Royal Wives at War

A few hours ago, I discharged my last duty as King and Emperor.

When King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in 1936,

he sparked a constitutional crisis.

It wouldn't have surprised me if the monarchy had crumbled.

It was a family crisis too,

forcing his reluctant younger brother Bertie to become King.

'Bertie wasn't brought up to be King.'

But at the heart of it all was a bitter conflict

between two strong and determined women...

Behind that great abundance of charm,

lies a shrewd, scheming and extremely ruthless woman.

..Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee,

for whom the King gave up the throne...

Nothing can change how I feel about you.

What man ever gave up so much for one woman?

He'd chosen the lowest of the low.

..and Bertie's wife Elizabeth, later the Queen Mother...

I'm not as nice as I look.

..who blamed Wallis for the whole scandal.

Everybody has this idea

that she was this sweet, frothy, eminently dismissible granny.

Well, she wasn't.

It was a knife fight

between two tough women who would not give an inch.

Ma'am.

She was not fit to be the King's wife.

It was a feud that would last a lifetime.

After 30 years, a royal reunion, the man who was once King Edward VIII

is welcomed back to Britain

with the woman he gave up the throne to marry.

In 1967, a royal ceremony is about to bring Elizabeth, the Queen Mother,

and Wallis, the Duchess Of Windsor, together for the first time

since the abdication crisis 30 years before.

'From among their many journeys, this is particularly notable

'for it's to attend a Royal Family ceremony.'

I really don't want to see her today...

..but Lillibet wanted her here.

She said, "After all these years, Mummy, can't you bury the hatchet?"

I suppose one must do what one must do.

-TV:

-'It's the first such occasion

'that the Duke and Duchess have attended since the abdication.

'Michael Barratt, reporting...'

Duty or not, Elizabeth is still bitter after all these years.

That woman killed my husband.

Across London, her sister-in-law, Wallis,

is not in a forgiving mood either.

She blames Elizabeth for banishing her husband David,

the former King Edward VIII, from his own country.

He's very jittery about the ceremony today...

..worried how she'll receive me,

whether she'll do one of her giant snubs.

Poor Cookie.

I wonder what she's wearing.

Probably some kind of flouncy sofa cover.

Those who've written about the women, or knew them personally,

agree their dislike for each other was more than just petty rivalry.

I think the central issue here is that we've got a quartet

where the two men were weak and the two women were strong...

-Very, very right!

-..and they continued a fight

for the rest of their lives.

Well, I have to say I think there was a malicious element

to Elizabeth's treatment of Wallis.

I think it was vindictive, vicious,

and she set out to destroy them as a couple.

Yes, you're absolutely right.

She thought that her effect on David was appalling,

she thought that her effect

on the monarchy was helping to disintegrate it.

So she had no time for Wallis

and of course Wallis referred to her as the Scottish Cook or Cookie

so there was a lot of bitchiness and rancour between the two women.

And it became much more bitter

and vitriolic over the years.

It was during the big chill of 1933, at a skating party near Windsor,

that American socialite Wallis Simpson

and Elizabeth, the Duchess Of York, first met.

Hot toddies, strong enough to numb the piston rings!

No, thank you.

Wallis was married to her second husband, Ernest.

Thank you.

Elizabeth was wife to Bertie. David, his brother, was Prince Of Wales.

He was with his married mistress, Thelma Furness.

Let's put out the remains of the Irish stew.

-Oh, that is a good idea.

-Oh!

-Mmm.

Such a bore Ernest isn't here.

Such a bore he's got a cold! He'd hate it anyway.

He can't skate.

He could hold a chair like me.

Oh, no. He was in the Coldstream Guards.

Come on, Wally, tell us, where did you learn to skate like that?

So fast.

-I've always loved speed.

-Because you're afraid you'd be left behind?

So I can stay ahead of the pack... Your Highness.

THEY CHUCKLE

'I think there really was only one Mrs Simpson.

'What you saw was pretty much what you got.'

But I think there were several Queen Mothers.

I mean, there were lots of different Queen...

Yes, the Queen Mother was sweet

and immensely lovable.

Wallis Simpson, I don't think,

was lovable at all...

certainly not to me.

But, er, but she was fun and she was a wisecracker.

-The ball came whistling back over the net...

-Yes.

-..and that was fun.

If you found yourself sitting next to her at dinner,

you had a good time.

I bet you did and I remember your mother, Lady Diana Cooper,

she saying that people sharpened up

when she came into the room, she brought the best out of people.

An American woman of my generation was happy to take men on,

while English women - oh, so tough as meat jerky in their own sphere -

were still subservient.

I didn't care who I was talking to, I'd say what I wanted.

