Did England Once Have a Spy for a King?

The Make-Believe Scandal of Wallis and Edward Hid a More Horrible Scandal

Gloria Vanderbilt (Anderson Cooper’s mother) was a twin. Her twin sister Thelma was better known by the pretentious name, Viscountess Furness. Back in 1929, she was best known as the main squeeze of Edward, the Prince of Wales. Bear in mind that Prince of Wales is the title typically afforded to the heir apparent to the British throne. Back as the roaring 20s were drawing to a close and during the time when Viscountess Furness and the Prince of Wales were an item, the Prince in question was guy named Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David. He became famous when he ascended the throne in 1936 to become Britain’s King Edward VIII.

The Viscountess and the Prince of Wales weren’t exactly known for hosting Mensa meetings, let’s just say. But they had a good time while it lasted. Unfortunately for the Viscountess Thelma, it didn’t last long.

Before Edward got the crown, the Viscoutness introduced him to an American socialite named Bessie Wallis Warfield Simpson. She had the sort of colorful past that would have made her contemporary Mae West green with envy. At the time Wallis met Edward Wallis was working on dissolving her second marriage to a wealthy British-American man named Ernest Aldrich Simpson. Their marriage was fun while it lasted. Mr. Simpson was wealthy and Mrs. Simpson was witty, so they soon rose to the stratosphere of the British social circle. By 1934, the not-quite-divorced Mrs. Simpson had ousted the Viscountess and Vanderbilt heiress from her position as mistress-to-the-future-king. Wallis emerged as the new sancha of the Prince of Wales.

All of this would be just another story of royal indiscretions, except that Wallis Simpson, is now widely believed to have been a Nazi spy. I’m pretty sure it was known she was a Nazi spy by British intelligence and palace insiders at the time, but without the internet and social media, it was pretty easy to keep her nefarious activities under wraps. Mrs. Simpson was presented to the British public as a well-dressed floozy and a woman of low morals. She was actually worse than that.

Wallis Simpson

During Wallis Simpson’s heyday as Britain’s hostess with the mostest—in the mid-1930s—she entertained the German ambassador to Britain, a guy by the name of Joachim von Ribbentrop. His first name is pronounced Yo-ha-keem. They had a torrid affair and slept together 17 times. I know that detail, because von Ribbentrop sent Mrs. Simpson 17 carnations every day for a while, to commemorate his affections for her. Her affair with von Ribbentrop was about as secret as the fact that Taylor Swift has been dating Travis Kelce.

Joachim von Ribbentrop was no ordinary German ambassador to England. He was a card-carrying Nazi party member since 1932, and he was considered one of Hitler’s inner circle of advisers, particularly on matters of foreign affairs. Although he was feted in London during his time as ambassador (1936 to 1938), he was not shy about expressing blustery anti-British sentiments. By 1938, he was Reichsminister (Secretary) of Foreign Affairs and helped Hitler plan and execute the invasion of Poland. He also established a “Jewish Desk” in the German Foreign Office to facilitate transportation of Jewish people to concentration camps. Von Ribbentrop was a Nazi’s Nazi.

By 1936, the king of England died and the Prince of Wales changed hats and became King Edward VIII. He had been Wallis’s boyfriend for a few years, but they had never married. In fact, marriage to Simpson faced such enormous obstacles, many social observers considered it an impossibility. First, the new King of England had many affairs and it looked like Wallis was just another notch on the bedpost. Kings tend to have mistresses and wives, and it looked to everyone like Wallis was a mistress. Second, Wallis was still entangled by marriage to the long-suffering Mr. Simpson. And as overtures were made that suggested King Edward VIII might want to take Wallis Simpson as a bride, the palace and the media objected vehemently. The official objection was that Wallis was twice divorced and that made an unseemly match for a future queen of England.

But the real story is that Edward and Wallis were almost certainly spying for the Nazis. Edward’s love affair with Wallis Simpson made a good pretext to give the German-loving future king the boot.

This may come as a surprise to non-conspiracy-theorists, but spies of all nations spy on their friends as well as their enemies. And even national intelligence agencies spy on their own people. As Europe careened toward World War II, M15 (British intelligence) joined the FBI in monitoring the activities of King Edward VIII and his girlfriend Wallis Simpson. The FBI had jurisdiction, because Simpson was an American citizen. An official report of the time said that it was “conclusively established” that Wallis was in frequent communication with von Ribbentrop. Considering there was a lot of noise about King Edward marrying Mrs. Simpson, this seemed a little gauche.

