Churchill's Connections

Edward VIII

Home » Friends » Edward VIII

1849-1972
Formerly Prince of Wales; later Duke of Windsor
UK royalty

  1. Introduction
  2. Stories
  3. Biographical summary
  4. See also
  5. Further reading
  6. References

1. Introduction

Edward VIII is best known for his abdication as king of the United Kingdom in 1936 to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, succeeded by his brother George VI. He was the eldest child of King George V and Queen Mary. Churchill supported a proposal for him to remain king after marrying Simpson, causing himself considerable political damage. Edward became Duke of Windsor, living in France until his death, apart from a period as governor of the Bahamas during World War II to keep him out of circulation because of his controversial comments about Nazi Germany. After the war, he and Churchill continued to meet, during Churchill’s frequent visits to France.

2. Stories

  • Churchill’s fondness for Edward VIII began when Churchill proclaimed him Prince of Wales in 1911.
  • Even before he met Wallis Simpson, Edward’s relationships and behaviour caused concerns about his suitability as a future king.
  • Churchill’s support for Edward VIII was partly an attempt to stall for time in the hope that the relationship with Wallis Simpson would end.
  • The Duke of Windsor visited Hitler on his honeymoon and the Nazis later tried unsuccessfully to enlist his assistance during World War II.
  • Despite their friendship, Churchill implied to the former king that he could be court-martialled during World War II.
  • Apart from wartime tensions, Churchill maintained a good relationship with Edward, unlike Edward’s brother George VI.
  • The Windsors spent their post-war years on the French Riviera and in the former residence of General de Gaulle in Paris.

Churchill’s fondness for Edward VIII began when Churchill proclaimed him Prince of Wales in 1911.

On the day before King Edward’s abdication, Churchill made a speech in the House of Commons, saying, ‘I hope the House will bear with me for a minute or two, because it was my duty as Home Secretary, more than a quarter of a century ago, to stand beside his present Majesty and proclaim his style and titles at his investiture as Prince of Wales amid the sunlit battlements of Carnarvon Castle, and ever since then he has honoured me here, and also in wartime, with his personal kindness and, I may even say, friendship’.*1

The investiture ceremony was devised by Welshman David Lloyd George while chancellor of the exchequer and was repeated for Prince Charles in 1969. Churchill wrote to Clementine that ‘He is a v[er]y nice boy – quite simple & terribly kept in order’2 and that ‘The little prince looked & spoke as well as it was possible for anyone to do.’3 Two years later at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, he wrote that he had had a long talk with the young prince and they had gone through Churchill’s Admiralty despatch boxes together. ‘He is so nice, & we have made rather friends. They are worried a little about him, as he has become so v[er]y spartan – rising at 6 & eating hardly anything. He requires to fall in love with a pretty cat, who will prevent him from getting too strenuous.’4 Little did Churchill anticipate what this would mean for the country in due course.

At the time of Edward’s investiture at age 17, his future wife Wallis Warfield was 15 and living in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father, a flour merchant, had died five months after she was born. Her first marriage was to naval aviator Winfield ‘Win’ Spencer when she was 20 years old but he was a heavy drinker and they spent long periods apart, divorcing after 10 years. Six months later Wallis married Ernest Simpson, an American-born British shipping executive, and they settled in London. Simpson had Jewish ancestry on his father’s side, and had his father not changed the family name, Wallis Simpson would have been Wallis Solomon.

* Hansard records that Edward VIII’s abdication document was witnessed by George the Duke of ‘Pork’ instead of ‘York’ (later George VI), either a typing mistake or a scanning error: see reference 1 below.

Even before he met Wallis Simpson, Edward’s relationships and behaviour caused concerns about his suitability as a future king.

While serving on the Western Front in 1916, Edward become involved with a high-class courtesan in Paris, Marguerite Alibert. In 1923, she shot her new husband while staying in the Savoy in London and her former connection to Edward had to be carefully suppressed in the high-profile trial.

By 1918, Edward had become besotted with Freda Dudley Ward, wife of Liberal MP William Dudley Ward.* Three years later, after a dance at Freda’s house, Churchill wrote to Clementine, ‘The little prince was there – idolizing as usual. People are getting quite bored with it. They think that a door sh[oul]d be open or shut.’5 After an event nearly 10 years later, Churchill wrote to Clementine: ‘It was quite pathetic to see the Prince & F[reda]. His love is so obvious & undisguisable.’6

By around 1930, Edward’s attention had shifted to Thelma Furness, wife of Marmaduke, 1st Viscount Furness, a shipping executive.** Thelma (pronounced ‘Telma’) introduced Edward to Wallis Simpson in 1931 and was supplanted by Simpson in around 1934.