I used to say to David,

"You're just a heartbreak to any woman,

"because you could never marry her."

'As an American, I think that the only thing you can say about her'

is that she was like

Scarlett O'Hara, and she was determined never to be poor again

and she just kept trading up with husbands and she hit the jackpot.

Yes, the world absolutely adored the Prince Of Wales -

thought he was charming and wonderful.

-I mean, he had a certain sort of charisma, there was a...

-Yes.

There was a charm.

I mean, in his youth, there was absolutely no question about it.

He could absolutely bewitch people.

David was the first royal matinee idol of the 20th century.

He had enormous charm - women would keep his picture by their bedside.

-He was a sexy guy, but what you saw was not what you got.

-I agree.

Many of those closest to him despaired of how he'd be as a king.

He didn't seem to have the seriousness, the aptitude,

-the attitude to responsibility.

-Yes.

You know, often on tours abroad, he'd be terribly late

because he was still in bed with some wife of a local official.

-He was... He behaved very badly to women.

-Yes.

We know he had other flings and things, but, I mean,

he didn't hesitate to just cast somebody aside when it suited him.

He was already in love with Wallis when he was carrying on with Thelma.

Thelma was, of course, the person who led to Wallis,

-that was the thing.

-Thelma lead... introduced him to Wallis.

-Yes.

Then of course famously said,

-"Look after the little man while I'm away."

-"Look after the little man,"

-which she looked after him very well.

-Which she did.

-Which she did - in spades.

On her return from a trip to America,

Thelma sensed she too would soon be cast aside.

I tell you he's changed.

Baloney.

You're imagining it.

You don't imagine anything after four years.

You're just off the boat - you've got to get used to each other again.

Something's wrong.

I know it.

I gave up everything for him.

I was the one who pushed for divorce, not Duke.

You're wrong. You're all wrong.

You're still the Princess Of Wales, kiddo.

I think that Wallis was very clever in fishing for men,

catching men and playing men...

'..and David was relatively naive when it comes to that...'

Naughty!

'..even though he'd had his fair share of mistresses.'

WALLIS CHUCKLES

By the summer of 1934, David had dumped Thelma

for the brash and still-married Wallis,

much to the distaste of the straight-laced Elizabeth.

'That woman was like one of his fads...'

..knickerbockers or loud tweed or that modern triple-decker sandwich

she introduced at Balmoral,

which completely unnerved the kitchen staff.

She was nothing more than an adventuress,

part of the Ritz bar set along with Lady Ottoline Morrell...

..or Lady Utterly Immoral as they called her,

and that bunch would drop her like a brick

when they realised they'd backed the wrong horse.

'That was one of the reasons that people disliked Wallis

'in the first place, all these things that she represented,'

-the cocktail age and brittle high society...

-Yes.

..as opposed to the good old home values -

Sunday lunch and a walk in the park,

and I don't think there's any real answer

to the question of, "What did he see in her?" He fell in love with her.

-Yes.

-He thought she was Helen Of Troy.

He thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

We all thought she had a face like an old boot.

But that wasn't the point.

-The point was that he loved her and no-one else.

-Yes.

The point is that David liked married women.

He liked married women partly because that was traditional

for the aristocracy so that if the woman became pregnant,

the child could then be passed off with the other man

who would bring him up.

The other reason for liking a married woman

is because she understands how to do it.

And there are many ways to please a man, and Wallis knew them.

David was the open sesame to a new

and glittering world that excited me as nothing ever before.

He had an unmistakable aura of power and authority.

It seemed unbelievable that I, Wallis Warfield of Baltimore,

could be a part of his enchanted world.

It was like being Wallis in Wonderland.

Wallis firmly believed Elizabeth -

Cookie as she dismissively called her -

was jealous of her fairy-tale romance.

Cookie was sweet on David.

Naturally, he wasn't interested.

What could a silly little girl like her offer him, a man of the world?

She only married Bertie

when she realised it wasn't going to wash with David.

I turned Bertie down twice.

I was wary of marrying him, nervous of my privacy taking second place.

I didn't want to be in the limelight at all.

I was very fond of his older brother.

Well, that's no secret. Oh, David was tremendous fun.

He used to have a great sense of humour.

And he changed, once she...

She was always going to hate me.

I had the prize.

She had second best.

It's true she stopped his drinking and the bags under his eyes...

..but who was left with the lines, then?

'People will deny it,

'but I think she was a little bit in love with David.'

I had a friend called Rosemary Olivier,

who remembers going to a ball at Wilton in 1921,

seeing the Prince of Wales and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

sitting out together laughing their heads off,

and, "You could have supposed," she said, "that there was something was going on."

Why didn't she marry David?

She tried to marry David. David was not interested in her.

