself with Wallace Simpson and you're a soldier. That's a big deal. She made friends. She made friends. Well, when Paris fell to the Nazis, Wallace and David had to flee. First they just went south, then over to Spain, finally landing. It was supposed to be just for an overnight at a house of a banker in Lisbon, Portugal. This banker turned out to be a, a known Nazi sympathizer. But I honestly think they they just needed the bed and he was in the right place and knew a guy. I just don't think that has anything to do with it. Although they. They keep running into these people who are Nazi sympathizers that they're associated with in this way, however casually. But they were surrounded by informants. Their most casual of words were reported back to both England and over to Germany. The guard around the house. House, just one by one, was replaced with guards that were sympathetic to the German cause. You guys. David, to get him out of the way, was created the Governor General of the Bahamas and ordered by his brother to go there immediately. I mean, Winston Churchill even threatened him with a court martial if he didn't go. Reportedly at this time, there might have been a plot, a German plot hatching. The Germans plan to either convince or kidnap David and Wallace with the thought of putting him. Slash them back on the throne. Quote, when the German cause triumphs. Oh, history is so scary, man.
- [158:10]
A
I know, I know. Wasn't that one of the reasons why they weren't allowing David any visibility or role is because they were afraid of that very thing happening? The king and his advisors, the real king now King George, you know, they were afraid of that very thing happening, that David would become, you know, a puppet king for Hitler.
- [158:30]
B
So crazy. Although wouldn't you think you'd want him.
- [158:32]
A
At home then under my eye where I could see him? Sure, definitely.
- [158:37]
B
Instead of wandering the wilds of occupied.
- [158:41]
A
France and mad at you at that.
- [158:44]
B
Yeah.
- [158:44]
A
Yeah.
- [158:45]
B
Well, Wallace and David did get out in time. Time they did. And off they went to take up their new post, preceded by this telegram from the office of the King. A lady is to perform a half curtsy when presented to his Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor. The duchess is not entitled to this.
- [159:05]
A
Okay, that's a dick move.
- [159:07]
B
Come on now. Everyone keeps harping on this. So much ill will could have been avoided with the King just giving in on this one thing. Golly, I know. Constant irritation and a. I don't get it. And all this isolation. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It seems so petty. I keep harping on that too. See? Yeah, people harp on. What is the king so afraid of? So anyway, even the. Some ambassador level people were kind of quietly to their own friends saying it's a pity the royal family can't behave with common decency. To the duke, you expect frigidity, and he deserves that. That. But civility costs nothing and might certainly be given, and if given, would at least deprive him of One grievance that is well merited.
- [159:54]
A
So he agreed with you?
- [159:56]
B
He put it more diplomatically than I did. And since he's a diplomat, that only makes sense.
- [160:02]
A
I read one. Statistics can be played with. But 61% of the populace of England thought that David should be allowed. Allowed to come back to England.
- [160:10]
B
Oh, that is a majority.
- [160:13]
A
That is quite a majority. But no. Instead, they packed up their 52 pieces of luggage, a sewing machine, a set of golf clubs, four baskets of Madeira and port wines, a limousine, three canned terriers, and set off on an American ship to the Bahamas, which sounds very nice to me, except I'm not wearing. Wearing wool and it's not a hundred degrees with no air conditioning.
- [160:39]
B
Well, for the whole duration of the war, David and Wallace were in the Bahamas, which does sound nice, but they didn't think so. David's pride was hurt, for one thing, and Wallace referred to their time there as their own personal Elba. That's referring to Napoleon's own exile on an island. I have to mention. At last, a good thing. Please, can we. Huh? The Windsors. I mean, you know, the Bahamas there is right by Miami, right? Like, right there. They went over for a little medical procedure, and they got an ecstatic welcome in America. They met the president, though not the British ambassador, which is gross because he was forbidden from seeing them, among other things. I just love this. Wallace got to return to Baltimore, which is the best high school reunion return ever. Like, hello, nice to see you. I'm a duchess. I live in the Bahamas. How about you? Delicious.
- [161:36]
A
Like, and she's married to a man who loves her so much. You know, she has a good marriage, right? This fairy tale marriage, that's exactly how you want to go back for your high school reunion.
