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Wallis in Love: The Untold Life of the Duchess of Windsor, the Woman Who Changed the Monarchy

Review

Wallis in Love: The Untold Life of the Duchess of Windsor, the Woman Who Changed the Monarchy

As charmingly styled by royals observer Andrew Morton (DIANA: Her True Story), the star-crossed love story between American divorcee Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII, King of England is, absent the glitzy trappings, a rather doleful, mundane affair in which neither partner got what he or she wanted and both were forced to live out the consequences.

Morton reveals Wallis as a curiously spoiled child who was raised in respectable penury, forced with her mother to kowtow to a rich uncle who seemed to regard his support of them as a kind of cat-and-mouse game. This perhaps set the tone for Wallis’ seeing men as objects that, when manipulated properly, supplied money and comforts. She was ruthlessly determined to succeed; Morton states that once she “hit a classmate on the head for daring to answer a question before she did.”

"Morton...has made as much of this fairy-tale-gone-awry as it warrants, filling it with pertinent historical information and sanguine observations from friends and sharp-eyed acquaintances of the unhappy pair."

Slim, dark-haired and steamily mysterious, Wallis was too proud to work, instead spending her energies on finding a rich husband. She succeeded twice in that endeavor before she had the remarkable opportunity to attract no less a catch than the Prince of Wales, son of the ailing George V, and inevitably destined for the throne of the most prestigious monarchy in the world. When they met, wining and dining with the beautiful international set at the height of the Jazz Age, both were smitten. Had both had the virtue of patience, they might have enjoyed a far different fate. Morton shows how their impulsive actions in the few crucial months before Edward’s abdication threw them together in a devil’s bargain that was far less exciting, and less loving, than either anticipated.

Edward’s announcement, after less than a year on the throne, that he could not fulfill his duties without “the woman I love” rang romantically throughout the world. But time has not been so kind in depicting his married years, shown by Morton not as Wallis' knight in shining armor but more as her mildly cynical, yet grateful, captive. And her image, too, is tarnished, as frankly depicted by Morton through what letters and papers exist. She comes across as mean, domineering and miserable, probably in love with another man and definitely peeved at being utterly rejected by her glamorous in-laws. She had her admirable moments as the power behind her unthroned partner, engaging in charitable endeavors and supporting allied war efforts. But as a friend pointed out, it would be hard to make a life when she lacked a title and her husband lacked a job.

Morton, a vibrant and highly acclaimed biographer, has made as much of this fairy-tale-gone-awry as it warrants, filling it with pertinent historical information and sanguine observations from friends and sharp-eyed acquaintances of the unhappy pair. The two became less newsworthy as the years passed, and ended sadly, Edward dying of cancer as Wallis slipped into dementia. They are buried side by side, a conclusion that Morton believes Wallis never would have chosen --- “covered by the earth of a country she hated.”

Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott on February 16, 2018

Wallis in Love: The Untold Life of the Duchess of Windsor, the Woman Who Changed the Monarchy
by Andrew Morton

  • Publication Date: December 11, 2018
  • Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction
  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
  • ISBN-10: 1455566950
  • ISBN-13: 9781455566952