He liked that slender, sleek and svelte-like Wallis.

He didn't like them plump-like and old-fashioned like Elizabeth.

No, I don't buy it. Nobody is that goody-goody.

You know, David and I call her Cookie

because she looks like a tubby Scottish cook.

-AS ELIZABETH:

-"Oh, it's been so lovely to see you,

"but you really must excuse me, I'm dying to get this corset off'.

Ma'am...

..would you please join us?

Such a killjoy, she had no sense of humour about her.

-She said I had, um...

-SHE CLEARS HER THROAT

-AS WALLIS:

-"No sense of humour."

Poppycock!

A friend of mine sent me some wonderful face powder from America.

It was called Duchess Of York Pink.

You can imagine where I put it.

I don't know anything about politics,

but I do know a declaration of war.

CANNON FIRES

ORDERS ARE SHOUTED

-NEWSREEL:

-'His Majesty King George V of England

'has died at his Norfolk home.'

On the death of his father, George V,

David the playboy Prince Of Wales became King Edward VIII.

I said, "I'm very sorry."

It was only as I hung up I realised he was now King.

For Wallis, being mistress to the King

meant things were going to change.

Not that I liked his father one jot.

A man like that is all too familiar -

we both grew up in the house of a foul-tempered bully.

The King had one ambition for his children -

that they should be frightened of him.

'King George V was a brute.'

Everybody agrees he was a brute,

and I think this also goes back to why David also had issues.

George V was so worried about how this irresponsible young man

would actually measure up to being King.

-There was an extraordinary prophecy, wasn't there...

-Yes.

-..by George V...

-Yes, well, you know the story.

..simply saying that within a year of his succession he will be out?

This boy will ruin himself in 12 months.

-In 12 months.

-Yes.

FANFARE

CANNON FIRES

Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David...

GUN SALUTE

..is now Edward VIII.

CHEERING

The day after his father died, David was proclaimed King.

Shockingly, he broke royal protocol

by joining his married mistress to watch the ceremony.

From now on, it's all going to be different.

No...it isn't.

Nothing can change how I feel about you.

Nothing.

Elizabeth, like the late King,

believed that Wallis was a corrupting influence on David.

BELL RINGS

The King considered her unsuitable as a friend,

disreputable as a mistress

and unthinkable as Queen of England.

She had two husbands living.

She had no idea about the British people or the British government.

All she knew was how to get a man.

They said, in her presence,

David was like a rabbit in front of a ferret.

'Now he's King, there's little left of Peter Pan.

'He's become a prisoner of his heritage.

'But I think he'll make a great King of a new era

'and I believe the country thinks the same.'

'David was modern and thrusting.'

And his political aspirations, such as they were, were for change,

modernity, improving the system, revamping the system.

You know, he used to refer to his performances as kinging and princing

and, you know, he thought that...

He didn't take it seriously.

No, I don't think it's that he didn't take it seriously.

I think it's that he thought that there was another way to be royal.

What we haven't said is that,

actually, David was not over-burdened with intelligence.

That actually David didn't like reading books or newspapers,

so he wasn't very well-informed.

Now, that's a major disadvantage for somebody who's going to be King.

There was something not quite right about him.

-Well, I believe that that is my strong impression...

-You know...

-That is my strong impression.

-He was not entirely normal.

He didn't attend to his state papers - left them lying around.

-He never bothered about his state papers.

-He'd climb out of the window

and go off and they wouldn't know where he was and all that stuff.

He was the first modern sovereign who discontinued

the practice of having a daily report from Parliament

when Parliament was in session.

You might say, being devil's advocate,

that maybe he was trying to be a modern monarch

and sweep away some of these boring anachronisms of the past.

It's custom-designed by Buick -

hydraulic brakes, coiled springs in the front.

120 horsepower which will take you to 60mph in...

What's wrong with a Daimler?

Because it's a Daimler.

It's the best of British.

This is fast, it's modern,

it's completely different to anything we produce here.

He always has to have the latest thing.

Hmm, knickerbockers.

-It doesn't mean it's better, it's just different.

-Get in!

-What?

-Get in!

-Oh, David.

We're going for a spin.

Yes, yes, all right!

It's the only way to convince you.

He'll never be the same again.

If we're looking at the essential differences between these two women,

being modern, cutting-edge, sharp and fashionable

was everything that mattered to Wallis.

I think another thing is that Wallis was far more superficial

-a personality than Elizabeth.

-Brittle.

Elizabeth cloaked herself in old-fashioned virtue.

I think you're a bit unfair on Elizabeth

because I think what's important is that her character was formed

in the crucible of the First World War,

so she grew up with duty and responsibility and service.

So, we have different values emerging, then, don't we?

