Ernest and Wallis had been drifting apart for a while. Their kitchen
maid thought they couldn't have been happy, because 'they were never
living together, only at short intervals. Mr Simpson went away on
business to Paris and to other places, and when he returned home Mrs
Simpson went away for a time.' She said that the Prince of Wales was
the most frequent visitor at Bryanston Court, coming round several
evenings each week, and on many occasions not leaving until after
midnight - usually when Ernest was away on business. A parlour maid
also noted that 'Mr Simpson was often away, sometimes abroad'.
75
On 4 May 1936, Wallis wrote to her aunt with the news that she
was planning to live apart from Ernest - not to seek a divorce, but
simply to take a house in the autumn and live alone for a while. She
would then be able to spend her time more freely with Edward. She
was aware of the risks involved. 'Should HM fall in love with someone
else,' she said,
I would cease to be as powerful or have all I have today. Perhaps I have made
a few new friends and kept some old ones . . . but I expect nothing. I should
be comfortably off and have had a most interesting experience, one that does
not fall to everyone's lot and the times are exciting now and countries and
politics madly thrilling. I have always had the courage for the new things that
life sometimes offers.
She was worried, though, about Edward's plan for them to marry.
'The K on the other hand', she told her aunt, 'has another thing only
in his mind. Whether I would allow such a drastic action depends on
many things and events and I should never allow him if possible . . .
to do anything that would hurt the country and help the socialists.'
In any case, she added, 'there is a new life before me whereas I
can't go back to the old - nor can I continue as I am.' She was 'quite
prepared', she insisted, 'to pay for a mistake."
6
Despite this initial show of confidence, Wallis started to feel less
secure as the prospect of a divorce from Ernest became more real. On
16 September she wrote to Edward from Paris, where she was confined
to bed with a heavy cold, to break off their relationship. She thought
it would be a good idea, she said, if she were to return to live with her
husband. 'I am sure', she explained, that 'you and I would only create
disaster together. I shall always read all about you - believing only
half! - and you will know that I want you to be happy.'
7
However,
Edward appears to have taken little account of these anxieties, pushing
forward instead with his plans for their future together. Wallis, in her
turn, made no further mention of any thoughts of returning to Ernest.
She finally gave way to the King's pressure and prepared to divorce
her husband.
In order to qualify for a divorce hearing at Ipswich, Wallis had
to establish her residence there by living within the area of the
court's jurisdiction for a month. In October 1936 she went to stay at
Beach House in the nearby seaside resort of Felixstowe with her
friends George and Kitty Hunter, and a housekeeper. Her chauffeur
and a detective checked into a hotel that was next door but one. The
detective slept at the hotel during the day and was on guard duty
during the night at Beach House. The hotel was besieged by American
reporters.'
78
Wallis felt very much alone, and doubts rushed into her head, I
can't help but feel you will have trouble in the House of Commons etc
and may be forced to go', she wrote to Edward. 'I can't put you in
that position. Also I'm terrified that this judge here will lose his nerve
- and then what? I am sorry to bother you my darling - but I feel like
an animal in a trap.' She asked him to think things over and decide
what best to do: 'Together I suppose we are strong enough to face this
mean world - but separated I feel eanum and scared for you, your
safety etc. Also the Hunters say I might easily have a brick thrown at
my car. Hold me tight please David.'
79
Edward swept her anxieties
aside. 'I know it sounds easy to say dont [sic] worry,' he replied, 'but
dont too much please Wallis. I'm doing half the worrying and looking
after things this end. Oh! how I long for you here and everybody and
everything at The Fort misses you too dreadfully . . . God bless WE
my beloved sweetheart.'
80
The King secretly visited Wallis at Beach
House, staying overnight. Two valets came too, and were put up for
that night at the hotel; they carefully avoided signing the visitors'
register.
81
The night before the divorce hearing, wrote Wallis in her memoirs,
she spent in sleepless worry, pacing the floor. She was terrified that
what she was about to do would harm the King and ruin any possibility of their spending the rest of their lives together. And she was
unable to make any plans of her own for her future. For a woman as
independent as Wallis, this must have been a terrifying situation.
The case of
Simpson
v.
