Edward VIII's Reign Was Short, Brutal, And Full Of Secrets

he was born into Royal privilege yet King Edward VII's Reign ended in absolute infamy although he's gone down in history as the man who sacrificed everything for love the true story of his life reveals a much more complicated and chilling truth and it's not what happened during his Reign that's the most shocking because when Edward VII's baby brother Prince John died of a severe seizure at only 13 years old Edward's response was so disturbing it's impossible to forget but did you know Edward's name wasn't what you think it was born on June 23rd 1894 to the Future King George V and Queen Mary the royal family was very tight-knit so although Edward's official name was Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David yeah try saying that 10 times fast his parents and close friends just lovingly called him David but soon those family Dynamics would turn very dark like all Royals a series of nannies brought up the children yet when it came to his own Nanny Edward was hiding a dark secret his caretaker was so possessive she would pinch him just before he saw his parents making him cry and sending him right back to her of course as soon as Edward confessed the horrific treatment The Nanny was fired but some say the damage was already done let me pause and ask you a question what's the best birthday gift you have ever received from your parents well for Edward he got a pretty strange gift on his 16th birthday he officially became the Prince of Wales you see in May 1910 his father ascended to the throne as George V and he gave his son the title A little over a month later along with the Royal designation of the Earl of Chester sadly all the official names in the world couldn't hide one unsettling fact he wasn't ready to be king plain and simple the new Prince of Wales was like a fish out of water he was Wo ful unprepared for his responsibilities now before he became the heir Edward wanted to join the Navy but once his father ascended as king those plans turned to dust instead his parents expected him to get an academic education at Oxford and they enrolled him immediately it did not go well however because Edward had one big flaw while at the McDon College in Oxford Edward became more of a party boy than a prining he loved playing polo with his friends on the University grounds instead of hitting the library and when he left Oxford after just eight terms he had almost no academic qualifications strap in though this is not the only thing that may come back to haunt Edward now when World War I broke out in 1914 Edward was a hot-blooded young man and naturally wanted to fight for his country although Parliament kept England's air away from most of the fighting Edward went regularly to the front lines to witness trench living and that's where he picked up a more scandalous habit from the soldiering life because whenever Edward got leave he Beed it right to Paris to party his late night actions would have shocked his parents and while in France Edward's friends introduced him to the high class courtsan margarit alibar who he immediately fell into lust with and struck up a passionate Affair but before long this connection came back to haunt him now although Edward and margarit flamed out after only a year she returned into the prince's life with vengeance because in 1923 margarite shot and killed her husband in the Swanky seavo hotel in London and Edward's PR department had to kick it into sixth GE to make sure his name never came up in the trial but how surprised would you be if I told you this would be far from Edward's last controversy around this time the Prince of Wales became an international sensation good-looking and in love with a good time The Bachelor Prince was a Heat score for the newspaper as Men's Wear magazine pointed out quote the average young man in America is more interested in the close of the Prince of Wales than any other individual quote but behind closed doors he wasn't so Picture Perfect the young Edward had a type when it came to the ladies and that type was ruinous he soon developed a penion for married woman and also seemed completely uninterested in settling down like a responsible member of the royal family these disturbing traits LED Edward's own father to remark after I'm dead the boy will ruin himself in 12 months he wasn't wrong but we'll get there after I share Edward's Dirty Little Secret with you Edward met the woman who would drag him Kicking and Screaming into the anals of History Wallace Simpson at the time Wallace had already been divorced once and was still pescal married to the businessman Ernest Simpson meanwhile Edward himself was still visiting his mistress BMA furness's bedroom but did any of that stop them no Wallace Simpson and Edward's relationship began as a dirty little secret in fact after years of flirtation they struck up their steamy liaison while his mistress lady ferus was out traveling abroad when they did finally get together the couple tried to keep it Hush Hush for as long as possible but as we all know the truth always comes out Edward became smitten with Wallace because of her strong personality and the irreverence she showed towards his Royal status within only a year of their relationship Edward was already in the words of his biographer slavishly dependent on Simpson the feeling was Mutual though that Simpson had fallen in love with Edward by August of 1934 but right now we are only at the tip of the iceberg to be fair Edward tried incredibly hard to keep Wallace as a secret even in the face of one very embarrassing encounter when his father asked about his relationship to Wallace he lied through the skin of his teeth despite the fact that his father's staff had caught the couple in bed together and saw evidence of a physical act now that is a commitment to a lie now when Edward's Affair finally came out he shoved it in his parents' faces with a scandalous stunt Prince of Wales decided to introduce Wallace to his traditional mother in the middle of a formal Buckingham Palace function even though the palace didn't usually invite divorce inside his mother was utterly outraged and she eventually got revenge of her own as you can imagine Wallace Simpson didn't make the best impression on the king and queen during her visit to Buckingham Palace because when Edward tried to bring her to another event soon after the royal couple fully denied their son and refused to see the divorce talk about ice cold but