We've got sacrifice and duty for Elizabeth,

we've got self-interest, self-absorption for Wallis.

Beneath the veneer of politeness,

Elizabeth felt threatened by Wallis, who seemed to be encroaching

upon everything that she and Bertie held dear.

This was all a wilderness when we moved in. Bertie transformed it.

It's so sweet you've done it yourselves,

we found Norah invaluable.

It's his passion. You see those trees?

He landscaped them all to give a better sense of depth in the view.

They both love gardening, don't they?

I always carry in my mind the odd picture of David -

a slight figure in plus fours, loping up the slope of a hill,

swinging a billhook and whistling.

That's when I fell for him.

We've gone for a silver look at the Fort with birches.

You must come and see.

All right, all right, I do understand!

I knew it.

Certainly useful for a shooting-brake,

but it's still not the motorcar for me.

Will I never get you out of Victoriana?!

David...

..do you see those trees over there?

If you cut them down,

and dug out part of that hill, it would really improve the view.

It would open up the potential here.

'I knew what that woman was up to.'

She was trying to take over David and humiliate Bertie.

The Royal Lodge was our house. We'd put everything into it.

His own mother said, "At present, he's utterly infatuated,

"but my great hope is that violent infatuations usually wear off."

His mother was so afraid she might have to receive her.

I thought David was a little mad.

He seemed bewitched -

a slave to her, it wasn't a case of normal love.

Elizabeth and leading members of the Establishment

were mystified by Wallis's power over David.

Salacious rumours began to spread about her past.

I mean, Romeo was a cold fish compared to Edward VIII.

There was this long theory that he had these terrible sexual hang-ups

and that Wallis taught him a few little tricks she'd learnt in China.

Wallis was surrounded by a sexual mythology.

There was the China dossier,

which said that she'd worked in brothels in Shanghai and Peking.

There was the fact that von Ribbentrop,

the German ambassador to Britain,

was apparently seen giving her 17 carnations in bouquets,

which showed the number of times they'd had sex together.

I think that the point about the China dossier,

why people believed in it, was possibly Prime Minister Baldwin

wanted to find some reason why David couldn't marry Wallis,

so they did all their digging

and their homework and that's how the rumours...

Yes, it was a smear campaign, it was a smear campaign.

Well, they thought they would find what was Wallis's sexual techniques,

-you know, the Baltimore grip, the China clinch...

-But, you know, I...

-..the Shanghai squeeze.

-All of this is utter rubbish.

But more than that, the point about this is

-this is what the Establishment believed...

-Not all...

..and this is how they went forwards.

So, they based their decision-making on the fact that they believed

that Wallis was one step up from a prostitute,

so they were seen as toxic.

Not to be trusted.

He may have been King and Emperor,

but David would let nothing stand in the way of his passionate affair.

In the summer of 1936, he abandoned his duties

and went on an extended holiday with his married mistress.

It was a great surprise to my parents

that they were invited on this cruise,

because the King thought that my father was the most likely member

of the Cabinet to sympathise with him, which in fact my father didn't.

I mean, it was typical of King Edward VIII in a way -

being photographed with nothing on but a tiny pair of bathing shorts,

you know, and swimming off the side and doing all these things.

I mean, this man had become King of England only six months before...

-And with everything else...

-..that he should go off with his mistress.

-With everything else that was going on in the world...

-Yeah.

I mean, they were in the Mediterranean, you know,

the Italians had taken Addis, Hitler was in the Rhineland,

Spain was aflame with civil war and he was in the pond.

I just don't think he grasped the sensibilities -

intellectual and moral - of people who thought it was monstrous.

Even Wallis, with her love of luxury and boundless ambition,

realised the holiday had been a step too far.

After the cruise, I went to Paris alone.

I saw the American papers, full of the most lurid reports.

I immediately wrote to David - to go on fighting the inevitable

could only mean tragedy for him and catastrophe for me.

We could only create disaster together.

I honestly didn't believe we could ever make each other happy.

It was over.

He telephoned immediately. He said...

..if I tried to leave him, he'd cut his throat.

I had to come straight back to Balmoral.

As they lounged in the Mediterranean,

David and Wallis had delayed an important annual event -

the traditional gathering of the Royal Family in Scotland.

To make matters worse, David then asked his mistress to act as host.

For Elizabeth, this was an affront to everything she stood for.

Please excuse me.

-Why, ma'am, how wonderful to see...

-I'm here to dine with the King.

David, so lovely to see you.

So lovely to see you. You look beautiful, of course.

'She had no idea of the bonds that constrain a constitutional monarch.

'She utterly misunderstood what she was playing with.'

'Elizabeth was very sweet and saccharine,

'but there was arsenic in the marshmallow.'

