is a curious detail that Edward always maintained that he never slept with Wallis before his marriage, and sued for libel an author who referred to her as his mistress. Astonishingly, the subject arose between Edward and his father, when Edward challenged the king over his ban on Wallis’s appearance at court. He wanted Wallis to be invited to the court ball to celebrate the Silver Jubilee in May 1935. The king said that he could not invite his son’s mistress to such an occasion. When the prince swore that she was not his ‘mistress’, the king accepted his son’s word and said that Mrs Simpson could come. ‘I think that this is all for the best,’ wrote John Aird in his diary, ‘but it is rather a shock to think of the Prince of Wales lying on his oath, which a lot of people who know think he has.’
Sir Clive Wigram wrote that ‘the staff were horrified at the audacity of the statements of HRH. Apart from actually seeing HRH and Mrs S in bed together, they had positive proof that HRH lived with her.’ Tommy Lascelles said that he would find it as easy to believe in the innocence of their relationship as ‘a herd of unicorns grazing in Hyde Park and a shoal of mermaids swimming in the Serpentine’.
Despite the unravelling of their marriage, the Simpsons put on a brave front. That April, Ernest wrote warmly to his mother, keen to impress her with his royal connections and wanting to reassure her that all was well in his marriage:
My dearest one and only Mother,
The Prince took two other married couples and ourselves to the Grand National Steeple chase near Liverpool. We had a special car on the train and we were met by a fleet of motors. We lunched in state with Lord Sefton, the owner of the course and had a splendid view from his private stand. It was great fun.
Much, much love, in which Wallis joins, and a big hug,
Affectionately, Ernest.
At Easter, Ernest joined Wallis motoring around Cornwall with the prince, and their friends, the Hunters, to see the camellias and rhododendrons in bloom. According to Wallis, whatever Ernest was ‘thinking or feeling, he loyally played his part’. Whilst staying on the Duchy estate, Edward began penning Wallis intimate billets-doux, which he had delivered to her room. But a shadow was now cast over the trio. Where the arrangement had previously been chummily inclusive, Ernest was now excluded. Wallis and Edward were sufficiently emotionally entwined to have developed their own private language, which spelt out the intensity of their relationship. They referred to themselves as ‘WE’, representing their joint first names and symbolising their union. They also devised the adjective eanum, which to them meant tiny, ‘poor’, ‘affecting’ and ‘pathetic’. Edward wrote to Wallis from St Austell Bay Hotel, his note accompanying an Easter gift of a bracelet:
My [twice underlined] Eanum – My [thrice underlined] Wallis
This is not the kind of Easter WE want but it will be alright next year. The Easter Bunny has brought this from Us All [twice underlined] & Slipper says he likes it too but it has to be fitted and christened later. I love you more & more & more each & every minute & miss you so [thrice underlined] terribly here. You do too dont you my sweetheart.
God bless WE. Always your[s] [twice underlined].
Edward’s obsession for Wallis was causing him to act with increasingly rash indiscretion. Wallis would have received the letter, and the accompanying piece of jewellery, while sharing a room with Ernest. She, meanwhile, was no longer under any illusions that this was a romantic relationship that the prince seemed wholly committed to. The mounting tension between the trio finally erupted in a terrible row between Wallis and Ernest on their return from Cornwall. This provoked Wallis to write her first stern letter to the prince. It reveals how she by now fully assumed the role of disapproving mother, reprimanding a thoughtless naughty boy.
Tuesday a.m.
David dear –
I was and still am most terribly upset. You see my dear one can’t go through life stepping on other people … You think only of what you want and take it without the slightest thought of others. One can arrive at the same result in a kinder way. I had a long quiet talk with E last night and I felt very eanum at the end. Everything he said was so true. The evening was difficult as you did stay too late. Doesn’t your love for me reach the heights of wanting to make things a little easier for me. The lovely things you say to me aren’t of much value unless they are backed up by equal actions.
I was upset and also very disappointed in a boy – because David what are all those words if what they say isn’t enough for a little sacrifice on our part to do what is the right thing for all concerned. So far you have always come first in my actions if there had to be a choice (like Sat). It isn’t fair and cannot always be that way.
Sometimes I think you haven’t grown up where love is concerned and perhaps it’s only a boyish passion for surely it lacks the thought of me that a man’s love is capable of … Your behaviour last night made me realise how very alone I shall be some day – and because I love you I don’t seem to have the strength to protect myself from your youthfulness.
God bless WE and be kind to me in the years to come for I have lost something noble for a boy who may always remain a Peter Pan.
Those close to the couple could see the inherent insecurity in Wallis’s position. As Chips Channon wrote on 14 May, the day of the Silver Jubilee Ball: ‘She is madly anxious to storm society while she is still his favourite so that when he leaves her, as he leaves everybody in time, she will be secure.’ Chips continued to comment on the gossip fizzing about Wallis’s appearance later at the ball. ‘There is tremendous excitement about Mrs Simpson. It is a war of the knife between past and present. Officially I am on-side – but secretly delighted for she always was an appalling, selfish, silly influence. Mrs S has enormously improved the prince. In fact, I find her duel over the Prince of Wales between Mrs Simpson, supported by Diana Cooper, and strangely, enough, Emerald, and the _* camp, is most diverting. In fact, the romance surpasses all else in interest.’
Of the state ball, Wallis recalled that after the king and queen had made their entrance, the dancing began. ‘As David and I danced past, I thought I felt the king’s eyes rest searchingly on me. Something in his look made me feel all this graciousness and pageantry were but the glittering tip of an iceberg that extended down into unseen depths I could never plumb, depths filled with an icy menace for such as me.’ A chill ran through Wallis and in spite of being seen dancing the foxtrot with the Prince of Wales, ‘in that moment I knew that between David’s world and mine lay an abyss that I could never cross, one he could never bridge for me’.
Wallis kept up her jovial, reassuring front in her correspondence with Aunt Bessie. After the ball, she wrote of her evening, describing the diamond clips she received as a jubilee present. ‘The Prince danced with me after the opening one with the Queen so you see I am not neglected on the right things.’ She continued to regale her aunt with examples of her popularity, explaining that she was besieged by invitations. Wise to the situation she explained: ‘They think that in asking me they’ll get him.’ Before adding, tellingly: ‘It will be lovely when something happens to break it up.’
However, Edward had no intention of letting Wallis go. He later wrote: ‘A prince’s heart, like his politics, must remain within the constitutional pale. But my heart refused to be so confined; and presently and imperceptibly the hope formed that one day I might be able to share my life with her, just how I did not know.’ The prince and Mrs Simpson continued to storm society; while Special Branch continued to spy on Wallis; and the royal family made every effort to avoid her. The battle lines that Chips Channon referred to were drawn between the old guard traditionalists (chiefly King George V, Queen Mary, the