Despite Edward’s obsessiveness he also engaged in many short-term affairs. During a visit to Kenya in 1928, for example, he ignored pleas to return home immediately to see his potentially fatally ill father and instead conducted a liaison with a local commissioner’s wife.

Edward’s private secretary, Alan ‘Tommy’ Lascelles (pronounced ‘LASSels’), had initially admired the prince but quickly became disillusioned, to the extent that he mentioned to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in 1927 that ‘the Heir Apparent, in his unbridled pursuit of wine and women, and whatever selfish whim occupied him at the moment, was rapidly going to the devil, and unless he mended his ways, would soon become no fit wearer of the British Crown’.7

Lascelles was worried how Baldwin would react, but Baldwin agreed. Emboldened, Lascelles continued that ‘sometimes when I am waiting to get the result of some point-to-point [horse event] in which he is riding, I can’t help thinking that the best thing that could happen to him, and to the country, would be for him to break his neck’. ‘God forgive me’, replied Baldwin. ‘I have often thought the same.’8

* Freda and William Dudley Ward divorced in 1931. William became the custodian of Edward’s properties in Alberta, Canada. Freda’s and William’s granddaughter Tracy married Edward Fox who played Edward VIII in the Emmy and BAFTA award-winning TV series Edward and Mrs Simpson (1978). The series was based on the biography Edward VIII (1974) by Fox’s aunt Frances Donaldson.

** Thelma and Marmaduke Furness divorced in 1933. After being rejected by Edward, Thelma had a brief liaison with Aly Khan, son of Aga Khan III. She did not remarry and died aged 65. Her niece Gloria Vanderbilt wrote: ‘She dropped dead on Seventy-third and Lexington on her way to see the doctor. In her bag was this miniature teddy bear that the Prince of Wales had given her, years before.’ Dominick Dunne, Fatal Charms and Other Tales of Today (Bantam Books, 1987), p. 198.

Churchill’s support for Edward VIII was partly an attempt to stall for time in the hope that the relationship with Wallis Simpson would end.

In December 1936, Churchill was shouted down by the House of Commons while trying to delay a decision about the implications of the King’s wish to marry Wallis Simpson. It was one of the most humiliating days of his political life. Clementine warned him that his support for Edward could be his second Gallipoli.

Churchill was loyal to his friend and king but misread the strength of political and public feeling about the issue. He also erroneously believed the king to be suffering from temporary passion. Years later, his private assistant Jock Colville asked him if he had contemplated Simpson as queen. Certainly not, replied Churchill, adding that he and Beaverbrook (owner of the Daily Express) were hoping that she would be scared away from the UK. Bricks had been thrown through her windows and vitriolic letters sent to her. ‘Do you mean that you did that?’ asked Colville, aghast. ‘No,’ replied Churchill, ‘but Max [Beaverbrook] did.’9 Later Colville told the story to Beaverbrook, who firmly denied it, but added that it was possible that someone from the Daily Express may have engaged in such activities.

Edward’s motives may also have been more complex than commonly understood. He had told some friends before his father’s death that he could not face being king. Lascelles believed that he was taken by surprise by George V’s demise and with more time would probably have renounced his claim to the throne. However, unlike his brothers, he was left no money in his father’s will, which was a huge shock to him and to Wallis Simpson.

Lascelles’ belief was that they therefore decided to see what they could make financially out of the kingship and the possibility of her becoming queen. This came to an abrupt end and they made considerable efforts for years afterwards trying to gain as much income as possible from Edward’s family arrangements and from the UK government for their lavish lifestyle overseas.

The Duke of Windsor visited Hitler on his honeymoon and the Nazis later tried unsuccessfully to enlist his assistance during World War II.

The marriage of the duke and Wallis Simpson took place in central France on 3 June 1937 at Château de Candé, owned by Charles Bedaux, a Franco-American friend of a friend of Wallis. Three hundred invitations were issued but only 16 guests attended. Members of the UK royal family were instructed not to participate. A message was sent to the couple that the duchess was not permitted to use the title ‘Her Royal Highness’, a long-term source of resentment for Edward, who was allowed to continue as ‘His Royal Highness’.

