Wallis Warfield was born in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, on 19th June, 1896. Her father, Teakle Warfield was an unsuccessful businessman, and his wife, Alice Montague. According to her biographer, Philip Ziegler: "The Warfields and Montagues were of distinguished southern stock, but Wallis's parents were poor relations and her father died when she was only five months old. She spent her childhood in cheese-paring poverty, resentfully aware that her friends could afford nicer clothes and more lavish holidays. It seems reasonable to trace to this early deprivation the acquisitive streak which so strongly marked her character."
In 1916 Wallis met an married Winfield Spencer, a naval aviator. He was a sadistic alcoholic and in 1921 she left him but later agreed to join him in China. According to Paul Foot, " the American state files, produces clear evidence that Wallis Spencer, as she then was, was hired as an agent for Naval Intelligence. The purpose of her visit to China in the mid-Twenties, where she accompanied her husband, who also worked for Intelligence, was to carry secret papers between the American Government and the warlords they supported against the Communists. In Peking her consort for a time was Alberto de Zara, Naval Attaché at the Italian Embassy, whose enthusiasm for Mussolini was often expressed in verse. Wallis’s enthusiasm for the Italian dictatorship was, by this time, the only thing she had in common with her husband, Winfield Spencer."
According to Charles Higham, the author of Wallis: Secret Lives of the Duchess of Windsor (1988), while in Shanghai in 1925, she had an affair with the handsome fascist Count Galeazzo Ciano, who was later to become the son-in-law of Benito Mussolini. The affair resulted in a pregnancy, and a carelessly carried out abortion had left Wallis unable to have any more children. Wallis eventually divorced her husband in 1927.
Wallis then met the divorced businessman, Ernest Simpson.He was a partner in a shipping firm that had close business ties with Fascist Italy. The couple married in 1928 and moved to London. They became friends with LadyThelma Furness, a mistress of the Prince of Wales. On the 10th January, 1931, Furness invited them to her country house at Melton Mowbray where they met the heir to the throne. Prince Edward was fascinated by Wallis and it was not long before he was having an affair with her.
Colin Matthew has pointed out: "By 1934 the prince had cast aside both Lady Furness and Freda Dudley Ward (the latter cut off without, apparently, any personal farewell). The prince saw Mrs Simpson as his natural companion in life, both sexually and intellectually.... A man accustomed to get his way, when he knew what it was that he wanted, the prince of Wales seems to have thought from 1934 onwards that matters would turn out as he wished. Though he appears from an early stage to have wanted Wallis as his queen, he made no effort to test or prepare the ground, even with those whose support would be vital. Nor do those around him seem to have sounded him as to his intentions (and as his accession was clearly imminent they could not have been blamed if they had done so). Neither the prince's father nor mother seems to have raised with him either the affair or its likely result. Thus the prince of Wales's affair with Mrs Simpson, pursued with a passion evident to all who observed it, occurred in a political and constitutional limbo."
Wallis Simpson left her husband and went to live in an apartment in Bryanston Court. Also living in the building was Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe. The two women soon became close friends. This was unfortunate for Simpson because of a tip off from French Intelligence, MI6 was intercepting Princess Stephanie's correspondence and tracking her movements in and out of the country since early in 1928.
In December 1932 a number of European newspapers had carried allegations of espionage against Princess Stephanie. The French newspaper, La Liberté, claimed that she had been arrested as a spy while visiting Biarritz. It asked the question: "Is a sensational affair about to unfold?" Other newspapers took up the story and described her as a "political adventuress" and "the vamp of European politics". These stories were probably the result of leaks from the French intelligence services. However, she had not been arrested. According to a 2005 declassified document, the British secret service circulated a government report stating that files had been found in the princess' flat in Paris showing she had been commissioned by the German authorities to persuade Lord Rothermere to campaign in his newspapers for the return to Germany of territory and colonies ceded in the end of the First World War.
In November, 1933, Lord Rothermere gave Princess Stephanie the task of establishing personal contact with Adolf Hitler. Princess Stephanie later recalled: "Rothermere came from a family that had experienced the novel possibility of influencing international politics through newspapers and was determined to sound out Hitler." Stephanie went to Berlin and began a sexual relationship with Captain Fritz Wiedemann, Hitler's personal adjutant. Wiedemann reported back to Hitler that Stephanie was the mistress of Lord Rothermere. Hitler decided that she could be of future use to the government and gave Wiedemann 20,000 Reichsmarks as a maintenance allowance to ensure that she had her hotel, restaurant bills, telephone bills and taxi and travel fares paid. Wiedemann was also allowed to buy her expensive clothes and gifts.