In the 1930s, Britain learned that its top-secret “dispatch boxes” which were sent through secret diplomatic channels, were being circulated in Berlin. There is no proof that this was Edward’s or Wallis’s doing, but once Britain got these two out of the country (that comes later), this sort of thing stopped. This indicates that intelligence services already had suspicions about the future king and his future wife.

To reckless, outspoken Wallis Simpson and her playboy boyfriend Edward, this spy stuff may have started out as a lark. And at the outset of the Third Reich, many prominent people did not know what to think of Adolf Hitler. Don’t forget, Time magazine named Adolf Hitler “Man of the Year” in 1938. Our own Charles “Lucky” Lindbergh was a fan and so was Henry Ford. And there was no doubt that Edward and Wallis liked him.

The icing on the strudel, so to speak, was that Wallis Simpson was openly and outspokenly pro-Nazi. Officially, England did not support Hitler and soon they would be at war with the Third Reich. While a ditzy socialite like Wallis Simpson (that’s how she was initially portrayed) could be forgiven for faulty character assessment of Hitler prior to the war, she was likely already working for them as a spy, and that work would intensify as the war began. It’s hard to say how she got in the spy business in the first place; it may be that Joachim von Ribbentrop groomed her as a spy. The main links in the chain appeared to be Wallis and von Ribbentrop.

It’s also not clear if Wallis groomed Edward to be a spy or if Edward was a willing traitor. It is doubtful that any high-ranking Nazi could have gained access directly to Edward when he was Prince of Wales, but Wallis was accessible to Nazis and it may be that she won over Edward. In the early stages of their relationship, Edward pretty much did whatever she told him to do. On the other hand, perhaps Edward was always a willing spy for Germany. We don’t know.

The various intelligence agencies set up a trap for them. Certain “would-be state secrets” were disclosed to Edward. These secrets were bogus, of course, but Edward was told in confidence that this was top-secret information. Sure enough, intelligence sources confirmed that, a short time later, von Ribbentrop possessed that same phony-baloney information. The only way he would have gotten the fake secrets were through the actions of Edward—and possibly also Wallis.

King for a Year

Now Britain had a bit of a problem. Edward VIII became king on January 20, 1936 (he would step down in December of that same year).

Britain knew they were in for a wild ride with Edward on the throne. As the Prince of Wales, Edward was more of a playboy than a statesman. Known for being a chain smoker and never reading a book, he adopted a casual style different from other kings. He had numerous, reckless, and barely concealed affairs, virtually no work ethic, and a relative disdain for the responsibilities of royal office. He found the monarchy stuffy and liked wild parties. His fun-loving image and casual style made him popular with the people, but the rest of the palace and the British government were appalled. His own father, King George V, had Scotland Yard surveil him while he was still Prince of Wales. When King George V died, his son Edward ascended to the throne but there is little evidence that his behavior improved.

His romance with Wallis Simpson proved particularly troublesome, since unlike previous mistresses, she showed no signs of going away or being replaced. Any hopes that Mrs. Simpson would turn out to be just one more of a dozen flings for the dashing young royal were soon quashed. Perhaps the hostility on the part of the palace insiders pushed Edward and Wallis closer together.

The more everyone said Wallis Simpson was an unsuitable mate for a British monarch, the more Edward got very serious about wanting to marry her.

The official objections to Mrs. Simpson were related to her roaring-20s lifestyle. A young and privileged woman, twice divorced, was a bit of an anomaly in aristocratic circles. The British monarch is the titular head of the Church of England, which forbids divorce and forbids single people from marrying divorced people as long as the divorced spouse is still alive. Unfortunately, Mr. Simpson was still alive and Wallis was therefore unsuited to being the wife of the king. Furthermore, Wallis and Edward openly commenced their affair while Wallis was still married to Mr. Simpson, which was considered gauche. Or maybe it was gauche that Wallis just didn’t bother to hide it. At any rate, it was considered poor form for Mrs. Simpson to run around with a future king while she still had a husband. On top of that, Wallis Simpson was American. Had Wallis been otherwise more of a conventional person, her nationality may have not been a stumbling block to marriage. However, her lack of discretion and wild affairs were likely taken as a symptom of her American heritage.

