HZ??
The Duke
and Duchess
Family Weekly June 3, 196t
Years Later
of Windsor
Ex-King Edward VZJJ and Waiy wore wed on June 3,
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ago this June 3,
the recently abdicated King Edward
VIII of Great Britain married an
American divorcee, Wallace Warfield
Spencer Simpson.
On their silver anniversary, the world is still
fascinated by the monarch who gave up his
throne for "the woman I love" and entranced
by the commoner who stirred an empire.
What is their life like now? How do they live?
Are they happy or do they have regrets?
I spent the better part of two weeks with this
couple while I worked with the Duchess on a
series of articles she was writing. Often we
were three at tea or luncheon, with the conver
sation relaxed and revealing. So perhaps I can
answer those questions.
At 68, the Duke retains a good portion of the
enthusiastic charm which, during his world
travels as Prince of Wales, made him known as
"The First Salesman of the British Empire."
He shows no trace of the autocracy which fre
quently attaches to monarchs, and never has.
Recently, a sports columnist recalled how the
Duke, as Prince, used to golf with champion
Walter Hagen. One day as he stood beside a
hole marked with the red flag, Hagen called:
"Hey, lift the pin, will you, Eddie?" And without-
ado, the Prince complied.
I frequently observed the democracy of spirit
which, when he was Prince and King, bedeviled
so many of the old order surrounding him.
There was, for instance, the day when we were
at luncheon in the Windsor town house in Paris
and a small table was set up at a French win
dow. We sat overlooking the balustraded ter
race with its tubs of scarlet geraniums, green
stretches of lawn, and trees about which ram
bler roses climbed. The Windsor dining room
was a most elegant salon with vivid blue walls,
antiqued white moldings, murals, a musicians'
gallery, and a great table flanked with tufted
white damask chairs.
When the conversation turned to fish, I men
tioned how much I enjoyed a breakfast at Lon
don's Hotel Savoy, with Dover sole deep-fried
to a gulden twist, delicate and sweet inside.
The Duke's eyes brightened. "Ah! Sole for
1937.
breakfast! I never have that any more." He
sounded plaintive.
"Why haven't you asked for it?" the Duchess
wanted to know.
"I did some time ago and nothing happened."
He gave her a quick, warm smile. "Then I quite
forgot about it. It isn't important. I don't like
to upset the kitchen."
She reached for the little gold-encased memo
pad which is always at her place. If the Duke
wanted sole for breakfast, obviously he was
to have it.
"There is such a thing as being overly consid
erate," Bhe told the former king.
She was dressed simply that day, as she al
ways is. At no time did I see her dieting, yet
she must observe some restrictions to retain a
size-eight figure at 66. She suggested what one
of the restrictions might be when she described
a dinner she and the Duke favor following a
large lunch.
"The Duke rarely eats lunch. A compote of
fruit, perhaps," she said. "But if we entertain
or have been entertained at a large lunch, our
dinner often will be only a baked potato topped
with caviar."
I visited the Windsors in both their French
homes. The one in Paris is on the Bois du Bou
logne; their country place, "Le Moulin de la
Tuilerie," is 30 miles outside the city.
A Life of Elegant Informality
The Duchess is said to love things. Both of
these houses bear witness that the Duke does,
too. Their Paris house might be described as
crowded ; one entire table, for instance, is given
to a display of small boxes of gold and silver,
ivory and enamel. At the country home, there's
the Duchess' beautiful Meissen collection of vege
table shapes, among others a cauliflower, ears of
corn, n bunch of asparagus.
The Duchess calls the house in the Bois
"hers" explaining that she's "the city slicker" in
the family. The country house, called the Mill,
is "the Duke's house," she says. The Mill con
sists of a group of buildings built in 1600 and
remodeled in 1730 which are connected by nar
row cobbled roadways. The guest quarters once
were a cow barn. In the Big House there's a
reception room, dining room, and kitchen quar
As they celebrate their
rocked an empire
ters on the first floor. Upstairs, there's the
Duke's suite, the Duchess' suite, and a large
beamed drawing room.
There is an elegant informality at the Mill.
Straw matting covers the floor of the dining
room. Casseroles are passed in basket holders.
Butter comes in the forms of animals and flow
ers (mine was a squirrel, the Duke's a thistle,
and the Duchess' a heart). On the terrace chairs
are small pillows with embroidered mottos:
"Don't look now somebody may be gaining on
you"; "Never explain never complain"; "Smile
at the poorest beggar as you would at the high
est king."
The rug in the reception room is placed so it
doesn't obscure, the gravestones in the floor.
During the French Revolution, the peasants, de
siring to have marble floors like the aristocracy,
robbed the graves. No corpses molder beneath
, them, the Duke explains.
The Duke Putters in the Garden
The Duke is happiest at the Mill. Wearing old
clothes, his plaid cotton shirt hanging outside
his slacks, he works in the garden that stretches
from the buildings to the millstream.
A wooden bridge crosses the stream to a hill
which affords a lovely view of the countryside.
Here, beneath flowering shrubs, are buried the
cairn terriers that preceded the pugs in the
Windsor household.
In the winter, when the Windsors are in resi
dence in New York at the Waldorf Towers, it's
a familiar sight to see Sidney, the Bahamian
who has been with them since 1940, when the
Duke was governor of the Bahamas, walking
the pugs on a four-way leash.
There are always dog biscuits on the tea tray,
as the pugs so well know. One rainy day when
a footman went up the stairs to the big drawing
room, a freshly pressed tea cloth draped over
his hand so it would not wrinkle, the pugs fol
lowed him single file.
"Oh, dear," said the Duchess, "tea is going
to be late. It is one of the few things about
which the Duke becomes impatient."
But on this day the Duke, plagued with shin
gles, nervously pacing up and down the cobbled
road between showers, quite forgot the tea hour.
The Duchess sneezed! (Continued on page 9)
silver wedding anniversary,
4 .
hut which has endured and I
'!
here is an intimate glimpse of the marriage that
mellowed despite great
?
1 n J
odds
By ADELE WHITELY FLETCHER
mm A
- v -1 ' t ?
Family Weekly, June 3, 1M2
Family Weekly. June 1, 1M2