- [161:49]
B
So that was super good. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people turned out to see this them. I kind of wish they had. Felt like they could move to America. I feel like Americans go crazy for titles. Look how we are with Kate Middleton. Like, what's she ever done for us? And we love her. So I just think, man, at the if onlys. Okay, well, anyway, in the Bahamas, once I get back. Wallace, I'm sure, drank a fair amount of cocktails as you do, but she also worked diligently with the Red Cross US she focused on poverty, unwed mothers, infant mortality. She felt like that was a cause. She could really make a difference on providing supplies for a program that was already in place. I. I just think that's amazing. Even when she had been in America, she called on Stores, yes, to buy her wardrobe. But she also called on the buyers to convince them to start carrying coral jewelry that the people in the Bahamas were making. And so she was trying to give the common people of the Bahamas a way to make some money, like open up a trade in that jewelry, like making it fashionable or whatever, which I thought was kind of forward thinking.
- [162:58]
A
I do too. And I thought she did a great job as the governor's wife. I mean, she got in and did things. It wasn't like she just sat back and filed her nails and drank martinis for the five years that they were there. She actually did step stuff. I. I was so impressed by that.
- [163:14]
B
And David seemed to handle things political and crises natural with a good spirit and technique. And in my mind, that sort of proved they could have been an asset, if not the king and queen. She created from scratch, you guys, a sort of restaurant slash hotel slash club for wounded soldiers that she worked in herself. I'm talking short order. Cooked up people's eggs, refilled drinks, made people's freaking pancakes, sat with people at their table and talked about their day. I have to tell you, she doesn't have to do any of that stuff. And she creates programs from scratch. I just think that's so admirable. She thought it was admirable too. She said, when this war is over, I shall feel that I accomplished a lot, which is better than sitting here hating our life. Which I kind of find almost unbearably sad.
- [164:10]
A
I know. Yeah, she. I mean, we have to comment though, that she did complain the governor's house was too small for her and they had to redo the whole thing. And she said that the American visitors were kind of boring. You know, she did say those things too. But on the other hand, she's so multidimensional. That's. That's the one thing I took away from, from this particular research is the dimensions of this woman. You know, she's coming back to her too small house after serving at the canteen, you know.
- [164:41]
B
Right. Although I can't blame her. Can we caulk this crack in the wall so that the lizards don't crawl over me while I'm sleeping? So I can't blame her for all of the problems with the house and everything. But you're right, she was a 360 degree person person.
- [164:59]
A
This is probably a good time to take a break and we'll find out what happens at the end quadrant of their lives.
- [165:32]
B
So we are back and the war is over. Their war is over. The stint in the Bahamas is over. And they were pretty rootless after that job was over.
- [165:44]
A
Yeah. Well, they weren't allowed back into England still.
- [165:47]
B
And David was never given anything else official to do. Wallace wrote that she was very frightened during the first years back in France. She was kind of finding it hard to replace the red boxes of days gone by. You try living out a great romance, she said to one of her friends.
- [166:08]
A
There's a statement that can't actually be relatable to a lot of people. Yeah. It's so tough. So sorry. You have to remember, she's on almost 50 at this point.
- [166:17]
B
Yeah.
- [166:18]
A
And we're entering into this kind of couch surfing years where they would go from one friends to. Until they wore out their welcome to another. They'd be on cruise liners for great chunks of time. It's kind of like a dream vacation. Right. What are you going to do when you retire? Oh, I'm going to travel. Well, that's kind of all they did.
- [166:38]
B
I'm kind of cracking up that you said couch surfing. Because they're in Newport in his mansions, they're at grand resorts, they're on people's yachts. It's not like they're sleeping on the hide a bit. No, but get this. David was not invited to his own mother's 80th birthday celebrations. Wallace was disinvited to Princess Elizabeth's wedding and therefore David wouldn't go either. And I will still, I'm going to give somebody credit right here. David's sister, her name is Mary. We'll call her Princess Mary, although she's the Countess of Harewood now. But Princess Mary finally cracked on that one and she stayed away from that wedding too. In protest, she put out the fiction that she was ill. But the reason she didn't go is that she thought this was completely unfair. And it also should be said that Princess Mary, his sister, never gave up on him or on Wallis and visited them all the time. She's the only one. So Princess Mary is exempt from any of my grumpiness from here on.