Kings can do a lot of things, but one thing they can’t do: they can’t marry who they please. If anyone in line to the throne wants to marry, the reigning monarch must approve—and is allowed to disapprove. King Edward VIII was not going to be allowed to take Wallis as his queen.

So Edward proposed a morganatic marriage. This was a bit of royal mumbo-jumbo which allowed a high-ranking person, such as a king, to marry a low-ranking person, such as Mrs. Simpson, under the provision that the low-ranking person is never granted the titles or privileges of the higher-ranking partner. In other words, Edward could marry Wallis in a real marriage, but Wallis would never be queen, never be styled “her royal highness,” and never merit the curtsies and other courtesies of real royals. Britain rejected this before this idea got off the runway. They didn’t want Wallis in the palace at all.

The real objections to Wallis Simpson were more nefarious and kept secret from the public. Palace insider circles knew that Wallis Simpson was a Nazi spy working through von Ribbentrop. Edward VIII definitely had pro-Nazi sympathies but it is hard to say if it was genuine conviction or the effects of Mrs. Simpson’s politics. King Edward VIII took almost no interest in Britain’s politics, so it is hard to believe he was so caught up in German politics.

By the end of 1936, Edward VIII stepped down from the throne, abdicating to marry the woman he loved. (This abdication was a monkey wrench to the royal line of succession. It meant Edward’s brother, Prince Albert, took the throne. He exercised the royal privilege of changing his name and became known as King George V. He’s the guy in the film The King’s Speech. His sudden ascension to the throne meant that when he died, his elder daughter Elizabeth would be next in line to be monarch.)

By 1937, Hitler was in power, Edward had abdicated and married Wallis. They became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Meanwhile, a shy stammering man was on the throne, a little girl in the palace was suddenly being tutored long hours in political affairs, and Winston Churchill was drinking.

King Edward VIII had totally messed things up, but everyone in power knew—it was better to have a spy outside the palace then a spy inside the palace.

How Edward & Wallis Fought the War

Britain made the right choice in forcing Edward and Wallis out. It was evident almost immediately.

In 1937, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor went on an official, British-taxpayer-funded trip to Germany. They were welcomed as the personal guests of Adolf Hitler. They met with Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels, among other Third Reich luminaries. There is a photo that some say show Edward gave the Nazi salute, but that’s been disputed. However, Edward’s praise for Hitler is not in dispute—he lauded Hitler for solving unemployment in Germany, and he liked authoritarian governments in terms of getting things done. He even quipped that England might do well with a dictator. (We’ll later find out, he was sort of hoping that would be his job.)

Edward and Wallis may have enjoyed Germany, because in Great Britain they were generally shunned—Edward for his lack of duty to the British monarchy and Wallis for wrecking Edward’s life. Nobody came to their wedding—it could have been held in a Waffle House with a couple of booths free. The Duke and Duchess never got invitations to other events, not even the coronation of Edward’s brother, who became King George V. They really weren’t welcomed anywhere.

But back to Britain on the brink of World War II. During the war years, J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) kept tabs on the Windsors and reported they were in regular and frequent contact with the Nazis, including von Ribbentrop.

Wallis and Edward gave the politicians in Britain dyspepsia, and no one more than Winston Churchill who had a pretty keen eye for spies. Unlike the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Churchill wanted to win the war. He was so concerned about their toxic and pro-Nazi influence, he gave them a made-up job in the Bahamas to get them out of Europe. It was kind of like living in exile (like when the French sent Napoleon to Elba and told him he could be boss of the whole island), but Wallis and Edward still got financial support from the palace and kept their titles as Duke and Duchess. Their real punishment in exile was that they had nowhere to wear their fancy clothes.

They lived the rest of their lives with no-show jobs that prevented them from mingling with the rest of upper-crust British society. Without purpose, parties, or headlines, they spent the war years on a tropical island, suffering. After the war, they returned to Europe but the closest they could get to England was France.

The Marburg Files

After the war, a tranche of documents known as the Marburg Files came to light. The Marburg Files were letters to and from Edward and/or Wallis to various Nazi officials during World War II. The Nazis tantalized the Duke and Duchess of Windsor with an offer they couldn’t refuse: if Germany was to successfully conquer Britain, the Nazis would put Edward and Wallis on the British throne as monarchs. It was called “Operation Willi,” although I have no idea why it got such a stupid name, except that the very idea gives me the willies.

