The Windsor Story Hardcover – January 1, 1979

Okay, I admit it: I'm as prurient as the next person when it comes to the dynamics of the Windsor courtship and marriage. What made the King of England renounce his throne for someone like Wallis Simpson? This book seems to point to an odd convergence of personality quirks.First, Wallis. On the negative side, a bit of bad helmet in a face comprised of a wide, square jaw; an aggressively strong chin; an over-long, oddly-shaped nose; a wide forehead; an unattractive mouth; and a large mole located below her lips on the right side of her face (frequently air-brushed out or covered with makeup.) As tall as the king with a set of shoulders fully as wide, and possessed of a pair of blocky masculine hands, had Wallis not kept herself slim, she would not appear to be feminine. On the plus side, Wallis had a sharp wit and a pair of striking sapphire blue eyes. And she was crafty in the way that unattractive women need to be crafty to make up for their lack of physical charms. Whenever she was photographed next to the king, Wallis bent one knee or set one foot slightly in front to drop her height in order to appear smaller than he. She put her ugly hands behind her, buried them in pockets, rolled them into fists, or folded one on top of the other to minimize them. Wallis was highly efficient, strikingly stylish, possessed of good taste in material matters, and always impeccably groomed. She was known for innovative and excellent menus whenever she entertained. Despite recurrent bouts with ulcers, she managed to project high psychic energy, pep, excitement, and fun. Essentially, the party started whenever Wallis appeared. She could drink and hold it; and she had a repertoire of risque jokes she could fall back on. In a nutshell, she was a novelty in British society.Second, the King. Small of stature, not particularly muscular, boyishly good-looking, Edward often looked like an adolescent rather than a mature man. This impression carried over to his personality as well. With a ferociously domineering father and a loving but undemonstrative mother, this biography characterized a Prince of Wales who enjoyed a Peter Pan-like prolonged adolescence with a dandy's penchant for fashion-forward clothing. Edward's interactions with his parents and, indeed, almost everyone, were passive aggressive, thus he avoided overt conflict while willfully refusing to alter his path. As this book paints it, Edward suffered from a kind of arrested development in which he sought "mother-wife" relationships with married women. He had a kind of melancholy, lost child quality which acted like catnip to women.The courtship and the abdication are the stuff of legend. The spoiled and immature king was fixated on a frankly over-the-top obsession with a forbidden woman as a psychologically acceptable solution to getting out of a job he didn't really want, but he'd made promises of queendom to Wallis. He attempted to flex his kingly muscles and ram the twice-divorced Wallis down his government's throat through kingly might. Startled when he couldn't have his own way, Edward petulantly threatened abdication. Essentially he boxed himself into a corner and was forced to proceed, or look like an ass full of broken promises and no power before the woman he loved. Wallis, recklessly ambitious and filled with a sense of entitlement, flirted with the power and attentions of the King of England and failed to grasp the dynamics of the situation or the British mindset. She blindly pursued her rarified position as the King's lover without fully realizing the consequences of the situation until it was too late. Later she maintained she would have been content with a morganatic marriage and never intended to have the King abdicate. We'll never know the truth.This "romance" has enough complexity for a Greek tragedy. Edward, probably history's poster child for unhealthy emotional neediness, clung to Wallis like a limpet. Wallis could hardly back away from him even if she desired it: she was the most hated woman in England and she'd never live it down; and she was ensnared for the rest of her life "making it up" to the man who gave up the THRONE OF ENGLAND ostensibly for her sake. Edward, spoiled and narcissistic, couldn't come to grips with the fact he'd let himself O-U-T of the game through his own willful actions and continued to believe his brother, Bertie, and the British government would allow him to participate in a reduced capacity with matters of state. In reality, his presence in England was viewed as divisive during a time of national crisis. England was better served if he remained on the sidelines. Thus, both Wallis and Edward were relegated to the "WE Circus" of whirlwind socializing in a kind of mind-numbing kalioscope of social meaninglessness and mental diversion with lesser royalties, entertainment figures, and dilettantes.Sometimes reality is more fantastic than fiction, and the Windsor story is a case in point. Hubris and human frailty make for great schadenfreude where these flawed personalities are concerned. I can't stop reading about them, but I always feel slightly nauseated afterward.

This excellent book is very rational, almost low key in presenting Wallis and Edward, first as separate personalities, then as the composite of the Duke and Duchess. Wallis was a gold-digger and highly ambitious with "a somewhat metallic elegance." She simply surged ahead leaving a lot of people floundering in her wake once she was on a roll to capture wealth and fame. She was a professional socialite whose mantra was appearances are everything and money is essential to maintaining the charade- a lifestyle having no anchor, no purpose and perhaps no ultimate satisfaction. "A woman foolishly vain or supremely self confident."Edward was hardly admirable and his derisive nickname "Peter Pan" which he was called by Wallis behind his back was singularly appropriate. He was not only the little boy who never grew up he didn't want to grow up. Atrociously spoiled and selfish, his cavalier treatment of old faithful friends like Fruity Metcalfe, who was the best man at his wedding, his cruel discarding of Freda Dudley Ward, his mistress of sixteen years, and Thelma, Lady Furness, reveal him as shallow and inconsiderate with a cruel streak. Wallis became his raison d'etre and nothing come hell or high water would divert him from worshipping at her feet, his hands full of jewels. He and Wallis together were the yin and yang of frivolity perfectly melding her ambition and his masochism to achieve absolutely nothing."The Windsor Story" is full of excellent photographs of all the major players on the Windsor stage. You look at the beautiful little boy Edward and the charming Prince of Wales who captured the heart of the world and you sigh knowing that what was underneath was more or less a vacuum.The book is a vast panorama which will carry you in the Windsors' wake through two world wars, the roaring bravado of the twenties, the squalid decadence of the café society of the fifties. There are many famous players on this stage, including Winston Churchill, Dickie Mountbatten, Elizabeth the Queen Mother and her daughter Queen Elizabeth; the undaunted Queen Mary, always upright as a poker both inside and out; the contemptible, gay Woolworth heir Jimmy Donahue among many others. One of the most intriguing is Wallis' Aunt Bessie Merryman, a bastion of integrity who tried to instill some of that integrity into her niece (without success).Over and over you wonder as you plough through this rich saga: how could this happen? But of course it did. A must for Windsor aficionados.