Simpson
was heard at Ipswich Assizes on
27 October. Preparations for the hearing had been made at Fort
Belvedere, where Edward and Wallis consulted their legal advisors -
Walter Monckton, who had been appointed Attorney-General to the
Duchy of Cornwall in 1932; George Allen, the King's solicitor; and a
brilliant barrister, Norman Birkett, who had been instructed to appear
for the petitioner.
82
The hearing itself was no different from any
other divorce hearing, apart from the presence of a large number
of American journalists. Evidence was furnished of Mr Simpson's
misconduct by employees of the Hotel de Paris, at Bray, in Berkshire,
who said they had found him in bed with a woman named in the
petition as Buttercup Kennedy. (This was probably Mary Raffray,
who was known in London by the nickname 'Buttercup' because of
some headgear she liked to wear.) The suit was undefended, and the
decree nisi was duly awarded; once it was made absolute, in April
1937, Mrs Simpson would be free to marry again. Straight after the
hearing, Wallis returned to London. She went to her new home - 16
Cumberland Terrace, a furnished Regency house off Regent's Park -
for which she had arranged the lease before the
Nahlin
trip.
The news of Mrs Simpson's divorce was greeted with headlines in
America. 'King To Marry Wally', announced the New York
Daily
Mirror
on its front page. William Randolph Hearst's
New York
Journal
promised in banner headlines an inch and a half deep: 'KING
WILL
WED WALLY'. The Boston
Record
went five inches deep
with headlines announcing, 'KING SETS JUNE FOR WEDDING
TO MRS SIMPSON'.
But there was barely any coverage in the British press. According to
Deedes,
The Times
carried twelve lines, the
Morning Post
a ten-point
paragraph and the
Daily Telegraph
twenty-two lines - 'but on an
away page, sandwiched between "Colonel accused in private" and
"Boy with a mania for silk stockings".'
83
This restraint was the result
of special arrangements made by Lord 'Max' Beaverbrook, the owner
of the
Daily Express
and the
Evening Standard.
On 16 October, at
Edward's request, he had gone to Buckingham Palace (despite the fact
that he was 'cursed with toothache and heavily engaged with his
dentist'), where he was asked to suppress advance news of the Simpson
divorce and to limit publicity after the event. The reasons Edward
gave for this wish were that
Mrs Simpson was ill, unhappy, and distressed by the thought of notoriety.
Notoriety would attach to her only because she had been his guest on the
Nahlin
and at Balmoral. As the publicity would be due to her association with
himself, he felt it his duty to protect her.
Beaverbrook was satisfied with the request and, with the support of
Esmond Harmsworth, who was the heir to Lord Rothermere's
Daily
Mail
press empire and the Chairman of the Newspaper Proprietors'
Association, he came to a gentleman's agreement with the rest of the
British newspapers. It was understood that they would report the
divorce case without any sensationalism and with no reference to
the King.
84
This discretion was not apparent in the drawing rooms of the
handful of people who knew about the royal crisis. 'Everyone in this
circle is convinced that the King will marry her', commented Bruce
Lockhart after an evening of gossip. The only doubt, he said, was
whether the wedding would be before the coronation or afterwards.
85
Diana Cooper, said Chips Channon, was convinced that Wallis and
the King would marry in secret, immediately after the coronation. 'I
half hope so,' he wrote in his diary, 'half believe it is fated.'
86
If he
married her, argued his wife, Honor, 'he would have to abdicate
immediately for if he did not, we would have unrest, a Socialist
agitation and a "Yorkist" party.'
87
By a 'Yorkist' party, he meant a
party of those wanting Albert, Duke of York, to be king, instead of
Edward.
The day after the divorce hearing, the Hardinges had the Yorks to
dinner, to bring them up to date.
88
The two families were good friends,
and Elizabeth had been the maid of honour at the Hardinges' wedding
in 1921. Their friendship underlined the absence of any kind of
intimacy between Hardinge and Edward, since it was the King - and
not the Duke of York - for whom Hardinge worked. This created a
conflict of interest, which is apparent in Helen Hardinge's diary entry
for 27 November 1936:
Go out to see the Duchess of York who is an angel as usual. Much cheered by
those delicious children [the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret| who came in
from the swimming bath with terrific accounts of their own exploits. . . Alec
saw Prince Bertie [the Duke of York] this morning. HM was surprised because
his brother had dined with us!
89