Everybody has this idea

that she was this sweet, frothy,

eminently dismissible granny.

Well, she wasn't. There was a whole heap more to her.

-She was steely.

-Very.

-It was more that she had steel,

because she needed to have that

to help her husband.

My understanding of the Queen Mother

is that she wasn't by nature a hater,

and people always said she hated the Duchess Of Windsor.

She didn't. She was always very correct in her behaviour with her.

She was rather keen not to know her.

I'm sure she was very keen not to know her and I'm sure that,

you know, that she had a way of sort of icing people out very quietly.

Elizabeth was appalled at Wallis playing Queen at Balmoral -

a still-married divorcee sleeping with the King

in Queen Victoria's bed was sacrilege.

-Ladies...

-Ladies, shall we retire?

For Elizabeth, Wallis's presence could no longer be tolerated.

People in this country do not mind fornication

but they loathe adultery.

It would be better that I was a widow.

I was not.

Even though Ernest and I had come to the end of our run...

..the core of our marriage had dissolved,

only a shell remained, a facade to show the outer world.

Wallis's divorce was imminent.

David had already come to a gentleman's agreement with Ernest

to set Wallis free so that he could marry her.

The whole Mrs Simpson problem wasn't of course a problem at all

while she was still Mrs Simpson,

while she was still married to Ernest Simpson.

The only time it became a problem was when divorce proceedings

were instituted against Mr...

Well, that he agreed to be the guilty party in the divorce case.

I think that Ernest Simpson did what nice men did when their wives

wanted a divorce - he went to a hotel with another woman

making himself the guilty party and I don't believe he was trapped.

Really, I suppose, that was what, sort of September, October 1936?

And then of course it became a private crisis.

A crisis, which blew up very, very quickly.

Very fast, yeah, absolutely.

The government and Church Of England, like Elizabeth, were adamant

that David should not marry the soon-to-be-twice-divorced Wallis.

What is it?

It was seen as constitutionally and morally indefensible.

What?

"The silence of the British press

"on the subject of Your Majesty's friendship with Mrs Simpson

"is not going to be maintained.

"The effect will be calamitous.

"There is only one step, which holds out any prospect of avoiding...

"..this dangerous situation and that is for Mrs Simpson

"to go away without further delay."

-My God.

-No.

You'll do no such thing. I won't have it.

This is impertinence.

David, it's from Hardinge, your private secretary.

He is trying to warn you that the British government

will insist you give me up.

I am fed up with all of England taking cracks at me

and no decent society speaking to me.

What have I done to deserve this?

They can't stop me.

On the throne or off...

..I am going to marry you.

-This is madness. You can't...

-You can do whatever you want...

-David, will you please listen...

-..you can go wherever you wish.

I will always...always follow you.

David immediately arranged for Wallis to flee to France,

away from growing press and public anger.

It was now clear to those close to the King

that he was never going to give up Wallis...

..even if it cost him his crown.

I don't think he ever wanted to be King.

He had this extraordinary charm... and then it all disappeared.

Bertie wasn't brought up to be King.

There was his stutter and lack of confidence...

..and I didn't want Lilibet to be heir to the throne.

I didn't want the children to move from their happy home.

How can a woman be a whole empire to a man?

I was desperate for him not to abdicate.

It would put me in the wrong light to the entire world,

because they'd say I could have prevented it.

All I could do was remove myself from his life.

I even put out a press statement saying I'd go.

He wouldn't stand for it.

It seemed almost incredible that David would contemplate such a step.

You know, every day I prayed that he would see reason

and not abandon his people.

The only thing is...

..he was quite happy with her.

I, who sought no place in history, would now be assured of one -

an appalling one, carved out of blind prejudice.

I think certainly that our monarchy was closer

to dissolution than at any time before or since.

With the possible exception of Charles I.

-Since 1649 anyway...

-Yes.

-..but this was by far the worst.

It wouldn't have surprised me, I think, if the monarchy

had crumbled completely, and we'd become a republic.

For David, the choice was now stark.

To remain King and marry Wallis would bring down the government

and throw the country and empire into constitutional chaos.

There could be only one outcome.

On December 11th, 1936, he broadcast his decision to the world.

-RADIO:

-'A few hours ago, I discharged my last duty as King and Emperor...

'..and now that I have been succeeded by my brother...

'..my first words must be to declare my allegiance to him.'

You all know the reasons which have impelled me to renounce the throne.

'But you must believe me

'when I tell you that I have found it impossible

'to carry the heavy burden of responsibility'

without the help and support of the woman I love.

'And now...we all have a new King.

'I wish him and you

'happiness and prosperity

-'with all my heart.'

-HE SOBS

God bless you all!