Churchill said he was otherwise engaged but his son Randolph attended in his place. Press coverage of the ceremony was low key, but Time magazine was present, which had made Wallis Simpson its first ever female Person of the Year in 1936.

After the ceremony, the Windsors departed in a private train carriage for Wasserleonburg Castle in Austria for a three-month honeymoon. While there, they made a controversial visit to inspect German factories and troops and to meet Hitler at his summer retreat in the Bavarian Alps, against the advice of the UK government. Edward may have thought that he could develop a liaison role between the UK and Germany. The newlyweds were flattered that the welcoming party referred to Wallis as ‘Your Royal Highness’. Her former marriage to someone with a Jewish background was not mentioned.

Having identified Edward as a potential resource, the Nazis hatched a plot in 1940 called ‘Operation Willi’ to co-opt him. As a liaison officer between the British and French military, the duke (‘Willi’) had moved from Paris to south-west France after the German invasion of northern France, then to Spain and to Portugal. German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sought to have him delayed and potentially detained in Spain, hoping that a fabricated story of a British plan to assassinate him and a hint of possible restoration to the UK throne under German occupation would secure his services. ‘Willi’, however, was under close observation by UK intelligence and was shipped out of Portugal to the Bahamas. He was supposedly unaware of the plot until it was disclosed in 1957, against Churchill’s wishes.

Despite their friendship, Churchill implied to the former king that he could be court-martialled during World War II.

By 1940, Churchill had become sufficiently concerned about reports of Edward’s allegedly pro-Nazi leanings that he sent him a firm communiqué saying that ‘Many sharp and unfriendly ears will be pricked up to catch any suggestion that your Royal Highness takes a view about the war, or about the Germans, or about Hitlerism, which is different from that adopted by the British nation and parliament’.10

At the beginning of the war, Edward had taken the rank of major general for his liaison role with the French military. After his moves to Spain and Portugal, he was directed by Churchill to return to the UK, but Edward said that he needed assurances about a suitable future position and more dignified treatment by the British establishment.

Churchill’s response was that ‘Your Royal Highness has taken active military rank and refusal to obey direct orders of competent military authority would create a serious situation. I hope it will not be necessary for such orders to be sent.’11

Meanwhile George VI and Churchill were arranging for him to be posted to the Bahamas as governor to keep him out of general circulation during the war. Edward accepted the position and the relocation there instead of back to the UK. He also accepted Churchill’s indication that Churchill had done his best for him but was shocked by the earlier summons, saying, ‘I used to have your support until you reached the supreme power of PM since when you seem to have subscribed to the Court’s hostile attitude towards me. […] You threatened me with what amounted to arrest, thus descending to dictator methods in your treatment of your old friend and former King.’12

In his announcement to various heads of state about Edward’s appointment, Churchill downplayed rumours by saying that ‘though his loyalties are unimpeachable, there is always a backwash of Nazi intrigue which seeks to make trouble about him’.13 Beaverbrook commented to Churchill that the duke would find the arrangement to be a great relief, to which Churchill responded, ‘Not half as much as his brother will.’14

Apart from wartime tensions, Churchill maintained a good relationship with Edward, unlike Edward’s brother George VI.

After the war, the duke and duchess settled in France where Churchill would meet them on his frequent trips there. George VI, however, was not keen to see his brother or for him to spend any time in the UK. Part of the tension was because Edward had concealed his considerable personal savings during financial negotiations, resulting in George feeling duped, in addition to being highly despondent about unexpectedly having to take on the duties of a monarch.

When Churchill was going to visit Edward in the USA in 1944, before Edward had decided to live in France, Churchill asked George for a fraternal greeting that he could take with him. The reply was, ‘In any discussion as to his future, perhaps you would put forward my conviction, which you already know, namely that his happiness will be best promoted by making his home in the U.S.A. Repeat U.S.A.’.15

One of Edward’s rare visits to the UK was to attend George’s funeral in 1952. He was not invited to Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation the next year, but both Edward and Wallis were invited by her to attend the unveiling of a plaque to Edward’s mother Queen Mary in 1966. Queen Elizabeth also visited them in Paris while she was on a state visit in 1972, shortly before Edward died.