- [167:47]
A
Okay.
- [167:48]
B
So I'm just saying, like when I say the family with an asterisk shaped like Princess Mary, okay, so when the King died, Wallis was disinvited to the funeral. Not only had his brother died, which of course was horrible, but the family now seemed to think that with the death of the King, David was no longer entitled to that allowance anymore and he had to really kind of abase himself and beg for that money. And not one of the three, you know, big Royal women, the new Queen Elizabeth ii, the Queen mom or his own mother would see Wallis either. They wouldn't receive her, they wouldn't accept her presence at any family event. The Christmas cards came to him only. Gross. Wallace and David ended up having to watch Elizabeth II's coronation on TV. And that scene is covered so well on the show the Crown. Oh my gosh. Just the surreal nature of it, his eagerness to watch it, the pain that he's just not there. He, that actor plays it so well. He's so innocent. He is, he's so excited to explain the procedures to everyone and, and Wallace is hurting for him and it's really sad. Well, when Queen Mary, his own mother, died, Wallace was forbidden from the funeral and that he himself could come to the funeral, but you're not going to be allowed to come to the family dinner afterward.
- [169:18]
A
That was so harsh.
- [169:20]
B
I do not blame him for calling Queen Elizabeth and the Queen mom. Quote, ice veins find like what is it going to take? How much punishment is ever going to be enough? And I actually find myself wondering if he had known how everything was going to go down, would he do it again?
- [169:38]
A
That's a question for the ages. I don't know.
- [169:41]
B
I know he loved Wallace with the fire of a thousand suns or whatever, but I just, I kind of think he wouldn't. I really do. You know, she always wanted to be the mistress anyway and I think it might have been better for them both if, say, he just never married. But then of course we wouldn't have Kate Middleton. We wouldn't have George or Charlotte or Princess Di or we'd have Queen Elizabeth too. But we wouldn't have her record breaking reign.
- [170:06]
A
No.
- [170:07]
B
And we might have lost England during World War II, right? I mean, I don't know. Or we might have had an optimistic people's king who never got bitter. The people loved very much, whose family deferred to him and seemed to love him, him a lot.
- [170:24]
A
Yeah. This is where great debates are held. Yeah. I don't know. But I'll tell you this. Queen mom held Wallace responsible forever for the rest of her life for her husband's death. Because in her eyes she saw that Wallace was the reason why her husband was put on the throne. And the whole family was thrown into so much stress. That's why Wallace wasn't invited to anything at this period of time.
- [170:48]
B
Although the tobacco fields of freaking Turkey that you could really blame for. He died of lung cancer, don't you think? Or maybe is it her viewpoint that he smoked so Much more. Because he was stressed out.
- [171:02]
A
Yeah, that. I think that's what I was leaning towards, that he was so stressed. Yeah. But I mean, it's the 19, you know, 40s and 50s. Everybody was smoking a lot. You're happy, have a cigarette. You're sad, have a cigarette. You're stressed, have a cigarette. You're pregnant, have a cigarette, have two, you know.
- [171:19]
B
Well, back to the reality that actually happened during the 50s and 60s, Wallis again created for her David, a world as close to the good parts of being the king as she could. So beautiful houses, plural, luxury, entertaining, travel, what I call rich people. Eccentricities. Like having your bed made seconds before you get into it because wrinkles are bad, you know, like you're allowed to be kind of crazy, I think. I mean, it's amazing to me. I was reading some servants stories, how many of the upper class in England couldn't bear to eat an egg if the yolk wasn't exactly in the center. Really, you can't. But evidently was a big giant deal. Poor old kitchen maids had to sit there stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring to get this centrifugal force on that egg. So the yolk would be in the middle. So we're wallowing in that kind of thing. Gracious living, I guess I'd call it. They were key members of what was known as cafe society. The hoity and the toity. You'd call him the jet set. Except Wallace isn't about to get on a plane. But Wallace still, and for a total of about four decades, was considered one of the best dressed women in the world. So living well, best revenge. I just don't know.