The following month Wiedemann arranged for Princess Stephanie to have her first meeting with Hitler. According toJim Wilson, the author of Nazi Princess: Hitler, Lord Rothermere and Princess Stephanie Von Hohenlohe (2011): "The Führer appears to have been highly impressed by her sophistication, her intelligence and her charms. At that first meeting she wore one of her most elegant outfits, calculating it would impress him. It seems to have done so, because Hitler greeted her with uncharacteristic warmth, kissing her on the hand. It was far from usual for Hitler to be so attentive to women, particularly women introduced to him for the first time. The princess was invited to take tea with him, and once seated beside him, according to her unpublished memoirs. Hitler scarcely took his piercing eyes off her."
Edward's relationship with Simpson created a great deal of scandal. So also did his political views. In July 1933Robert Vansittart, a diplomat, recounted in his diary that at a party where there was much discussion about the implications of Hitler's rise to power. "The Prince of Wales was quite pro-Hitler and said it was no business of ours to interfere in Germany's internal affrairs either re- the Jews or anyone else, and added that dictators are very popular these days and we might want one in England." In 1934 he made comments suggesting he supported theBritish Union of Fascists. According to a Metropolitan Police Special Branch report he had met Oswald Mosley for the first time at the home of Lady Maud Cunard in January 1935.
Paul Foot has argued: "Fascism... fitted precisely with Wallis’s own upbringing, character and disposition. She was all her life an intensely greedy woman, obsessed with her own property and how she could make more of it. She was a racist through and through: anti-semitic, except when she hoped to benefit from rich Jewish friends; and anti-black... She was offensive to her servants, and hated the class they came from."
The government was also aware that Wallis Simpson was in fact involved in other sexual relationships. This included a married car mechanic and salesman called Guy Trundle and Edward Fitzgerald, Duke of Leinster. More importantly, they had evidence that Wallis Simpson was having a relationship with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Ambassador to Britain. The FBI definitely believed this was the case and one report suggested that he had sent a bouquet of seventeen red roses to Princess Stephanie's flat in Bryanston Court because each bloom represented an occasion they had slept together.
Chips Channon also believed the couple were having an affair. He recorded in his diary: "Much gossip about the Prince of Wales' alleged Nazi leanings; he is alleged to have been influenced by Emerald Cunard (who is rather eprise with Herr Ribbentrop) through Wallis Simpson." MI5 were also concerned by Simpson's relationship with Ribbentrop and was now keeping her under surveillance. Paul Schwarz, a member of the German Foreign Office staff in the 1930s, claimed in his book, This Man Ribbentrop: His Life and Times (1943), that secrets from the British government dispatch boxes were being widely circulated in Berlin and it was believed that Simpson was the source. A FBI report stated: "Certain would-be state secrets were passed on to Edward, and when it was found that Ribbentrop... actually received the same information, immediately Baldwin was forced to accept that the leakage had been located."
Wallis divorced Ernest Simpson in 1936. He told his friends that he believed the new king wished to marry his wife.Philip Ziegler has argued: "The precise nature of Mrs Simpson's appeal to the prince of Wales could only be understood by him; probably he hardly understood it himself. It is sufficient to say that by early 1934 the prince had become slavishly dependent on her and was to remain so until he died. The courtiers at first thought that this was just another of his recurrent infatuations, but throughout 1935 they became increasingly alarmed as her role became more prominent and impinged on the performance of his duties."
George V died on 20th January, 1936. The former Prince of Wales now became now became Edward VIII. It was not long before the king's relationship with Wallis Simpson was being reported in the foreign press. The government instructed the British press not to refer to the relationship. The prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, urged the king to consider the constitutional problems of marrying a divorced woman. Although the king received the political support from Winston Churchill and Lord Beaverbrook, he was aware that his decision to marry Wallis Simpson would be unpopular with the British public. Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury also made it clear he was strongly opposed to the king's relationship. King Edward VIII did receive support from Oswald Mosley. He attacked those criticised his relationship with Mrs. Simpson: "He who insults the British Crown thus insults the history and achievements of the British race... The King has been loyal and true to him." Mosley went on to state that the king deserved, after many years' faithful service as Prince of Wales, the right to live in private happiness with the woman he loved."
Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe then became involved in the controversy. According to Jim Wilson, the author of Nazi Princess: Hitler, Lord Rothermere and Princess Stephanie Von Hohenlohe (2011): "Princess Stephanie, still seeking to fulfil Hitler's wish, was the person who originally floated the concept of a morganatic marriage as a solution to the king's dilemma. She, like the diplomats in the German Embassy, was desperate to find a means of keeping Edward and Wallis in power in Buckingham Palace. The device of a morganatic marriage, she explained, would have allowed Edward to marry Mrs Simpson, but on the condition that she would merely be his consort and would not take the title Queen of England. It was very much in Hitler's interests that a way should be found out of the constitutional maze which threatened to force Edward off the throne."
Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, had received information that Wallis Simpsonwas passing information to the German government, and conveyed his fears to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. AFBI report at the time stated: "Certain would-be state secrets were passed on to Edward, and when it was found that Ribbentrop... actually received the same information, immediately Baldwin was forced to accept that the leakage had been located." Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden decided to restrict information shown to the King. The authors of Baldwin (1969) have pointed out: "Mrs. Simpson... was under close scrutiny by Sir Robert Vansittart and both she and the King would not have been pleased to realise that the Security Services were keeping a watching brief on her and some of her friends. The Red boxes sent down to Fort Belvedere were carefully screened by the Foreign Office to ensure that nothing highly secret should go astray. Behind the public facade, behind the King's popularity, the Government had awakened to a danger that had nothing to do with any question of marriage."
The FBI continued to keep Wallis Simpson under surveillance and in one report to President Franklin D. Roosevelthe stated: "It has been ascertained that for some time the British Government has known that the Duchess of Windsor was exceedingly pro-German in her sympathies and connections, and there is a strong reason to believe that this is the reason why she was considered so obnoxious to the British Government that they refused to permit Edward to marry her and maintain the throne... Both she and the Duke of Windsor have been repeatedly warned by representatives of the British Government that in the interest of the morale of the British people, they should be exceedingly circumspect in their dealings with the representatives of the German Government."
On 20th October, 1936, Stanley Baldwin met King Edward VIII at the king's country house, Fort Belvedere. The King once again stated his intention to marry Wallis Simpson. Baldwin replied that if this happened he would be forced to resign as Prime Minister. Mrs Simpson's biographer, Philip Ziegler, has argued: Once Mrs Simpson realized that marriage to her would cost the king his throne, she tried to change his resolve. Anticipating much hostile publicity when the story broke in the United Kingdom, she retreated first to Fort Belvedere, and then to the south of France. From there, in a series of distraught telephone calls, she tried to persuade Edward not to abdicate, even if this meant giving her up. She accomplished nothing; this was the only subject on which she was unable to dominate her future husband."
In a debate on the constitutional crisis in the House of Commons, the Communist Party MP, William Gallacher, commented: "The King and Mrs Simpson do not live in a vacuum. Sinister processes are continually at work... The Prime Minister told us he was approached about a morganatic marriage... but he did not tell us who approached him.... It is obvious that forces were encouraging... what was going on... I want to draw your attention to the fact that Mrs Simpson has a social set, and every member of the cabinet knows that the social set of Mrs Simpson is closely identified with a certain foreign government and the ambassador of that foreign government."
On 10th December, 1936, the king signed a document that stated he he had renounced "the throne for myself and my descendants." The following day he made a radio broadcast where he told the nation that he had abdicated because he found he could not "discharge the duties of king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love." On the night of his abdication, 500 Blackshirts shouting support and giving the Fascist salute gathered outside Buckingham Palace chanting, "We Want Edward". The following day, Oswald Mosley demanded the question of the abdication be put to the British people in a referendum.
Unity Mitford, Hitler's friend and admirer who had just returned from Berlin, apparently said: "Hitler will be dreadfully upset about this. He wanted Edward to stay on the throne." In Nazi Germany, Hitler's express instructions, Joseph Goebbels ordered the media to make no mention of the constitutional crisis raging in Britain. Goebbels was also furious with the way that Edward had handled the matter. In his diary he wrote: "He (Edward) has made a complete fool of himself. What's more it was lacking in dignity and taste. It was not the way to do it. Especially if one is king."
Edward moved to Austria and stayed with friends until Wallis Simpson obtained her divorce from her former husband. On 3rd June, 1937, the couple were married at the Château de Candé in France, owned by Charles Eugene Bedaux, a man suspected of being a Nazi agent (he committed suicide after being arrested by the FBI in 1944). The new king, his younger brother, George VI, granted him the title, the Duke of Windsor. However, under pressure from the British government, the king refused to extend to the new duchess of Windsor the rank of "royal highness".
