tell you the truth. I did say it and I still think it.”’
The prince’s equerry, John Aird, who succeeded Tommy Lascelles in this position, believed that the king and his family were misinformed about his son’s activities. He wrote in his diary: ‘I have been told that HRH’s behaviour is killing the king. If so I am very sorry, but feel that it is not probable and quite unnecessary.’ Lascelles had described the prince as ‘“an archangel ruined” – though ruined by what, God only knows’. John Aird, however, did not share this view. At fault, he felt, were the courtiers at York House eagerly relaying to the king ‘all the nasty gossip, which is very wrong of them and does no good’. Queen Mary’s official biographer, James Pope-Hennessy, who was given access to the entire royal family for the writing of his book, concluded sagely: ‘It is courtiers who make royalty frightened and frightening.’
However, those close to the Prince of Wales, the unholy trinity of the monarchy, Church and political establishment, had serious misgivings about Edward’s suitability as king. His views were regarded as not conservative enough and he did not seem to take to his official duties with the appropriate solemnity. His high-profile visits to areas of mass unemployment, highlighting the suffering of the labouring classes, raised political hackles during the Depression, while his chief activities – socialising, needlepoint, sewing and gardening – did not match well with contemporary ideas of kingship. There were also concerns about his ability to have children and provide an heir. Several who worked closely with him began to bandy about the word ‘mad’. His nervous tics, odd speech and constant fiddling with his cuffs did not help solidify his reputation yet while he could be extremely self-centred, often appearing detached from reality, he was certainly not insane. George V remained infuriated by his eldest son’s ways, especially his style of dress. The prince insisted on wearing a bowler hat on official visits to industrial plants, eschewing his father’s preference for a top hat. Yet this was a considered move not to further alienate himself from the workers, rather than as a snub to court etiquette. The king and his court dismissed any such attempt of Edward’s to modernise the style and approachability of the monarchy as anarchic.
The prince’s lack of conformity extended widely to his social circle. Edward’s friendship with Lady Diana Guinness (nee Mitford) and her lover, the MP and, from 1932, leader of the British Union of Fascists, Sir Oswald, raised questions of political impartiality and judgement. George V knew that the monarchy’s survival depended on maintaining its constitutional neutrality, whereas Edward appeared to be enthusiastically pro-German, at a time when his parents were going to great lengths to rebrand the royal family as British. Like many members of the British aristocracy in the early 1930s, the prince seemed to view fascism as the latest in political chic. However, Edward was considered too ideologically vacuous to have any genuine interest in a political creed, and his two political mentors, Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George, were both Liberals.
That Edward did not conform to court life, preferring a vigorous and flamboyant social life over the grey strictures of monarchial duty, was tantamount to treachery in the eyes of his advisors. In 1927, Tommy Lascelles said to Stanley Baldwin of the prince: ‘You know, sometimes when I am waiting to get the result of some point-to-point in which he is riding, I can’t help thinking that the best thing that could happen to him and the country, would be for him to break his neck.’ ‘God forgive me,’ Baldwin said. ‘I have often thought the same thing.’
Edward carried on with his private life, ignoring opprobrium, preferring to spend his time with the wealthy and self-made, as opposed to old school aristocrats. He enjoyed the company of rich Americans, such as Sir Henry ‘Chips’ Channon and Lady Emerald Cunard. Emerald, widow of shipping heir Sir Bache Cunard, was an influential hostess and patron of the arts. Stanley Walker, editor of the New York Herald Tribune, wrote: ‘International society is not always difficult to crash. To be the guest of the Prince of Wales at his country house, Fort Belvedere, is regarded as a high honour. Many of the members of what is known in New York as the “international set” are accepted in London, and shuttle back and forth between England and America.’
During the summer of 1932, Wallis, who suffered from a physically nervous disposition – she felt her stresses in her stomach – had to return from a much anticipated trip to France and Austria with Ernest, due to a stomach ulcer. She later wrote: ‘I suppose that the ulcer came from nerves, as I always kept the day-to-day tensions of living bottled up inside me.’ Beneath her confident, sharp-shooting facade, Wallis nursed a frailty she was at literal pains to conceal. That autumn, Wallis and Ernest were twice invited to the Fort; once for tea and once for the weekend. By December, Wallis was in bed again as her stomach problems had flared up, in spite of careful attention to her diet. Her doctor advised her to drink only whisky or water for six months.
From early 1933, the Simpsons received more frequent invitations to the Fort. Wallis wrote to Aunt Bessie from Belvedere on Sunday 29 January. ‘It is cold for England now and since arriving here we have been skating out on the water with the Duke and Duchess of York.† Isn’t it a scream! Also you can imagine me out on the ice but due to having roller skated I have not been too bad. The Prince presented T[helma] and self with skates etc.’
Wallis’s bond with Thelma was strengthening. She wrote to Mary Kirk: ‘A friend of mine, Thelma Furness, is the Prince of Wales’s girl and I chaperone her when she goes out to Fort Belvedere to stay with him.’ Wallis described her surprise when Thelma arrived to drive her to the Fort, with long struts strapped to the side of the car. Thelma ‘just laughed and said that I would find out later’. It was after dinner that she found out. ‘The three of us came into the sitting room for coffee. On either side of the fireplace, where a grand fire was blazing, stood a comfortable chair and beside each chair stood something that looked like an artist’s easel. When I went closer and looked I found that each of these held a canvas on which was an unfinished piece of embroidery. When we had finished our coffee Thelma and the prince settled themselves down to work and I, sitting between them, was asked to read from a book Thelma handed me.’
Thelma encouraged the prince’s love of petit point. His first solo effort was a paperweight which he made for Queen Mary. It depicted the royal crown above her initials, ‘M. R.’, in gold. The prince had it mounted on a silver base and when finished, it was beautiful. He then progressed to sewing a backgammon table cover for Thelma.
The prince had a thoughtful, generous side. Every Christmas he bought all the staff at York House and the Fort a Christmas present. This meant buying and wrapping many hundreds of gifts. An eccentricity of his was to involve all his weekend guests during the run-up to Christmas in sessions of after-dinner wrapping. ‘All the guests became an informal task force,’ recalled Thelma. ‘Scissors, paper, ribbon, string were issued to each and the production line started rolling. The prince got down on the floor with his paper and ribbon and manfully struggled through three or four parcels. The results were hardly reassuring; the corners sagged ominously and the ribbons were apparently tied with some sort of knot he had learned to use in securing hawsers during his naval days.’ Thelma tactfully suggested that he would be of the greatest help if he cut the paper for them and this became the prince’s special task. ‘I can still see the group sprawled on the floor: Prince George flourishing rolls of ribbon, Wallis Simpson keeping up an animated chatter from one corner, while Ernest stolidly ground out package after package with astonishing skill and artistry.’
Wallis sailed for New York that March, 1933, thanks to a generous cheque for $500 from Aunt Bessie. When Wallis received it the previous December, she had written immediately to her aunt from Knole, where she and Ernest were weekending. ‘Dearest Aunt Bessie, I am staggered by the size of the cheque and have sensation of being a millionairess. You know you should not have sent it and I shall be killed by generosity! I have sworn I shall not pay a bill with it or buy anything for the flat as I have done with your other presents. This I shall invest in myself.’
On this visit to America, Wallis