maybe his parents were actually on to something Wallace Simpson was certainly into Edward but that doesn't mean her reasons were completely pure because when she met the Prince of Wales her marriage to Ernest Simpson was in tatters largely because he didn't make enough money to fund her extravagant tastes Edward however had all the power and the money of the monarchy behind him talk about a gold digger but what if I told you there was another red flag Simpson was never the most faithful wife but it must have really cut Like a Knife when she started straying from Edward to rumors swirl that during their time together Simpson was also entertaining an adventurous commoner named guy Marcus trundle the thing is he wasn't even her most infamous Conquest but more on that later now Edward loved showering Wallace with clothes and jewels moreover Wallace apparently didn't even have a taste when it came to jewelry and people often commented on how she ruined her elegant outfits by putting honken Jewels right on top of them with Edward now fully head over heels for the scandalous Wallace Simpson the government's biggest nightmare happened Edward's father King George V passed on January 20th 19 1836 this meant that Edward Messi aair and all was now King Edward VII of England and the head of state and he wasted no time proving parliament's worst fears the very next day after his father's passing Edward threw an egg right in parliament's face by insisting on watching his own Ascension announcement alongside his mistress Wallace Simpson after all he considered himself fundamentally non-traditional from then on government knew they in for a wild ride but they didn't know just how Wild it would get the government went to Desperate Measures to save themselves from Edward's tyranny ministers avoided sending sensitive documents to his home at Fort badier and their reasons were chilling Not only would the new king Sher his duty and barely look at them many were afraid that Wallace Simpson and her Funtime friends would take a peek at them and expose the government secrets but did you know the government almost got out of this wild ride because on July July 16th 1936 less than half a year after he was crowned King Edward's life almost ended in one violent act that day an Irish nevero well named Jerome banagan tracked Edward down while he was riding horseback and pulled a gun on the young Monarch now luckily or unluckily depending on how you look at things Edward's security detail neutralized the would be assassin the attack left Edward shaken but it didn't help him make better decision decisions because on the fall of 1936 it became clear that Edward was desperate to marry Wallace Simpson in October The Simpsons even brought forward divorce proceedings to the British courts and on November 16th Edward formally told the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin that he intended to marry his mistress and this proposition couldn't have gone worse you see as King Edward was also the head of Church of England which did not look well upon divorcees and saw it as nothing short of sacriligious that Edward wanted to make Simpson Queen even when Edward proposed a morganatic marriage that wouldn't give her the title of Queen Parliament and the church still said no in other words Edward was now backed into a corner even as Edward was getting public pressure from the government about his love life his mistress Wallace was getting the same pressure in secret from Edward's own family the king's Lord and waiting Lord Brown low even approached her and pressured her into renouncing the king in a statement and this heartless Act only made Edward all the more determined to marry her in the end prime minister Stanley Baldwin gave the king of England three options and none of them were good first he could give up his fantastic notion of marrying Wallace Simpson second he could marry her against parliament's wishes and start pandemonium and third Edward could give up the throne they were excruciating options and no one actually expected the choice he ended up making making Against All Odds Edward gave up his crown officially signing the abdication papers on December 10th 1936 so just like his late father King George V had predicted Edward VII hadn't even made it a year as king nonetheless it seemed like a heartwarming Act of love for soulmate Wallace but Edward's scandalous history was just getting started on June 3rd 1937 Edward made good on his promise and married wall Simpson in a quiet and private ceremony in France yet even this happy day started with bitterness the Church of England still refused to have anything to do with their marriage so they had to get a small town clergyman to perform the ceremony but that wasn't the only drama instead of celebrating his brother's big day King George V 6 banned all Royal members from attending the ceremony including Edward's closest friends both Edward and Wallace felt this slight for the rest of their lives and Edward would never managed to forgive his brother for the cruelty but as it turns out he was known to be pretty cruel himself back in 1919 Edward's first response to his baby brother's death was to complain yeah you heard that right but what he said was so bad it put a rank taste in people's mouth but first I have to tell you about the Rivalry he had with his other sibling the newly crowned King because after that fateful day in December 1936 Edward's brother Albert succeeded him to the throne as King George V 6 and for his first act as King George wanted to Grant his older brother the title of the Duke of Windsor only there was one selfish motive behind this act the title Duke specifically gave Edward Zero political power neutralizing him on the playing field but Edward's wife Wallace also got a mean slight because another Royal slight to Edward and his new wife came when the newly minted George V 6 refused to let Wallace Simpson be styled her highness The Duchess of Windsor in society even though she was now married to the Duke former King Edward was incensed at this personal Vendetta against the woman he loved and he sure let George know it while campaigning for his wife's titles Edward would telephone his brother nearly every day needling and pestering him to reconsider then again Edward also used these calls as an opportunity to ask his Royal daddy war books for more money for his allowance and it got so bad that George V 6 eventually ordered his people not to forward any of Edward's calls now around