Attached is an article from the pages of a 1936 issue of THE LITERARY DIGEST that reported on the concerns of British Prime Minister Baldwin in regards to the scandalous love affair between King Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson:
Tradition vs. Love, Tory vs. Commoner, Baldwin vs. Nature
Over the weekend Mrs Simpson received a letter that could not be dismissed with a shrug. It was from the Scotland Yard detail that guarded her at Cannes during the first weeks of exile, and it strongly advised her to heed the threats and stay out of England.
Here are a few editorial opinions concerning the bygone activities of one Dave Windsor authored by the assorted ink-stained wretches dwelling in both England and the United States.
Many felt with George Bernard Shaw that Edward quit, ‘simply and solely because he hates his job and has had enough of it.’
‘What’s the good of being Prince if I can’t do as I like?’ he protested as a youngster after riding his bicycle across his fathers geranium bed. Innumerable incidents supported the popular impression that as Prince of Wales he had not looked forward to kingship with pleasure. Once in a Paris club, he was asked by an American:
‘How shall I behave here?’
‘Like a human-being.’ The answer roused his quick smile, – but just then a Britisher came up, bowed from the waist.
‘How can I?’ Edward sighed.
At the end of the day, history will remember him simply as one of the most henpecked husband to ever walk the earth.
Eleven months after the abdication, mixed feelings prevailed as to which king was preferred, George VI or the exited brother, Edward VIII:
King Edward was of my generation. I do not know how your parents feel about him, but I think I am right in saying that those of my generation feel that King Edward has let us down! Now let us stand and pray silently for two minutes for King George and Mr. Baldwin.
Perhaps, one day in that perfect world we seem to be rushing to, all cameras will automatically delete our blemishes, correct our tailoring flaws and add muscle tone as needed to each imperfect image; but until that time, we, like the Duke of Windsor and all manner of other celebrity, must rely on the charitable instincts of the fourth estate. This article pertains to bad pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the courtesy that was, for the most part, extended to them to make them appear just a little bit more glam than they otherwise appeared. The article is illustrated with one bad photograph and one retouched (Photoshopped) image of the couple, so that we might all know what the editors were up against:
Immediately after their marriage Edward and Wally posed for the newsreels. When their pictures were flashed on American screens, Wally was seen to have a large mole on the left side of her face and the Duke stood revealed with a much-wrinkled and worried countenance…
Perhaps, one day in that perfect world we seem to be rushing to, all cameras will automatically delete our blemishes, correct our tailoring flaws and add muscle tone as needed to each imperfect image; but until that time, we, like the Duke of Windsor and all manner of other celebrity, must rely on the charitable instincts of the fourth estate. This article pertains to bad pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the courtesy that was, for the most part, extended to them to make them appear just a little bit more glam than they otherwise appeared. The article is illustrated with one bad photograph and one retouched (Photoshopped) image of the couple, so that we might all know what the editors were up against:
Immediately after their marriage Edward and Wally posed for the newsreels. When their pictures were flashed on American screens, Wally was seen to have a large mole on the left side of her face and the Duke stood revealed with a much-wrinkled and worried countenance…
An interesting little excerpt from a much longer article revealed that the Windsors preferred gazing at their own newsreel footage for thirty minutes each night rather than gawk at the current movie offerings of the day:
From their 16mm films of themselves, extra prints were made and rushed to England, where the Duke and Duchess of Kent and other friends and admirers of the exiled ex-king devoured them from time to time.
If you would like to read the longer article, click here.
During the years the Duke of Windsor has been slandered up hill and down dale by all sorts of cliques and all manner of men; he has been called a cad, a shirker, a traitor, a Nazi, a snob a half-wit. Yet all his detractors can agree on one well-deserved sobriquet: dandy. No matter how you slice it, the man was well-turned out; and while he was busy tending to those matters that would render him deserving of such insults, he always did it as a fop, a beau, a buck or a swell. For as deep as his flaws may have been, he well understood tailoring and fabrics, stripes and plaids, cuffs and collars. His fashion admirers are born anew with each generation and he, more than any other man in the past century, created the definition of the well-dressed man. The following article pertains to his youthful air and fashion innovations.
Click here to see the Summer suits
other men wore during the Summer of 1932.
The Duke of Windsor is now 59. He has arrived at that age when a man begins to weigh his life and all that he has done with it…What can he remember? That having come to the throne the most beloved of all princes, the darling of a nation that would have followed him through hell-fire; he threw away the tiresome restraints of kingship, to gain what?
Edward literally thumbed his royal nose at the Royal Marriage Act, ignored a legal waiting period and was wed by an unfrocked minister.
Mention is also made of the two known adulterous liaisons that took place during Mrs Simpson’s second marriage.
