Edward VIII - Romances

Romances

Edward's womanising and reckless behaviour during the 1920s and 1930s worried Prime Minister Baldwin, King George V, and those close to the prince. Alan Lascelles, Edward's private secretary for eight years during this period, believed that "for some hereditary or physiological reason his normal mental development stopped dead when he reached adolescence". George V was disappointed by Edward's failure to settle down in life, disgusted by his affairs with married women, and was reluctant to see him inherit the Crown. "After I am dead," George said, "the boy will ruin himself in 12 months."

In 1929, Time magazine reported that Edward teased his sister-in-law, Elizabeth, the wife of his younger brother Albert, by calling her "Queen Elizabeth". The magazine asked if "she did not sometimes wonder how much truth there is in the story that he once said he would renounce his rights upon the death of George V – which would make her nickname come true". Edward grew older and remained unmarried, but his brother and sister-in-law had two children, including Princess Elizabeth. George V favoured his son Albert ("Bertie"), and granddaughter Elizabeth ("Lilibet"), and told a courtier, "I pray to God that my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne."

In 1930, George V gave Edward a home, Fort Belvedere, in Windsor Great Park. There, Edward had relationships with a series of married women including textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward, and Lady Furness, the American wife of a British peer, who introduced the prince to her friend and fellow American Wallis Simpson. Simpson had divorced her first husband in 1927, and her second husband, Ernest Simpson, was a British-American businessman. Wallis Simpson and the Prince of Wales, it is generally accepted, became lovers while Lady Furness travelled abroad, though Edward adamantly insisted to his father that he was not intimate with her and that it was not appropriate to describe her as his mistress. Edward's relationship with Simpson further weakened his poor relationship with his father. Although King George V and Queen Mary met Simpson at Buckingham Palace in 1935, they later refused to receive her.

Edward's affair with an American divorcee led to such grave concern that the couple were followed by members of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, who examined in secret the nature of their relationship. An undated report detailed a visit by the couple to an antique shop, where the proprietor later noted "that the lady seemed to have POW completely under her thumb." The prospect of having an American divorcee with a questionable past having such sway over the heir apparent led to anxiety among government and establishment figures.