The book is old and yellowed by time. However, it is a very good read and I am enjoying it very much. Cannot put it down. Historical events laced with top notch gossip makes for very interesting read. Order one for yourself.

For some reason this book currently doesn't come up in the Amazon Listings about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, a shame because "The Windsor Story" is one of the better books among the many about this celebrated couple. The book is seriously enthralling, and a much better read than several more recent biographies.The Authors were two American journalists who had an unusual distinction not shared by other biographers: they got to know the Windsors very well. They were employed by "Life" magazine to assist the Duke and Duchess in writing their memoirs ('A King's Story', and 'The Heart Has Its Reasons'). The job was painfully protracted, and gave them the opportunity to observe the couple closely over an extended period. Their research was a head-start for this later dual-biography which they wrote after the Duke died in 1972. In any attempt to understand the erstwhile King Edward VIII and Mrs.Simpson, this perceptive work by two shrewd eye-witnesses should not be overlooked.In terms of human nature, the character and motives of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, starting with their very different childhoods, make a fascinating study. During their life together they were usually perceived as the embodiment of glamour, and their style of life as "the perfection of sybaritic living". However there is nothing starry-eyed about this book's discerning account. The authors maintain a cool, realistic, not to say scathing assessment of these two people and their relationship. They make it very clear that the ex-king was utterly devoted ('enslaved' might be a better word) to his wife, but in few other ways was this unequal marriage 'a fairytale romance'.As to be expected from experienced journalists this biography is fluently written. It is also thorough, well-detailed, and often gripping. The book was well researched and includes some significant interviews. The development of the explosive Abdication Crisis and its aftermath are successfully brought to life. Despite minor errors the narrative is accurate, and most of the authors' assessments of character are convincing.In this account, the description of the Windsors' life together in Paris during the 1950's (which the authors themselves observed) is notably vivid. The commanding Duchess enjoyed being a hostess, always loved a party, and she had a life-enhancing vitality. But her restless nature was in truth bored and dissatisfied by their largely futile existence. She was irked by the ceaseless responsibility of looking after the Duke, who was emotionally completely dependant on her. The Duchess habitually criticised, mocked, and berated him.The Duchess of Windsor nourished an enduring antipathy for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, for whom she had a variety of funny but unflattering nicknames, such as "Cutie", and "the Monster of Glamis". Her Paris clothes were of supreme importance to the Duchess of Windsor and she despised the style of the Royal Family, referring to "those silk overcoats" worn by "that fat Scotch cook".It was apparently an escape from boredom when 13 years after their marriage, the Duchess began to run after the extremely rich Jimmy Donahue, a playboy scamp. The Duke of Windsor was usually happy to be dominated by the fun-loving Duchess, but her embarrassing escapades with Donahue in nightclubs began to cause distress to the Duke, who it appears came near to a breakdown, and he eventually banished Donahue from their company.Unlike some recent biographers, the authors usually refrain from mischievous innuendo or speculation about the famous couple. However, in 1937 just before her marriage to the Duke, Mrs.Simpson changed her name back to her maiden name (Warfield) by deed-poll. The authors' short comment on this slightly odd fact is startling: Mrs.Simpson's action "was possibly more justified than people realised".It was the opinion of the authors of this astute work that though the Windsors were bound to each other by unique circumstances and a world-famous 'romance', their relationship became a sort of mutual defeat. Despite her husband's uncritical devotion, the discontented Duchess was unable to supply the love which the Duke of Windsor craved from her. For which he had abandoned his country and the splendour of a throne. And the Duke was powerless to supply the Duchess with the title 'Royal Highness', and the dignity which the title symbolised -something denied her ever since their marriage. Neither of them could provide what the other one most needed.The couple always maintained that a royal title for the Duchess was unimportant, but the authors suggest that actually they both intensely resented her exclusion, and saw it as an injustice. The Duke instructed their servants to address the Duchess as "Your Royal Highness" and to bow or curtsey, but in public the ambiguous status of the Duchess became a perpetual source of embarrassment and irritation to them both. It was a constant reminder that the Duchess had been shunned, rejected by the Royal Family.In the writers' view, the disputed royal title was "a fox in the vitals" of the Duchess of Windsor. It was a lasting wound to her pride. The Duke eventually asserted that for King George VI to withold royal status from the Duchess was illegal: an indication of his desperation over the issue. The grievance exasperated them both, resentment about it undermined the Duke's family relationships, and in a sense the dispute helped to sabotage their marriage through the Duke's inability to resolve it.It seems the Duke of Windsor might well have secured a royal title for his future consort as part of the Abdication Agreement in December 1936, when he was still King. At that point he presumably could have made a ruling on the rank of his wife to be. But unfortunately for them both he overlooked the matter and left it unresolved as he quit the throne.

Probably the most comprehensive and objective treatment of the Windsor's story: two hedonists, addicted to the froth of life ( sea cruises, nightclubs, balls, casinos, dubious "friends") find "happiness" in each other's paper-thin personality. Phew! that was a close one. Thank goodness for George VI!

Very well written. Book arrived as described and on time. Very pleased with purchase

I haven't read it yet but am told it is a good read