Schedule Image. The queen mother and Wallis Simpson look back at the dramatic events of , which led to King Edward VIII giving up the throne for the woman he loved. Similar Shows Poster Image. Poster Image. Secrets of Scotland Yard History. Eyes on the Prize History. Secrets of the Tower of London History. Omaha Beach: Honor and Sacrifice History. She was portrayed as a sexual enchantress who supposedly learned "ancient Chinese skills" in the brothels of Shanghai, where her first husband, a US Navy pilot, had been stationed.
But the media's attacks on Simpson weren't just in print. Daily Express reporters hurled bricks through the window of her rented Regent's Park, London, home, the newspaper's owner, Lord Beaverbrook, would later acknowledge. As the abdication crisis loomed, Simpson fled to France, pursued across the country by reporters to Cannes. She evaded this "ravenous besieging army", as she described them, in car chases and sometimes by crawling through bathroom windows.
Anne Sebba, author of That Woman, the Life of Wallis Simpson, says Harry and Meghan's decision to step back from royal duties is nowhere near as constitutionally seismic given that Simpson was accused of almost destroying the British monarchy and Empire. Sebba tells the BBC: "We're not living in when people were terrified about divorced women.
Simpson received sack-loads of hate mail, much of it misogynistic. She wrote in her memoirs: "There can be few expletives applicable to my sex that were missing from my morning tray. But some of the strongest invective came from other women.
Continuing that theme, Simpson's childhood friend, Mary Kirk, who married the royal consort's cuckolded second husband, Ernest Simpson, wrote in a diary of her erstwhile love rival: "I think of her as people think of Hitler, an evil force… full of animal cunning". Princess Margaret referred to her uncle's lover as "that ghastly woman". The popular narrative endures that Edward - as has been said of Harry - was a wimp manipulated by an ambitious and demanding lover.
But despite Simpson's reputation as "the woman who stole the King", Edward had always found royal duties unbearably tedious. Like Meghan and Harry, he dreamt of escaping to live in Canada. Alan "Tommy" Lascelles, his assistant private secretary, said he realised after a long conversation with the prince in that "words like 'decency', 'honesty', 'duty', 'dignity' and so on meant absolutely nothing to him". See all clips from Royal Wives at War 8. Fri 8 Jan BBC Two except Wales. Sat 9 Jan BBC Two Wales.
Fri 15 Jan Tue 19 Jan BBC Two except Scotland. Mon 21 May Behind the scenes. The Main Characters. See all galleries from Royal Wives at War 2.
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