God save the King!

He failed his family, he failed his country and he failed himself.

His own mother said it was inconceivable to those

who had made such sacrifices during the Great War,

that he, as their King, refused a lesser sacrifice.

SHE SIGHS

If that woman was not fit to be Queen,

she was not fit to be the King's wife.

The Crown must be above all controversy.

Now that David was no longer King, he needed to remove himself

from the picture so that Bertie could establish himself.

But he had lost the common touch...

..and chosen the lowest of the low...

..a thoroughly immoral woman.

'I am sure that the Duchess Of York'

viewed the abdication with absolute horror,

because she saw the implications for her husband.

He obviously thought, "My God, how can I ever be King,

"cos I can't speak in public?" It didn't matter a bit.

He had the strength of the Queen Mother behind him, which was great,

I mean, she was the power behind the throne, very clever.

She was the power behind the throne,

but even she couldn't really make him a good speaker.

I think the defining characteristic about Elizabeth was someone

who was prepared to sacrifice herself

ultimately on the altar of monarchy, in a way that Wallis Simpson

was never really prepared to sacrifice herself for anything.

Yes, I think duty is terribly important

and Christian duty as well, and Christian charity.

Well, I actually think the danger with Elizabeth has been

to glamorise her and sanctify her

and use the abdication as the vehicle for sanctification.

But Elizabeth was also a very competitive individual

and Elizabeth also liked the limelight.

MUSIC: Pomp And Circumstance by Elgar

-NEWSREEL:

-'The glory of a British coronation.

'Nowhere in the world is there anything half so wonderful.'

On May 12th, 1937, Elizabeth was at her husband Bertie's side

when he was crowned King George VI -

the same date David's coronation had been planned for.

-NEWSREEL:

-'Only once or twice in the life of each one of us

'comes such a day as this.'

Now with the new title of the Duke Of Windsor,

David joined Wallis in France.

'May 12th, 1937, will be one of the dates in English history

'that the schoolchildren will learn about...'

'The words of the service rolled over me like a wave.

'Mental images of what might have been

'and should have been were racing through my mind.

'As a woman in love, I was prepared to go through rivers of woe,

'seas of despair and oceans of agony for him.'

'..when we know generations of Englishmen to come

'will look back on this day.'

CHEERING

-AMERICAN NEWSREEL:

-'It was a romance that rocked the empire

'but it thrilled the world.'

Within three weeks of his brother becoming King,

David married the woman he loved at a chateau in France

and Wallis became the Duchess Of Windsor.

So by the time David and Wallis finally get married,

it's after the coronation.

They do at least wait until then.

And how many people turn up at the wedding? Seven.

Of course we wouldn't go or send a royal chaplain to officiate.

I mean, didn't he realise what he had done?

He'd given up the throne!

'The Royal Family made very clear'

that anybody who went to David and Wallis's wedding were out.

If they were clergymen, they were out,

if they were aristocracy, they were out,

if they were members of the Royal Family, definitely not.

So there was an edict that basically ostracised anyone who dared

to go to the so-called "wedding of the century".

The wedding must have been another shock for the Duke Of Windsor

because originally he thought that his family would all come out -

his mother, he thought that he'd have his brothers as supporters

and all these things, and none of that happened.

Elizabeth went out of her way to ruin David and Wallis's wedding

with a degree of vindictiveness that is really quite astonishing.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment, at any rate to him, was the fact

that they denied her the HRH title because she wasn't a Royal Highness.

And this was, as the Duke Of Windsor said,

"A fine wedding present dropped in their lap just before the wedding."

David said that Cookie was an arch-intriguer,

dedicated to making life hell for both of us.

Behind that great abundance of charm

lies a shrewd, scheming and extremely ruthless woman.

She and David blamed all the hoo-ha about the title on me,

as if I could have any influence on such a matter.

David was the one who utterly refused to come back to the country

unless that woman was given the HRH.

He rang Bertie and berated him and when Bertie said no,

David burst into tears.

For goodness' sake, I...

we...

..Bertie had already made her a Duchess!

The morning after the wedding, I woke up...

..and there was David standing beside the bed

with his innocent smile, saying...

.."And now what do we do?"

Hmm.

My heart sank.

Here was someone whose every day had been arranged for him

all of his life and now I was the one who was going to take the place

of the entire British government

trying to think up things for him to do.

-NEWSREEL:

-'The Duke and Duchess of Windsor visit Germany.

'There's a big crowd at the station to catch a glimpse

'of his Royal Highness

'and the Duchess on their arrival from Paris.'

Shunned by his own family and nation,

David grabbed the first hand of friendship he was offered.