- [172:39]
A
I don't know. It seemed almost kind of lonely. Yeah, I mean, they had no purpose. I mean, they just were free falling kind of. There was no. There was a target. It's the ground. They're going to hit it eventually, but they're just. There's no purpose. I mean, at least when during the war, you know, she was working for the war effort. She had. All she's working for after that is to make sure that her pictures and the society pages and she's getting upset when people like Marilyn Monroe bump her from the page. Like, what? How did that happen?
- [173:09]
B
I don't know how upset she was or if it was more like people liked to put things in her mouth kind of.
- [173:18]
A
I see. Okay.
- [173:19]
B
Like the rumors of separation. People were like gleefully hawk watching both of them for any hint of. I mean, you can't walk around your whole life with a happy face on And Wallace doesn't really have a happy resting face anyway. You know what I mean? She's gonna kind of. She has a little rbf. And so even if you're joyful inside, people are gonna think. I mean, for years, even, she said, you know, the rumors of our separation have been going on for two decades now. Could we just lay that to rest?
- [173:49]
A
Yeah. Because couples do fight. Even in really good marriages, they still disagree. And if somebody overhears that. Yeah.
- [173:56]
B
When Wallace was 60, she published her memoirs called the Heart Has Its Reasons. It sold really very well. People were very interested in the behind the scenes. It does contain a certain amount of fiction, but mine would too.
- [174:11]
A
Wallace, she also was, like, maybe making designer patterns under her name for people to make clothes that kind of sort of maybe looked a little bit like hers.
- [174:21]
B
That's pretty creative. That's nice.
- [174:23]
A
I know she was a style icon, and she was. She kind of got her foot in that particular world that way. Now, how much is hers and how much was somebody else's? I don't know. But she did lend her name to it.
- [174:35]
B
And Wallace also began to write a column from McCall's magazine. And in the very, very first one, she canvassed that old feud again. She said, I wish to make it clear at the outset that none of this is written with venom or bitterness, although 24 years of persecution, even in small ways, are more than enough to break anybody's spirit. My husband has been punished like a small boy who gets a spanking every day of his life for one single transgression. I think the monarchy's lack of dignity toward him, then and occasionally now. Now. Has been resented. And, oh, woo. That was literally just to embarrass the royal family. I think the gloves are off. One writer said this could have caused a major rift. And I'm like, boy, the rift was already there.
- [175:22]
A
No kidding. No kidding.
- [175:24]
B
Well, it's pretty ridiculous at this point. Like when an uncle says a thing at Thanksgiving dinner 20 years ago and no one talks to him. Well, there was a little thought drawing, but not until Wallace was 69 years old. David had to have surgery, and his niece, Queen Elizabeth ii, was advised that public opinion thought she should pay him a visit at the hospital. This sounds like the princess die funeral thing, doesn't it? Like the optics are, ma'am, you should make an appearance, doesn't it?
- [175:57]
A
A little bit?
- [175:58]
B
Well, she did. And she graciously decided to say yes to David's request that he and Wallace could be buried together in England. When the time came in the family plot, Please. He said, oh, my God, do you want to cry about that? Like the pitiful, sad request, can I please, when I die, come back then?
- [176:20]
A
Yeah, sad and well, there's your little touch of kindness. Too little, way too late.
- [176:29]
B
Well, this visit seemed to open up some others. I guess it was waiting for permission from everyone. And that same year, I'm sorry to say, the one loyal member of the family, Princess Mary, died. And both Wallis and David attended her memorial service to a silent standing ovation. When they walked in, the might have been his rising up in my chest. I feel sad. 2,500 people stood up for them when they came in. What was all this for? I just like, feel. I feel. Why am I feeling so upset? Like I don't really care, whatever. But, like, this is sad. Well, it says you're.
- [177:11]
A
You're playing it out like a movie in your head and you know, that's the end of the movie. They're being treated like trash for so many years, and then they find out that they're respected. In that big closing scene with the dramatic music. Music is walking into the church and having everyone stand and there's not a dry eye in the house.
