| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
Born in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn , a still-extant resort hotel in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania . She was the only child of Teackle Wallis Warfield and his wife, the former Alice Montague and was born seven months after their wedding. Her father died of tuberculosis when she was five months old.
She was raised in Baltimore and christened Bessie Wallis (Bessiewallis according to some sources), in honor of her father and her mother's sister. She was called Wallis. Her first marriage was to Earl Winfield Spencer, Jr., a hard-drinking, reportedly abusive US Navy pilot, in 1916; she divorced him in 1927. She then became the mistress of Ernest Aldrich Simpson, a mild-mannered half-English, half-American shipping executive and former captain in the Coldstream Guards, who divorced his first wife to marry her. Their union lasted from 1928 until their divorce in 1937. By then Wallis Simpson was living in Britain and had been introduced to the Prince of WalesThe eldest son of the reigning monarch of Great Britain is traditionally invested with the title of Prince of Wales . This tradition began in 1301, when King Edward I of England, having completed the Norman conquest of Wales, gave the title to his heir, P. She soon became his mistress (although the Duke of Windsor denied to his death that she was his mistress before they married), after ousting the prince's previous companion, the exotic American-born Viscountess Furness (née Thelma MorganThelma Morgan ( August 23, 1904 January 29, 1970) was an American socialite best known as Viscountess Furness, the mistress who preceded Wallis Simpson in the affections of Edward VIII of the United Kingdom. Her first name was pronounced in Spanish fashio), and distancing him from a former lover and confidante, Freda Dudley Ward -- and was regarded by the royal family as a totally unsuitable wife for the heir to the throne. Time magazineClockwise from upper left TIME magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. TIME is a weekly American newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and U. News and World Report. A European edition TIMEeur, however, found her perfectly acceptable as its first Woman of the Year in 1936Events January-February January 15 The first building to be completely covered in glass is completed in Toledo, Ohio, for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. January 20 Death of George V of the United Kingdom. His son Edward VIII succeedes him as King of th.
It is generally believed that it was her status as a twice-divorced woman that made it problematic for the Prince to marry Wallis. As king, he would become head of the Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and is the mother branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion. Christianity was planted in Britain in the first or second c, and remarriage for divorcees was strictly forbidden by that church, but both were determined to make their relationship legal. On his accession to the throne as Edward VIII, he looked for a way around the problem and consulted the Prime MinisterIn the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister is the head of government, exercising many of the executive functions nominally vested in the Sovereign, who is head of state. According to custom, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet (which he or she heads) are re and the Archbishop of CanterburyThe Archbishop of Canterbury is a bishop of the Church of England. His see is the Diocese of Canterbury and his episcopal chair ('cathedra') is at Canterbury Cathedral. He is the most senior bishop of the Church of England and of the worldwide Anglican Co, but no acceptable compromise was found. The result was the Abdication Crisis of 1936. King Edward renounced his throne, and then his brother, the new king, George VI, created him Duke of Windsor. The following year he married Wallis Warfield, who had briefly resumed her maiden name by deed poll after her divorce. Following the fashion of Windsor royal wives like her sister in law HRH the Princess Henry, Duchess of Gloucester (the former Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott), the duke's bride automatically should have become HRH the Princess Edward, Duchess of Windsor, but the British royal family ensured that she was denied the designation Her Royal Highness.
The British Royal Family never accepted the duchess and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and brother after his abdication. The couple lived in Neuilly, near Paris, for most of the remainder of their lives. They were neighbours and soon became close friends of Oswald and Diana Mosley. They had no children, though the duchess briefly was a stepmother by her marriage to Ernest Simpson, who had a daughter by his first wife.
Upon the duke's death from cancer in 1972, the increasingly senile and frail duchess traveled to England to attend his funeral, her first trip to the country since her marriage. Wallis Windsor lived the remainder of her life as a recluse, a bedridden invalid fed by tubes, and followed her husband in death fourteen years later, in Paris. She is buried next to her husband behind the royal mausoleum next to Frogmore House, near Windsor Castle. Her tombstone simply reads "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, 1896-1986."