Little to none of this was not known to the public during the war. Even after the war, it was sort of hushed up. Edward was painted as a dimwitted playboy, and Wallis was the American gold-digger. Edward was a chain-smoking womanizer and Wallis was a party girl. That was the cover story. In most accounts, Wallis is presented as the chief bad guy, the Nazi sympathizer, and the boss of the family. Some even harbored doubts as to whether or not Edward even was a Nazi sympathizer and argued that he was probably just going along with the headstrong Mrs. Simpson to keep peace in the family.

The Marburg Files would contradict this. There is a letter in the Marburg Files, in which somebody reports that Edward told a certain German informant that if the Nazis kept bombing Britain, the British would soon be ready to make peace. In other words, Edward was tipping off the Nazis to keep bombing Britain.

When Edward first abdicated the throne, he ran away with Wallis to France, a nation for which both had deep affection. Churchill banished them to the Caribbean, probably figuring the Atlantic Ocean was a good buffer zone for the toxic Windsors. After the war, Edward and Wallis moved back to France. They remained in social exile for the rest of their lives, and Hitler’s defeat ruined their plans of one day reigning over Britain as king and queen.

The Villa Windsor

In France, they lived in Paris at 4 route du Champ D’Entrainment, a square and spacious house nicknamed the “Villa Windsor.” The couple lived there until their deaths, Edward in 1972 and Wallis in 1986.

The Villa Windsor was purchased by Mohamed Al-Fayed in 1986. Al-Fayed was the Egyptian-born London mogul who owned Harrods and numerous luxury hotels. Mohamad Al-Fayed was the father of Dodi Al-Fayed, the man who squired Diana around the Mediterranean in her last summer on earth. In fact, Dodi died with Diana in the fatal car crash in the tunnel under the Pont D’Alma.

On the day of her fatal accident, Dodi brought Diana for a brief tour of the Villa Windsor, shown in the photo below. Mohamad Al-Fayed, now deceased, was planning on making it into some sort of museum or other attraction to honor the memories of Edward and Wallis. Dodi and Diana did not stay in the house, Dodi merely wanted to show it off to her, perhaps because his father was so proud of preserving the historical aspect of the house.

The house is valued at $29M and is scheduled to open to the public as a museum later this year.

Not Much of a Love Story

For those who dabble in emotional speculation, the prevailing belief is that Edward and Wallis were bitterly unhappy for most of their long married life. Although they had a strong initial attraction to each other, their later life was a series of disappointments that made their marriage a “grim endurance.”

Unable to have children, Wallis depended on her social life for friends and meaningful relationships; however, her social status plummeted when the king abdicated. Edward had always had mental health struggles and suicidal ideation that grew worse over time. The two of them were bound to each other and resentful of each other at the same time. Their ongoing financial struggles and sense of purposelessness after the war did not bring out the best in them. Unable to support each other in their tough times, Wallis reportedly became vindictive and cruel, while Edward was considered obsessively controlling.

And they had bet big on the Nazis, who, as we all know, had lost the war. Joachim von Ribbentrop was arrested by the Allies and was tried at the famous Nuremberg Trials, where he was convicted of crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes against peace, and conspiracy. He was hanged in 1946.

It is interesting that in an interview near the end of his life, Edward said he did not regret abdicating the throne. Wallis lived longer than her husband but not better. She developed dementia even before she was widowed; in the last six years of her life, she was bedridden, unable to speak, and had profound memory loss. She never had a chance to express whether or not she regretted the decisions she made in her life.

As far as I know, no one ever asked them if they regretted being Nazi spies. Of course, journalism was practiced a bit differently then.

Both the Duke and Duchess of Windsor lived their few last years on taxpayer money allotted to them by Queen Elizabeth II, who allowed them permanent residency in Great Britain once they had died. She must have had mixed feelings about Edward’s abdication since it was the reason she became queen, a job she appeared to like very much.

Both Edward and Wallis are buried in the royal cemetery on the Frogmore Estate, which is on the expansive grounds of Windsor Castle. It was as close as Wallis Simpson ever got to being a royal.