Apart from the threatened court-martial, another incident risked damage to Churchill’s friendship with Edward but it was quickly resolved. Aristotle Onassis asked Winston and Clementine to join him on his yacht to the Caribbean, inviting their own guests. Winston replied that Onassis should invite anyone he thought appropriate but changed his mind when he heard that Edward and Wallis had been asked. Although Churchill and Edward engaged well one-to-one, the atmosphere around Edward in wider company was too formal for Churchill’s liking and Clementine was not keen on Wallis. In the end, the situation was rescued, with Onassis diplomatically ‘uninviting’ the Windsors and promising to give them the sole use of his yacht on another occasion.

The Windsors spent their post-war years on the French Riviera and in the former residence of General de Gaulle in Paris.

Churchill often stayed at Maxine Elliott’s villa on the French Riviera which the Windsors would visit from their nearby villa, Château de la Croë. Churchill would also visit the Windsors’ villa, where he and Clementine spent their fortieth wedding anniversary. The duke and duchess caused social tension on the Riviera around their expectation that Wallis should be called ‘Your Royal Highness’, despite the official prohibition, and should receive bows and curtseys. Edward would dress up in a full Scottish outfit and entertain guests with his bagpipes. Churchill commented, ‘When you think that you could hardly get him to put on a black coat and short tie when he was Prince of Wales, one sees the change in the point of view.’16 Château de la Croë was bought by Onassis in 1950 and was later purchased by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.

The Windsors’ main home from 1952 was Château Le Bois (becoming known as Villa Windsor), General de Gaulle’s residence after World War II, next to the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. The duke died there of throat cancer in 1972, aged 77. The duchess remained in the property until her death in 1986, aged 89. It was subsequently rented by Mohamed Al-Fayed, owner of the Ritz Paris and former owner of Harrods in London.

Al-Fayed purchased some of the Windsors’ possessions and put them up for auction for charity in 1998. Items included the desk on which Edward signed his abdication* and a piece of the Windsors’ wedding cake which sold for US$29,900 (equivalent to US$48,000 today or £34,000), a Guinness World Record for the ‘Most Expensive Wedding Cake Slice’.17 Cutlery-bending psychic Uri Geller bought a silver medicine spoon given by Edward to Wallis which he added to his collection of over 2,000 historical spoons that are riveted to his 1976 Cadillac.

Edward’s and Wallis’s funerals were both held in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Edward was the second UK monarch to be buried at the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore House, Berkshire; the first was Queen Victoria. Other monarchs since 1820 have been buried in St George’s Chapel. Wallis is buried next to him.

* The desk sold for US$415,000 (equivalent to US$660,000 today or £540,000).

3. Biographical overview

OccupationRoyalty, UK diplomatic representative
CountryUK
CareerPrince of Wales (1910-36); King (20 Jan-11 Dec 1936); Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (1937-72); Governor of the Bahamas (1940-45)
Born1894, White Lodge, Richmond Park, London (20 years younger than Churchill); member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha until 1917, thereafter named the House of Windsor
FatherGeorge V (1865-1936); house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; renamed house of Windsor in 1917; son of Edward VII and Alexandra zu Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, Princess of Denmark (‘Alix zu’)
MotherPrincess Mary of Teck (1867-1953) (‘May’); Queen Mary, after her husband became king; daughter of Franz von Teck and Mary Adelaide Hanover, Princess of Cambridge (‘Fat Mary’)
SiblingsFirst of six children:
1. Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David (1894-1972); names include the four patron saints of the UK’s nations
2. Albert (‘Bertie’) Frederick Arthur George (1895-1952), George VI 1936-52
3. Mary (1897-1965), Princess Royal, nurse, married Viscount Lascelles, cousin of Alan ‘Tommy’ Lascelles who was private secretary to Edward VIII and Elizabeth II
4. Henry (1900-1974), Prince, 1st Duke of Gloucester, governor-general of Australia 1945-47
5. George (1902-1942), Prince, 1st Duke of Kent, died aged 39 in an air crash while serving in the RAF
6. John (1905-1919), Prince, died aged 13 of epilepsy
EducationHome schooling; Royal Naval College, Osborne; Royal Naval College, Dartmouth (incomplete); Magdalen College, Oxford University (incomplete)
SpouseWallis Warfield (1896-1986), American, m. 1937 until Edward’s death; she was previously married to: 1. Winfield Spencer, US Navy Commander, m. 1916, div. 1927 2. Ernest Simpson, shipping executive, m. 1928, div. 1936
RelationshipsNumerous prior to marriage, including Marguerite Alibert and Freda Dudley Ward
Children–
Died1972 at home, Château Le Bois/Villa Windsor, 4 Route du Champ d’Entraînement, Bois de Boulogne, Paris, France, aged 77, from throat cancer (seven years after Churchill)
BuriedRoyal Burial Ground, Frogmore, Windsor, Berkshire, after lying in state and funeral in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
ChartwellVisitors’ Book:
Other Club–
Nickname‘David’ to his family (the last of his seven Christian names)
Height5’7” (1.7 m)

