Did Wallis Simpson Leave Queen Elizabeth II’s Uncle, Edward VIII, For Another Man When He Was On His Deathbed?
Something that occurred within Queen Elizabeth II‘s family many years ago still fascinates royal fans today. If you’ve ever heard the story of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson then you might think it’s a great love story.
But one of the most famous royal writers is revealing a story more tragic than anyone knew. Read on to find out what Princess Diana‘s biographer, Andrew Morton, has said about the pair’s romance and why Simpson and Edward VIII did not live happily ever after.
King Edward VIII chose love over the crown
When Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather, King George V, died in 1936 his oldest son, Edward, became King Edward VIII. However, he fell in love with an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson, who he intended to marry. The problem was that as the head of the Church of England, the king couldn’t wed someone who had been married twice and divorced.
Edward VIII ended up choosing love over the crown and announced his decision to abdicate the throne, making Elizabeth’s father the king.
“You must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love,” Edward VIII stated.
He was later given the title Duke of Windsor and exiled to France with his bride.
Simpson left the Duke of Windsor alone at his deathbed
In the early 1970s, the duke’s health deteriorated and Simpson left her husband’s side as her heart was reportedly with another man.
In any great love story, couples stick together through good times and bad as well in sickness and in health, but in the book Wallis in Love, Morton detailed how Simpson was not around when Edward VIII was dying. She left him in the care of a nurse, Julie Chatard Alexander, while he battled throat cancer.
“[Simpson] hardly ever came in to see him,” Alexander said. “I saw her in his room on the first night, and then again the night he died. I was there from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. for about three weeks, and during that time, she didn’t come in and eat with her husband.”
Alexander added that she remembered how upsetting it was hearing the duke call out for his wife, who never answered his cries.
“Poor fellow. He would call her name over and over: ‘Wallis, Wallis, Wallis.’ Or, ‘Darling, Darling,'” Alexander recalled hearing him say. “It was pathetic and so sad, like a lamb calling for its mother.”
Morton wrote that Simpson’s longtime friend, Herman Rogers, was “the most significant man in her life” and she made it clear to him and others that he was the only man she ever loved.
On May 28, 1972, Edward VIII succumbed to cancer. Simpson was not with him when he died. She passed away in 1986 and was buried alongside her husband in Windsor.
Read more: Why Queen Elizabeth II’s Parents Did Not Approve of Her Relationship With Prince Philip
