Meet the love of Wallis Simpson's life — and it wasn't the Duke of Windsor
Lewis Jones reviews Wallis in Love by Andrew Morton (Michael O'Mara)
"Hark the herald angels sing,/ Mrs Simpson’s pinched our King!”
In the decades since the abdication of Edward VIII – formerly Prince of Wales, subsequently Duke of Windsor, and additionally, as The Crown has so vividly reminded us, Bad Uncle David the Nazi – the general view of the unhappy couple has not altered: she was entirely unsuitable, he was a weak fool, and their life together was a gilded hell.
Their relationship has been exhaustively described. Frances Donaldson, for example, argued that her attraction for him was that she enabled him to give up the monarchy, which he had never wanted, while his for her was precisely...
Start a 30-day free trial for unlimited access to Premium articles
- Unlimited access to Premium articles
- Subscriber-only events and experiences
- Cancel any time
Free for 30 days
then only £2 per week
Save 25% with an annual subscription
Just £75 per year