While living in France the Duchess of Windsor employed Armand Gregoire as her lawyer. French Intelligence described him as "one the most dangerous of Nazi spies" and showed that he was working as a lawyer forJoachim von Ribbentrop and Otto Abetz. (After the war the French authorities put Gregoire on trial, accused him of collaboration with Nazi Germany, and he was sentenced to to hard labour for life.)
Many senior officials became convinced that the Duke of Windsor saw himself as a potential leader of the fascist movement in Britain. In 1937 Sir Ronald Lindsay, British Ambassador to Washington, wrote: "The active supporters of the Duke of Windsor within England are those elements known to have inclinations towards Fascist dictatorships, and the recent tour of Germany by the Duke of Windsor and his ostentatious reception by Hitler and his regime can only be construed as a willingness on the part of the Duke of Windsor to lend himself to these tendencies."
In October 1937 the couple decided to visit Nazi Germany. The travel and all the costs of their stay in Germany were paid for from German government funds. Officially, the 12 day trip, was organized by Fritz Wiedemann andRudolf Hess Later, Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe claimed that she played a major part in the planning and realisation of the visit. Martha Schad, the author of Hitler's Spy Princess (2004) has argued: "It was billed as a study trip to look at the country's social institutions. But behind this there was another agenda. After the humiliating treatment his wife had received from the British, the duke wanted to show her a country that would extend her a truly royal welcome. The men in power in Berlin expected that in the not too distant future the former king of England would return to the throne under their patronage."
The couple were the official guests of Robert Ley, the head of the German Labour Front. They also met Joseph Goebbels, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hermann Goering. Goebbels recorded in his diary that he found the Duke of Windsor was a "nice, friendly young man, clearly equipped with sound common sense" and became "really fond of him". He added: "His wife is unassuming, but distinguished and elegant; though without any side, a real lady." On 22nd October, the Windsors visited Adolf Hitler in his mountain-top retreat, the Berghof.
The Duke of Windsor later recalled: "Hitler was then at the zenith of his power. His eyes were piercing and magnetic. I confess frankly that he took me in. I believed him when he said that he sought no war with England... I thought that the rest of us could by fence sitters while the Nazis and the Reds slogged it out." As the couple left the Berghof, Hitler gave them a formal Nazi salute, and the duke in turn extended his arm to salute the Führer."
The New York Times reported: "The Duke's decision to see for himself the Third Reich's industries and social institutions, and his gestures and remarks during the last two weeks, have demonstrated adequately that the abdication did rob Germany of a firm friend if not indeed a devoted admirer on the British throne... The Duke is reported to have become very critical of English politics as he sees them and is reported as declaring that the British Ministers of today and their possible successors are no match for the German and Italian dictators."
By 1938 British intelligence was becoming very concerned about the activities of Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe. A report said: "She is frequently summoned by the Führer who appreciates her intelligence and good advice. She is perhaps the only woman who can exercise any influence on him." They also reported that she seemed to be "actively recruiting these British aristocrats in order to promote Nazi sympathies." (PROKV2/1696). According to MI5 the list of people she had been associating with over the last few years included Wallis Simpson, the Duke of Windsor, Prince George, Duke of Kent, Ethel Snowden, Philip Henry Kerr (Lord Lothian), Geoffrey Dawson, Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry, Ronald Nall-Cain, 2nd Baron Brocket, Lady Maud Cunard and Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild. In August 1938 French intelligence, the Deuxième Bureau, told MI6 that it was almost certain that Princess Stephanie was an important German agent.
When France was occupied by the German Army in 1940, Edward and his wife moved to Madrid. Winston Churchill was concerned that Edward would be captured by the Nazis and insisted that they move at once to Lisbon. When the former king initially refused, Churchill reminded him that if he disobeyed government instructions, as a senior British officer still under military authority, he would be subject to court martial.
Joachim von Ribbentrop sent emissaries to Lisbon and promised to return Edward to the British throne when Germany had defeated and occupied Britain. At Buckingham Palace a senior courtier, Alec Hardinge, made a note on an intelligence report: "Germans expect assistance from Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Latter desiring at any price to become Queen. Germans have been negotiating with her since June 27th."
