The year is 1936. The world is unaware that it is on the brink of a confrontation with evil that will have global implications, yet the rumblings of Hitler’s war machine can be heard as Nazi Germany reoccupies the Rhineland. In the U.S, Bruno Richard Hauptmann is executed for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. Generalissimo Franciso Franco and his troops rise against the government and civil war begins in Spain. Jesse Owens wins the 100 meter dash in Berlin. The British Parliament passes His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, and Edward VIII makes a broadcast to the nation explaining his reasons for abdication:

“I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.”

With those words, Edward VIII rocked the world, announcing that he would abdicate the throne he had sat upon a mere 326 days to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee. They married in 1937, just six months later, when her divorce had become final.

What could be more romantic than a King who gives up his throne for the sake of love? For decades, the world was enthralled with what was surely the greatest romance of the twentieth century. But was it really?

Edward VIII (known to the family as David) had displayed a fondness for married women before he met Wallis Simpson. Indeed, he met Wallis through his current mistress, Lady Furness, and his relationship with Wallis began while Lady Furness was traveling abroad. It became clear that he was smitten with Wallis but it never seemed as clear to others that she loved him. In the beginning, her second husband accompanied Edward and Wallis on trips, perhaps giving tacit approval to the relationship from which it seemed he thought to profit as well, once remarking after several drinks that he would be made a “baron”. Later, Wallis would file for divorce from Simpson.

The fact that Mrs. Simpson was a divorced woman was the perceived reason that she was so unacceptable to the public and the government, but it was much more than that. Long before their trip to Germany as Hitler’s guests in 1937, it was rumored that Wallis Simpson had Nazi ties and was a Nazi sympathizer at the very least; at the worst they believed that she might, in fact, be a spy for Germany. MI5 had followed the couple, gathering information on their relationship and it seems the FBI had complied a dossier on Mrs. Simpson as well. Accusations that ranged from her having other lovers to her having chromosonal abnormalities surfaced.

After their marriage, the newly created Duke of Windsor (the title bestowed on him by his brother, now King George VI) and his wife visited Germany as Adolf Hitler’s guests and then settled in France. When Germany invaded, they went to Biarritz and then to Spain and Lisbon. The Duke and Duchess were eventually sent to the Bahamas where he was installed as Governor, a safe and out-of-the-way place for him during the critical war years. The Duke was reported to have predicted that when Hitler had won the war, he would be back in power in England as her leader despite the fact that they would not have him as king.

Living abroad and in near seclusion and for the rest of their lives, little is known of the personal relationship between the two who shocked the world with the announcement of their love. The Duke was occasionally quoted as saying something that was very politically incorrect even for the times. He seemed self-involved and oblivious. They made the occasional trip back to England to attend a Royal funeral or similar event. They had no children.

Were they happy together? Certainly they stayed together and were together until the Duke’s death in 1972. But the intervening years had tarnished some of the brilliant gleam of romance in the eyes of the public and no longer were they enchanted by the story of the King who gave it all up for the woman he loved. In a book titled Dancing With the Devil, author Christopher Wilson alleges that Wallis had a four year affair with the Duke’s consent. In any case, future generations will count it lucky for Britian and the world that Edward VIII abdicated and that a sensible and loyal king sat on the throne during those crucial years of WWII.