this time Edward began treating his own mother Queen Mary in incredibly cruel ways he expected his mother to step up for him and lashed out when that didn't happen in 1939 he even wrote her to say that her last letter quote destroyed the last vestage of feeling I had left for you and has made further normal correspondence between us impossible quote that is a harsh thing to write to your own mother granted Edward's mother despised his wife because Queen Mary made no secret of her dislike for Wallace Simpson lawfully wedded wife or not and she refused to meet the false Duchess for as long as she lived at least in formal company her words were even more brutal the queen positively indignant over her son's abdication once huffed to give up all this for that now eventually Edward must have realized that marrying Wallace put him in a gilded cage for one Edward's brother King George V 6 paid his allowance out of his own pocket for a good long while this meant that Edward had to please his brother not himself if he wanted to survive which wasn't something he was used to but one day it came to a disturbing climax Edward was banned from England yeah you heard that right in the aftermath of the abdication Edward and Wallace lived in semi Exile on the continent so when they wanted to return home they got a rude awakening King George I 6th forbade them even threatening to cut off their allowance if they came home without an invite that was the end of that but it was also the beginning of the most infamous period of their lives because in 1937 Edward and Wallace made their most controversial move yet and it's an act that is still looked on with horror today to the absolute shock of the British government they traveled to Nazi Germany and actually had a meet and greet with none other and Adolf Hitler perhaps worst of all they even gave the full Nazi salutes but boy the circus show was just getting started because Hitler liked Edward VII and thought that if the infamous abdication hadn't happened things could have been much different to quote Hitler directly he said I am certain through him permanent friendly relations could have been achieved his abdication was a severe loss for us but if you think that's bad hold on to your hats because the Duke's letters from around this time reveal a disturbing truth he wanted to take back his crown in the late 1940s George V 6 Health was ailing and the Duke of Windsor took full advantage in his correspondence there's evidence that he planned to sneak back into England and set himself up as a regent for a sick brother the thing is it came closer to happening than most people know but not in the way that you might think because in 1940 there was a Nazi plot called operation Willie to persuade or even kidnap the Duke of Windsor and make him work for Adolf Hitler now we know today that it didn't work but many scholars agree that the German state was fully prepared to reinstate Edward as a fascist Ally King now how long that would have lived on for is a great question because Edward had some problems that he kept behind closed doors in the 1960s Edward's once Glamorous Life slowed to a near halt his health started to deteriorate and he had a series of surgeries for various ailments including his aneurysm abdomen and a detached retina and a bit later in 1971 he found out that he had throat cancer as a lifetime smoker the end was near and it was tragic in his final days of Life Edward was too weak to even hold on to the last vestages of his Royal dignity when his niece Queen Elizabeth II visited in 1972 while she was on state business in France she managed to speak to her uncle for 15 minutes but only Wallace was feeling well enough to accompany Elizabeth for a photo opportunity while the ailing Edward stayed inside just 10 days after Queen Elizabeth II visited him the former King Edward VII passed from throat cancer in his home in France just a few weeks away from his 78th birthday and in death he did what he could never do in life he returned to Britain for good to this day his body lies in Windsor Castle but what about his beloved Wallace Simpson well Wallace Simpson outlived her Infamous Royal Lover by over a decade and she chose to be with him when the end of her life came too because after living out the remainder of her years as a recluse she passed at the age of 89 in 1986 and per her last wishes attendants buried her next to Edward on the Royal burial grounds at Windsor Castle now that sounds like a happy ending until you hear about Wallace's secrets she kept during her life according to FBI reports from the 1930s Wallace started an affair with the German officer Wakim Von ribon trop and if we are to believe the Whispers she also kept his signed photograph on her bedside table not only that but according to the man who ghost wrote her memoirs Wallace actually admitted that a childhood friend Herman Rogers was the true love of her life although she made the writer swear to never print the confession now despite their dark pasts and hidden secrets we still tend to see King Edward VII and Wallace Simpson as a love story for the ages now hearing that the last 10 years of Edward's life was was full of ailments and sickness it might make you start to feel for Edward but do you remember when I said Edward had a rivalry with multiple siblings well back in 1919 Edward's brother John who was 11 years younger passed away from a severe seizure at just 13 years old Edward's response was so disturbing it's impossible to forget he referred to Jon's passing as quote a little more than a regrettable nuisance quote and that wasn't when Edward heard of Jon's tragic fate one of his first responses was to complain about Jon to his mistress at the time as he wrote to her this poor boy had become more of an animal than anything elsee and Edward was also so Savage to his mother about the loss of her son that he later had to apologize to her for being a cold-hearted and unsympathetic Swine now out of everything you have just heard what do you find most surprising is it Edward's relationship with Hitler his runchy past his coldhearted nature let us know down in the comments below and if you want to hear more about various historical figures subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out on any more jaw-dropping stories like this one

Channel: Factinate

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Id: MmDwOZR2XbM

Length: 20min 12sec (1212 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 20 2023