'He wanted to take Wallis somewhere where she'd feel she was a Queen,

'where she'd be treated as if it was a state visit

'because she didn't have HRH so nobody would curtsey to her.'

I mean, how foolish and stupid but I think what that shows

is how vulnerable they were

because the British Establishment had withdrawn all useful sources

of advice, so they go off to Germany and here are these pictures,

which come back to haunt Wallis

of her smiling and curtseying to Hitler.

Now, in 1937 they should have known this was not a place

where members of the British Royal Family should go.

From the moment Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933,

he was fascinated with David.

There was an ally that he could use, an ally that he could trust,

someone who would mould British opinion.

He saw him as a man who was modern, progressive,

and in tune with National Socialist values.

What a curse black sheep are in a family.

Hmm.

David's an odd creature that is exactly like Hitler in thinking

that anybody who doesn't agree with him is automatically wrong.

Oh, there's just time before the ceremony to take

a trot around the garden with the boys.

David said it was no business of ours to interfere

in Germany's internal affairs regarding the Jews or anyone else.

Everyone knows I like Jews. The rich ones!

Besides, David said dictators are very popular these days

and we might want one in England.

CROWD ROARS

Hitler gave one a feeling of great inner force.

His eyes were truly extraordinary

and I found myself confronted with a mask.

He told David categorically, he sought no war with England.

-NEWSREEL:

-'Poland, September 1939, the German foe begins

'its ruthless march of conquest and sets the stage

'for World War II.'

When war broke out, David and Wallis were in France

and they were seen as a threat to national security,

so the government ordered them back to Britain.

We were fighting a war on two fronts - the big one,

and the little cold war with the family.

Once France fell, they couldn't get us "home" quick enough.

They were obsessed with David being used by Hitler.

Mind you, if David had stayed on the throne

we wouldn't have had a war in the first place.

'What were we going to do about Mrs S?'

I sent her a message saying I was sorry, but I could not receive her.

I thought it honest to make it quite clear, so she kept away.

She hated this country.

It's quite unsuitable for her to be here during wartime.

Besides, Bertie was still finding his feet.

So, back they went to France, where we hoped they would remain.

I think at last David realised there was no place for him here.

More and more damning evidence is coming to light

about David's wartime allegiances,

proving Elizabeth was right to be suspicious of him and Wallis.

When France was invaded in May 1940,

Wallis and David made their way to fascist Spain.

They were very vulnerable there, but they were very loquacious.

They were talking about the need for Britain to be heavily bombed,

they were indiscreet, they were defeatist

and the government was horrified by this.

They both said some dreadful things.

I mean, David said he really thought that

if the British were bombed, they'd make peace sooner.

And Wallis said, "Well, after all I've been through,

"it's not very much for them to suffer that,

"I've suffered much more."

Even Roosevelt, the President of America,

believed that short-wave radios were transmitting information

gleaned from Wallis and David back to the Nazis.

So, that's the level of paranoia that was in the Establishment

with regards to David and Wallis.

He thought you could do business with Hitler, and, you know,

your father resigned from the Cabinet over that quite properly.

Well, you know, I know that he loved the Germans

and he loved speaking German, all that,

but I... I think of him more as a fool than a traitor.

I think he was really a fool,

but I think he was very taken by everything about Nazi Germany.

We all know, I mean, he was extremely sympathetic...

If not violently pro-Nazi, then he was at least extremely sympathetic

to them and they played him like a wonderful fish on the line

all the time with little promises that when, you know,

if they won he would be King,

they'd get rid of George VI, but it takes us towards treachery.

They were suspicious of him, they were suspicious of his wife,

they thought that Wallis could possibly be feeding secrets

to the Germans, some thought that she was still a Nazi spy.

The government decided the solution was to dispatch David

to a place where he could cause as little harm as possible.

-NEWSREEL:

-'The royal couple faces a new life in a new land.'

The Bahamas.

I suppose, if you're going to be sidelined and there's a war on,

there are less awful places to be sent than the Bahamas

with all those palm trees and the nice climate and so forth.

Quite a number of people, as you know, headed off to the Bahamas.

Quite a lot of sinister characters, to get away from the war,

they used it as their base.

They did, yes. I mean, it would have been vastly preferable

to the Falklands, but at the same time, I mean, I think, you know,

I mean, the Bahamas was lovely for a fortnight in February

but to be there for two and a half years, open-ended,

not knowing that it might not even be much longer than that,

I think that's rather a different cup of tea, you know.

No, and he expected to be Governor General of Canada

-or Ambassador to Washington.

-Yes.

This is the basic stupidity of the man, he never understood

-that he was never going to get sent to Washington, for example.

-Mm-hm.

Or that maybe he could get Wallis made Queen.

The rest of us could see,

-all of us could see...