4. See also

French Riviera life

  • Elliott, Maxine

Nazi sympathiser allegations

Other Royalty

  • Elizabeth II
  • George VI

Churchill controversies

  • Abdication crisis
  • Anti-appeasment

5. Further reading

Edward

  • Brendon, Piers, Edward VIII: The Uncrowned King (Penguin Books Limited, 2016)
  • Hichens, Mark, Abdication: The Rise and Fall of Edward VIII (Book Guild Publishing, 2016)
  • Ziegler, Philip, King Edward VIII (HarperCollins, 2012)

Edward and Churchill

Edward and others

  • Bloch, Michael, The Duke of Windsor’s War (Little, Brown Book Group, 2012)
  • Cadbury, Deborah, Princes at War: The British Royal Family’s Private Battle in the Second World War (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015)
  • Larman, Alexander, The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication (Hachette UK, 2020)
  • Lascelles, Alan, King’s Counsellor: Abdication and War, ed. by Duff Hart-Davis (Orion, 2020)
  • Phillips, Adrian, The King Who Had to Go (Biteback Publishing, 2016)

Edward and the Nazis

  • Bloch, Michael, Operation Willi: The Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor, July 1940 (Little, Brown, 2012)
  • Morton, Andrew, 17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up (Michael O’Mara, 2015)

Wallis Simpson

  • Higham, Charles, Mrs Simpson: Secret Lives of the Duchess of Windsor (Pan Macmillan, 2016)
  • Morton, Andrew, Wallis in Love (Michael O’Mara, 2018)
  • Pasternak, Anna, The American Duchess (Simon & Schuster, 2020)
  • Sebba, Anna, That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (Hachette UK, 2011)
  • Vickers, Hugo, Behind Closed Doors: The Tragic, Untold Story of the Duchess of Windsor (Hutchinson, 2011)

Miscellaneous

  • Trethewey, Rachel, Before Wallis: Edward VIII’s Other Women (History Press, 2018)
  • Lovell, Mary S., The Riviera Set: 1920-1960: The Golden Years of Glamour and Excess (Little, Brown, 2016)
  • Rose, Andrew, The Prince, the Princess and the Perfect Murder: An Untold History (Hodder & Stoughton, 2013) (Marguerite Alibert’s killing of her husband)

6. References

1. Winston Churchill, ‘Members of the House of Commons’, Hansard, 1936.

2. Winston S. Churchill and Clementine Churchill, Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, ed. by Mary Soames (Black Swan, 1999), p. 54.

3. Churchill and Churchill, p. 54.

4. Churchill and Churchill, p. 76.

5. Churchill and Churchill, p. 230.

6. Churchill and Churchill, p. 313.

7. Alan Lascelles, King’s Counsellor: Abdication and War, ed. by Duff Hart-Davis (Orion, 2020), p. 104.

8. Lascelles, p. 104.

9. John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries: Volume Two: 1941-April 1955 (Sceptre, 1987), p. 387.

10. Roy Jenkins, Churchill (Pan Books, 2002), p. 628.

11. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Volume 6: Finest Hour, 1939–1941 (Heinemann, 1966), p. 613.

12. Michael Bloch, Operation Willi: The Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor, July 1940 (Little, Brown, 2012), p. [000].

13. Gilbert, p. [000].

14. Gilbert, p. 699.

15. Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny (Penguin, 2018), p. [000].

16. Churchill and Churchill, p. 448.

17. Guinness World Records, ‘Most Expensive Wedding Cake Slice’, Guinness World Records, 1998.