It could have been a beautiful love story of royalty, of princes and commoners, of kings who renounce the throne for their true love. It could have been so. However, the love story of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson was an obsessive, dependent relationship and full of dark shadows that tarnished a beautiful story of resignation by delivery. This is the story of a king who abdicated for love?
The prince and the commoner
- In order not to get lost among noble titles, it should be noted that the Duke of Windsor, before being a duke, was King of England and, shortly before, Prince of Wales. His name, Enrique, who for a year was Enrique VIII. Clarified this issue we are going to stay with a Henry heir to the throne of England at the beginning of the 20th century who meets a mysterious and attractive American named Wallis Simpson, by profession her work or the current equivalent of a celebrity.
- Wallis Simpson was already on her second husband when she became Enrique’s mistress. She certainly wasn’t her first lover, since the heir was a bachelor convinced that he adored the good life, and the bad one too. At that time when there was no Internet to bring dirty laundry to light, Enrique’s scandals transcended because they were of such magnitude that they could not be hidden.
- And to accompany his scandals came an American who aroused all kinds of suspicions, from espionage to drug trafficking, with an intense and extensive life in which there were no shortage of rumors of dubious sexual tastes. Undoubtedly, they were made for each other, but neither society in general nor much less the corseted British royalty was going to allow them to lead that lifestyle.
The king who abdicated for a woman
- When Enrique ascended the throne, he decided to marry his lover. For her it would be her third marriage and that was not allowed in any way. She could never be queen, they would never let Enrique be king next to a divorcee. That was what was officially said. As Henry officially renounced the throne a year later for a woman. But the truth is that the political interests of the interwar period had much more to do with it than love.
- The myth of the king who abdicates for love is dispelled again if we pay attention to what they say about the couple’s relationship. They say that Wallis Simpson was never in love with Enrique, but that she approached him dazzled by the brilliance of royalty and power. While Enrique was attached to her not out of love, but out of dependence on her. Rumors speak of certain very particular sexual practices that few women would be able to satisfy.
- But out of love, interest or dependence, the couple, who were granted the title of Dukes of Windsor, remained together until their deaths, living in Paris modestly in the style of those exiled royals whose hardships many commoners would like to suffer. And we don’t know if this love will go down in history as true, but it will certainly do so as scandalous.