-Yes.

-..that it was out of the question.

The Bahamas!

We couldn't think of anywhere more ghastly.

The whole place was a dump. It was sweltering hot.

It was a double zero job in a moron's paradise.

When I heard her reaction to the Bahamas posting,

I knew Bertie was absolutely right.

I don't mind admitting I was terrified

when we started being bombed.

The Blitz...

..the destruction was so awful and the people too wonderful.

They deserved a better world.

It made me all the more determined to beat those unspeakable Huns.

The King and Queen Elizabeth really did rise to the occasion

during the war, I mean, they were real figureheads

and they made a point of going to the bombed areas

and the Queen Mother made these broadcasts to the nation

and indeed even to the French.

Oh, yes, the broadcast to the women of France

is absolutely remarkable and beautiful.

I cannot read it today without weeping.

She says your sorrows are our sorrows

and she concludes with saying,

"I promise you that the women of Britain are ready for the sacrifices

"you are making and we are no less determined," and I think it is

one of the most brilliant political speeches of the 20th century.

Not for nothing did Hitler evidently describe her...

As the most dangerous woman in Europe.

..that she was the most dangerous woman in Europe.

You could not have imagined or scripted a better wartime Queen

than she truly was.

GUNSHOT

I'm not as nice as I look.

'I would not be taken like the royals in Belgium and Luxemburg.

'I would go down fighting.'

It's a "bore war" - that's what I'm going to call it.

-I'm glad they were bombed.

-Darling!

Well, you know, after what they did to me -

a whole nation against one lone woman.

Oh, careful.

At least bombs are exciting.

I promise you, once Hitler crushes the Americans

and the whole bally mess is over, we'll go back.

They may not want me as their King,

but they'll damn well have me as their leader.

Wallis and David saw out the rest of the war in the obscurity

of the Bahamas, before they returned as exiles to France in 1945.

-WINSTON CHURCHILL:

-'Yesterday morning, at 2.41am,

'the representative of the German High Command

'signed the act of unconditional surrender

'to the Allied Expeditionary Force.

'Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight.'

Elizabeth and Bertie won the hearts of the nation during the war

and ruled for another seven years until his premature death in 1952.

Clearly, the triumphal figure in this whole episode

is the Queen Mother.

She emerges covered in glory, reinvents the royal family.

But of course she doesn't see herself as a total winner

because she blames Wallis for these long years of widowhood,

for the premature death of her husband from cancer,

and the stress aggravating that, so she believed that actually

she'd been denied the happy, quiet family life with her two daughters,

which she maintained was all that she craved.

The day before my darling Bertie died,

he was so full of plans and ideas for the future -

making gardens, planning vistas and re-hanging pictures at Windsor

and other very English things, which he never had time for.

He was such an angel to me and the girls.

And I have no doubt that that woman was the root of his early death.

They said I hated her. It's not true.

You have to know someone to hate them.

She never invited me to Bertie's funeral.

David went.

He said...

..Cookie was as sugar as ever,

but she and his mother were ice-veined bitches.

Hmm!

When we are dead, perhaps she may at least forgive us.

KNOCK ON DOOR

I have been pretty flattened out by the world in general,

and I've certainly had my share of everything from the beginning...

..used by politicians...

..hated by jealous women, accused of everything.

KNOCK ON DOOR

Come in.

Ready, darling?

For years, Wallis has been blamed for causing the abdication crisis,

but recent evidence suggests, however unintentionally,

she may have saved Britain from a weak and treacherous King.

The ultimate result of it is that we got George VI

instead of Edward VIII, and for that we can only be grateful.

My view is that the King saw a route of escape in Wallis

even though I don't think he actually articulated that, but...

But the crucial thing was that she had two living husbands

and that was... that was the political solution

-to the problem of Edward VIII.

-I think that's right.

-I think she saved the monarchy...

-I think she did, too.

I think she saved the country, she saved the Empire,

she quite possibly saved the world.

I think she should be on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.

I think that that's right.

And apparently Noel Coward always said there should be a statue

of her on every village green in England because she saved us.

-NEWSREEL:

-'The Duke and Duchess of Windsor

'attend their first public engagement

'in the presence of the Queen since the Duke's abdication.

'This occasion somehow sets the seal on royal reconciliation...

..the occasion, the unveiling of a plaque

..to the Duke's mother, Queen Mary.'

This was the chance at last to bury the hatchet

and end a feud that had spanned 30 years.

Hail.

So lovely to see you again.

It's nice to be here on Mother's big day.

I'm so sorry we can't see you afterwards, maybe another time?

-Yes...that would be super.

-When?

Do you know what the Duke Of Windsor's dying words were?

"The waste, the waste, the waste of it all."