While in Portugal the Federal Bureau of Investigation received information that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were being used by the Nazis to obtain secrets about the Allies. On 13th September 1940, an FBI officer sent a memo to J. Edgar Hoover that: "An agent has established conclusively that the Duchess of Windsor has recently been in touch with Joachim von Ribbentrop and was maintaining constant contact and communication with him. Because of their high official position, the duchess was obtaining a variety of information concerning the British and French official activities that she was passing on to the Germans."
Michael Bloch, the author of Operation Willi: The Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor (1984) has suggested: "The Duke unwittingly encouraged Hitler's hopes and illusions concerning him in a remarkable degree; and his presence in Europe, while it lasted, appears to have had a tantalizing effect on Nazi policy. The consequences may possibly have been fateful. Throughout that July, Hitler hesitated to order the attack on Great Britain - Operation Sealion - thus giving the British a chance to regroup their forces and survive."
The British government also discovered that Adolf Hitler planned to make Edward the puppet king of the United Kingdom if the Germans won the Second World War. When he heard the news, Winston Churchill, the British prime minister, arranged for the Duke of Windsor to leave Europe and become the governor of the Bahamas. It has been argued by Philip Ziegler, the author of The Official Biography of King Edward VIII (1990): "There seems little doubt that he (Edward) did think Britain was likely to lose the war and that, in such a case, he believed he might have a role to play." However, Ziegler believes that he would have refused the throne under the Nazis, "the Duke's belief in the British meant he could not have allowed himself to rule by favour of the Germans over a sullen and resentful people".
Michael Bloch, the author of Secret File of the Duke of Windsor (1988) has argued that the Duke was naive. He thought, Bloch suggests, that the Nazis were "rough but reasonable men". Charles Higham, the author of Wallis: Secret Lives of the Duchess of Windsor (1988), disagrees: "The repeated absurdity of journalists that the couple’s commitment to Fascism and a negotiated peace in World War Two was based upon a transcendent foolishness stood exposed the moment one entered a conversation with the Windsors. Whatever one might think of their views, those views were not entered into lightly or from a position of blind ignorance."
In December 1940, the Duke of Windsor, gave Fulton Oursler an interview. This appeared in Liberty Magazine on 22nd March 1941. The Duke told Oursler that it would be tragic for the world if the Nazi dictator was overthrown; Hitler was the right man at the right time and the logical leader of the German people and called for a negotiated end to the war: "It cannot be another Versailles. Whatever the outcome a new order is going to come into the world... it will be buttressed by police power. When the peace comes this time there is going to be a new order of social justice - don't make any mistake about that." Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary: "The Duke of Windsor has given an interview to a magazine in the USA in which he pretty frankly disclaims all chance of a British victory."
According to Jim Wilson, the author of Nazi Princess: Hitler, Lord Rothermere and Princess Stefanie Von Hohenlohe (2011), the Duke of Windsor asked Oursler to take a message of President Franklin D. Roosevelt: "The American understood he was being asked to carry a message to the President, but he was unsure of the exact terms. As he was leaving the governor general's residence, the duke's aide-de-camp spelt it out. He instructed Oursler to tell the President that if he would make an offer for intervention for peace, before anyone in England could oppose it, the duke would instantly issue a statement supporting the move. It would start a revolution in England and, the duke hoped, lead to peace."
Oursler passed on the message to Roosevelt but he would have nothing to do with his treacherous scheme. Instead he instructed the FBI to send him any information they had on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. J. Edgar Hoover sent one FBI report to Roosevelt, that was dated 13th September 1940: "An agent has established conclusively that the Duchess of Windsor has recently been in touch with Joachim von Ribbentrop and was maintaining constant contact and communication with him. Because of their high official position the Duchess was obtaining a variety of information concerning the British and French official activities that she was passing on to the Germans." In May 1941 Hoover sent a message to President Roosevelt in which he said information had arrived at his office suggesting that the Duke of Windsor had entered into an agreement to the effect that if Germany was victorious, Hermann Goering would seek to overthrow Adolf Hitler would install the Duke as King. Hoover claimed that this information came from Allen McIntosh, a close friend of the Duke of Windsor.
After the war the Duke and Duchess of Windsor lived in France. It was claimed that she remain promiscuous and had an affair with Jimmy Donahue, the grandson of the multimillionaire stores owner, F. W. Woolworth.
Wallis Simpson's autobiography, The Heart has its Reasons was published in 1956. After the Duke of Windsor, died in Paris on 28th May, 1972, Wallis continued to live in France.
The Duchess of Windsor died on 24th April, 1986 and was buried alongside Edward in the royal burial ground at Windsor.
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