- [177:29]
B
Well, and here I am, like the lovely Queen mom that I always liked before this research is the Hilly Holbrook of England. I guess I don't. God dang, if you don't know what I'm referring to, it's the help. Highly recommend on audiobook. But David was going downhill fast. Cancer got a hold of him and he was surrounded by a few friends and loyal servants. And Wallace, who was holding his hand nearly all the time there at the end. He was obviously on his deathbed. And David died on May 28, 1972. He was 77 years old. Wallace, also 77. Telegrams poured in from the likes of President Nixon, from the President of France, leaders all over the world. People gathered at the British Embassy outside the gates to cry and leave messages. And people were grieving. And the Queen of England sent this telegram. I know that my people will always remember him with gratitude and great affection and that his services to them in peace and war will never be forgotten.
- [178:40]
A
Wow, this really grabs your heart, doesn't it?
- [178:43]
B
I think. Yeah. The violins began to play. I. I felt. Yeah. Rising up the feelings between the time.
- [178:49]
A
That he abdicated and now. He was kind of like that boyfriend that you don't remember all the bad parts of him. The people of England were just remembering the good parts and filling in the blanks as over time as they saw necessary. So when he left, you know, that was a big thing in their heart. You know, he was the guy that could have been and, and wasn't and wow, now he's gone.
- [179:12]
B
Oh, yeah, I guess that's pretty emotional. Yeah, he's pretty emotional. Well, Wallis was invited to stay at Buckingham palace for the funeral for four days these 36 year enemies were under the same roof. And I will say she later found the humor in the situation, made fun of the queen mom's hat and dress, calling her a rag bag with an arrow stuck through her head at the time. In shock, she went through the ceremonies determined to be as tough as his family. She wrote, I promised myself I would wear the same expression they had on their faces, all of them that didn't care. And no one in the family even went with her to the airport afterward.
- [179:57]
A
Yeah, that's the part. Yeah, they were under the same roof, but it was a very big roof and I think it was very cold inside.
- [180:06]
B
I think she had a friend with her. I know her hairdresser came and I hope he was one of those guys she could talk to because.
- [180:13]
A
Yeah, no kidding. He had to have been because he, he was with her for a very long time.
- [180:18]
B
Right, well, and he'd offered to come and she's like, no, that's silly. And then she had a second thought, yes, in fact, please do come. And she had another couple of friends with her too, so I don't know, I hope they were in the house. But a couple of years of sharp decline followed the inevitable. It seems like breaking of a hip, though I will say the second time she broke it doing the Charleston in the hospital, right?
- [180:42]
A
She was showing it off, so I.
- [180:44]
B
Like that a lot. But she began acting kind of confused. She'd have these flashbacks or fugue states where she seemed like she was perfectly lucid. But she would talk about David as if he were in the next room. She'd warn him not to abdicate, which is sort of alarming. Even worse, Wallace sort of fell victim to her private secretary, one Mrs. Schutz, who isolated her and mistreated her and started keeping her from any friends who tried to visit. And then she was fired by Wallace's French lawyer who sort of kept up the same practice. Though I read that in her case it was more like Wallace would not have wanted people to see her like this.
- [181:27]
A
Yeah, I was, I am honestly on the fence about how to feel about her. Her name is Suzanne Bloom and she, like, you'll read a lot of things where she sold off all of their valuables, but there was debt, so it had to be paid somehow.
- [181:42]
B
Right.
- [181:43]
A
So. And like you said, Wallace wouldn't have wanted to be seen in such a feeble condition that she was. Yeah, I'm. I'm totally on the fence on her.
- [181:53]
B
It's kind of like that thing that was happening with the now defunct Richard Simmons podcast, where everybody was thinking that his housekeeper was keeping him prisoner.
- [182:03]
A
Right.
- [182:03]
B
That he was sick and somebody had taken over power of attorney and was not treating him very well, which is really a giant invasion of privacy. But I'm glad people are keeping an eye out, I guess. But anyway, that really was happening in Wallace's case. And toward the end, Wallace was pretty lonely and blind and very, very, very sick. And she died on April 24, 1986, officially of complications of pneumonia. She was 89 years old.
- [182:37]
A
Now, she did have a memorial service in Paris and, like, was promised to her. She was buried alongside David in the Royal family plot, and the royal family did attend her funeral. I can't get over how many years David died in.72, she died in 86. And all those years, I mean, she just, like, plummeted downhill. Her brain was sort of kind of functioning, but her body had totally crapped out on her. And she was really in this bed at the mercy of anybody that could help her. Her for all those years. That just seems so terribly sad for a woman who just a few years before broke her hip doing the Charleston.
- [183:16]
B
I know. I wish there were a happier ending or a more, I don't know, karma like ending. I was actually very worried they would reneg on that promise and not let her be buried there. But there didn't seem to be any difficulty about that at all. I mean, they had to move a bush or whatever that had grown up a little bit bigger than it was supposed to to, but no real difficulty. Well, at last, I guess David and Wallace were finally at peace. The war, such as it was, was over. And now it's time for media. And I would like to start with something that became a book, but started out as a play. It really, really dovetails with what we just talked about, about the end of Wallace's life. It's the Darkness of Wallis Simpson by Rose Tremaine. It is the story of the last 10 years ish of Wallis Simpson's life. She is infirm. She has a mysterious voice who is trying to convince her that she married a king. And all she can remember is her earlier life, which doesn't seem to Match up with the person telling her the. The last part of her story at all, which she cannot remember. Oh, it's very disturbing.
- [184:29]
A
Did you see the plaque?
- [184:30]
B
Right, no, no, no. I read the short story.
- [184:33]
A
Oh, oh, okay. I was like, oh, I never saw that one. That would be cool.
- [184:36]
B
Yeah, so that's amazing. So that has been turned into a book and it is now in a book of short stories. So there's that. Now I'm going to give you my top two books and then I'll let you go and then I'll have a couple more. But my guess, your top two books.
- [184:52]
A
Are probably the same as my top two books, but go ahead.
- [184:55]
B
Okay. My number one book is called the Duchess of Windsor the Uncommon Life of Wallis Simpson by Greg King.
- [185:02]
A
Also my number one book.
- [185:03]
B
Oh, good. And then a book more about him than her, the People's the True Story of the Abdication by Susan Williams, which seems like it would be super dry and it's a whole book about one year, but really did give me quite a bit of insight as to his state of mind and what exactly was happening with Wallis and the Royal Family during that time. I found those very good. There's also another one that I liked called the Windsor Story by J. Brian III and Charles Murphy.
- [185:35]
A
Yeah, I like that one.
- [185:36]
B
And it seems like I like how they say on the back cover, J. Brian III knew the Windsors socially. Okay.
- [185:46]
A
There's another one along that same vein. It's called Behind Closed Doors by Hugo Vickers, who was an experienced British biographer. And it kind of of towards the. The latter part of her life pretty much. And there's a lot of first person by the author in it, but there's little nuggets in there that you can pull out.
- [186:05]
B
And then of course, her memoirs, the Heart has Its Reasons, and his memoirs called A King's Story. Memoirs have an element of fiction in them, so you kind of have to take things with a grain of salt. Is it that they can't remember or is it that you want to put yourself in the best light? You, you know, probably both of those things.
- [186:24]
A
Yeah. Did you read that Woman by Ann Seba?
- [186:27]
B
Yeah, I have it right here.
- [186:28]
A
Oh, okay. I'll tell you, if you're an author, if you can study her, it's like a masterclass in writing promotion because she is on every video, every documentary, all kinds of conversations about Wallace Simpson. She got herself in there. So I gotta give her mad props for that.
- [186:46]
B
There are some authors that. And I haven't mentioned them and I. And I probably won't. There are some authors who. And this is only natural, I think, because we do it ourselves, but at least we admit it. I admit right now that I was more sympathetic to Wallis than to the royal family. That's just how my position came out. But I'm admitting that out loud. There are some biographers who are clearly on the side of the royal family in this endeavor. But do not make that position clear. Yeah. And so all you get is the scurrilous stories, stole our king, blah, blah, blah. And I'm really not down for that kind of slagging off of a historical figure. If there are sympathetic things, can we not put those in also?
- [187:31]
A
No, I totally agree. Totally.
- [187:33]
B
So. And I'm not going to mention any of those by names. I just kind of found that a little disheartening. I'm all down if you want to write it from the royal perspective, but at least be honest, I guess, is what I'm saying about the. That. And then I've recommended this several times. 17 Carnations by Andrew Morton. That covers the royals and the Nazis.
- [187:51]
A
Yeah, that one was on my list too. Okay. You know, a lot of times we cover these women. We're like, this story is ripe for a movie. Why hasn't anybody made this movie with Wallis Simpson? It's just the opposite. It's like, come on, another Wallis Simpson movie. There's so many out there. We was directed by Madonna. It was a 2011 movie. And it centers around the 1998 auction at Sotheby's of the jewels and possessions of the Windsors. And there's a lot of stylized things that I liked about it, but it's kind of a love story that Wallace is running parallel to a modern day love story. And then Wallace comes in. I did like the actress that played her, though. I thought she gave her a lot of grit.
- [188:37]
B
The casting was really good on that. But the. I. I don't know. I guess maybe I wanted a little bit more of a purer biography.
- [188:45]
A
Yes, I agree. And there was a lot of truth in the story, but it was kind of clouded by the modern day love story it had. You know, Natalie Dormer was in it as Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Yeah.
- [188:59]
B
Isn't that funny? She's totally not cookie at all, but okay. Better than we. I liked Wallace and Edward from 2005 starring Jolie Richardson as Wallace.
- [189:12]
A
As did I.
- [189:13]
B
Man, you can totally see. I guess this is me being sympathetic to Wallace again. You can see the torment. You can.
- [189:20]
A
Oh, yeah. I really oh yeah, and that's what I wrote down. I'm like presented her very sympathetically and it's told by her from her point of view. So. So yeah, I did like that one too actually when I was reading like I read biographies and then I saw the movies and then I read some more. But Jolie Richardson's portrayal was the one that was sticking in my head whenever I was reading things that they covered in that movie. So it was. I liked it.
- [189:44]
B
You can get a large part of that movie on YouTube.
- [189:49]
A
Oh really? I actually paid for it through Amazon. Like, like the streaming. You can pay for movies sometimes and that one was available. Yeah, that's how I saw that one. There is a hysterically bad mini film by Karl Lagerfeld of Wallace meeting Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld, you know, the designer, he wrote it and directed it. And it's short, it's just a few minutes, but it's just the most bizarre conversation between Coco Chanel and. And Wallis Simpson. Just weird.
- [190:23]
B
The woman I love from 1972 suffers greatly from production value problems. But I am spoiled. Right? You know what I mean with regard to this. Perhaps if I were regarding it in 72, I would have liked it. It stars Faye Dunaway as Wallis Simpson. And then even before that, although I didn't see it, the King's memoirs, A King's Story was made into a movie in 1965, which makes me think that he might have seen it. Oh, isn't that weird to see yourself depicted on the screen? So I don't know that he watched it, but it was perfectly, it was in the world at the same time as he was.
- [191:03]
A
And there's also an award winning miniseries, Edward and Mrs. Simpson from 1978 with Cynthia Harris as Wallis. I didn't think it stood up that well. Well, you know, it's a miniseries so it's not like a high production movie, but it's a lot of people's favorite.
- [191:22]
B
I think we should just go with Wallace and Edward with Joely Richardson.
- [191:27]
A
I would agree. If you were going to see one movie, that's the one I would see. Although you know, as far as documentaries go, there's one that was produced and hosted by Prince Edward. Whatever happened to the Windsors, King Edward and Wallace Simpson and I got it on Amazon Stream streaming now.
- [191:42]
B
See that got very bad, very bad reviews in several books. Are you, you're talking about the one Edward on Edward?
- [191:49]
A
It's not a movie, it's a documentary.
- [191:51]
B
Yeah, I think that got to the point where During a showing, one of Wallace's friends stood up and Prince Edward asked her what she thought of it, and she said it was full of lies and the worst thing she'd ever seen.
- [192:01]
A
Yeah, it's totally. If you want the. From the Royal Family's point of view, you know, you were talking about those books that are written that way. That's a documentary, that is. But there was stuff in there that I. That I thought was very interesting. And I think to understand her, you need to be able to see her from both sides.
- [192:17]
B
Right.
- [192:18]
A
So I think that's a good way to see her from the side of the Royal Family.
- [192:22]
B
Just as a side note, on books, if you, as I am, are interested in alternate histories, the what ifery, you know, this is a very ripe subject for people to write about it. It seems to have struck a lot of people as a very critical moment in history. What if he hadn't abdicated? What if they had gotten married? What if Wallace didn't exist? I mean, any permutation of that? There's a couple of alternative history fiction novels. One called the Leader, where Edward has won and he stays as king, with Wallis Simpson as the Queen. Evidently, they rule a fascist Britain after World War II. And then in Robert Harris's book Fatherland, he is there as a puppet government, so you never know what it's going to be. But most of the time, they and the Nazis can bet together in these books.
- [193:22]
A
That's quite dramatic to have them do that.
- [193:25]
B
So, anyway, didn't want you to miss that whole rabbit hole, if that's your thing. Okay. I have a link to the Sotheby's auction of Wallis Simpson's jewelry. The auction brought in $45 million for the Pasteur Institute, to whom she left a large part of her other money. One piece alone, which I thought you would like. Her famous flamingo brooch brought in $2.5 million.
- [193:52]
A
I do like that flamingo brooch, but I think my favorite piece was the cross bracelet because she had a charm bracelet and it had crosses on it that David had given her over the years. And on the back it was inscribed as to the event, you know, if she was sick or, you know, their wedding or a trip that they took. And it's a charm bracelet with all these crosses on it. I. That is. That is beautiful to me. What a sweet, sentimental bauble to have.
- [194:21]
B
There's an article from theexpress.co.uk about Winston Churchill trying to block the Duke of Windsor, which got into more of his Nazi sympathies. So if that is a rabbit hole you like to fall down. There's also several about the timeline from 1935 to 1940 leading up to war, which includes the abdication in those years. If you would like to see King Edward proclaimed as king in a video, we'll link you to that. Now, you should know what you're going to see in that video is, is three just views in different places of the Heralds. And then on the fourth view they go ahead and say the proclamation they just wanted to show you in different places, but they're not going to have you sit through it four times. You know, actually I think I put.
- [195:09]
A
That on the show. Notes from the last episode.
- [195:11]
B
Oh, very good, very good. You can watch the coronation of George VI and Elizabeth the Queen mom, if you want to. It was also televised, although Wallis and David only listen to it on the radio. But you can watch, watch it. There is a YouTube video of Wallace's funeral.
- [195:30]
A
Oh, I missed that one.
- [195:32]
B
Or at least the procession out of the church. It's a two and a half minute video. There's also an article in Vogue called the Beautiful People of Cafe Society. The scrapbooks, evidently. Before Instagram, if you wanted to, quote, prove you had been with the fancy people, you would keep a scrapbook of everyone you'd met. You know, the napkins, the conversations, etc, and a couple of those have been made public and do include our friends. Also, there is a calypso song by an artist called Lord Caresser. Calypso is not really what you would necessarily associate with the King, but it's all about the abdication. And I will link you to the video of that song.
- [196:19]
A
It'll get calypso music in your head, which is not a bad thing.
- [196:22]
B
And that's all we have on the life of Wallis Simpson. We started out dubious. Yes, we sure did. All we knew of her was her reputation based on rumors. Really, the more dastardly the better. Well, in 1936, Wallace was the very first woman of the year in Time magazine. The most talked about, written about, headlined and interest compelling person in the world. History will never forget Wallace Simpson. Simpson. Alternative history will never forget her. And we think it might be time to stop blaming her, to realize that she was an ordinary person who lived through extraordinary circumstances. Thanks for listening.
- [197:03]
A
Bye.
- [197:04]
B
If you liked what you heard today, please tell a few friends or leave a review for us on Apple Podcasts formerly known as itunes. So many of you been leaving reviews for us lately and we just want to say thank you so much you can interact with. It could be either of us on Facebook or me on Instagram and the Pinterest boards. Much to my shame. Of course. I work on daily, so there's always new content on Pinterest. I really should find another hobby. Anyway, special thanks to James Harper of Harper Active for allowing us to use his music in our shows. The end song is Jack My Swing Wag from Harper Active and you can buy his whole album@harperactive.bandcamp.com.