00:05:57.100yeah saying um and it happened uh king the then prince of wales david as he was known to by his
00:06:05.340family um who was who was going to be king when his father king george v kicked off which was
00:06:11.400going to be any any day now he fell in love with a married american woman named wallace simpson
00:06:17.180and now he was known to love americans and fall in love with married ladies quite a bit
00:06:23.420He was bucking tradition. He was not settling down. He was not marrying a royal princess and having children the way he should have been doing by this time. He's in his 30s. Glamorous, dashing, all the girls wanted him. And then this American woman, Wallace Simpson, waves her hand and he comes running. And at first, everyone was like, OK, well, this is just going to be another one of his affairs because he did that a lot. Right.
00:06:48.120Everyone expected that he would either keep her on the side or just dump her like he'd done the others and marry suitably and settle down.
00:06:56.500He fell completely, crazily, obsessively in love with Wallace Simpson and decided to abdicate the throne once he became king for the woman I love.
00:07:07.280Because the government would not let him marry a divorced American woman at this time.
00:07:12.700But the monarch has always been the head of the Church of England.
00:07:17.680And in 1936, the Church of England was very conservative and very much against divorce.
00:07:26.380But also, I mean, this is kind of, and correct me if I'm wrong, but very similar to there was no way that Charles was going to get to marry Camilla, even if she got divorced, when they had been in love for so long.
00:07:43.140So by the time Charles and Diana got married, though, I think they had started to loosen up divorce because Princess Margaret had already been divorced by the time Charles and Diana married.
00:07:57.060So when this is why famously Princess Margaret Margaret was not allowed to marry her true love, Peter Townsend, because he was divorced.
00:08:04.620but when margaret married tony armstrong jones and their marriage was hell and finally the queen
00:08:11.600allowed divorce in the royal family but uh i think charles was not going to be allowed to
00:08:17.120marry camilla because i think it was more about the virgin thing with him you know what i mean
00:08:21.020i think that they were didn't think that i mean obviously camilla got married so
00:08:25.920you know she was not available at the time but i think she was just more of a worldly woman and
00:08:32.000They didn't think she was a proper royal bride the way the virginal young Diana was.
00:08:37.800But then, obviously, later on, you know, divorce just hit the royal family, you know.
00:08:43.380Anne and Charles and Andrew and Fergie.
00:08:46.700I mean, it's just, so it's now more acceptable.
00:08:56.920And so there wasn't, you know, it was just she was wrong in every way.
00:09:00.380but he gave up the throne he abdicated um and sent them into this lifelong exile
00:09:06.400of a really shallow lifestyle and she was forever yoked to him because she couldn't leave
00:09:14.020the man who had given up the throne of england for her you know you that's an impossible position
00:09:19.100so you can literally you can you can never leave you can never leave the man who gives up the
00:09:23.600throne of england for you like you're stuck forever she knew it a lot of people look at them
00:09:29.300as this amazing iconic love story and that is definitely how the american press of the time
00:09:36.100depicted it uh but it i think you know what i'm exploring is you know that it wasn't and that um
00:09:44.040i don't think she ever really wanted to be married to him even as she probably got her eyes a little
00:09:50.920her head turned a bit by his promise of, I will not be crowned without you by my side. So I think
00:09:56.480there was a part of her that started to buy into this narrative that maybe I can be queen, but I
00:10:01.160think she was always the more practical, realistic one in that couple. And then on the other side of
00:10:06.420the coin, you had his younger brother, Bertie, who was a Duke of York and his wife, Elizabeth
00:10:14.040Bo's Lion. When David abdicated, Bertie became king. He was never supposed to be king. He wasn't
00:10:22.920raised to be king. He and his wife and their two little girls, Elizabeth and Margaret, they lived
00:10:28.680a very happy life kind of on the back bench of royalty. And then they were thrust into the role
00:10:34.420of king and queen of England. And I think for the betterment of history, you know, for sure,
00:10:39.500it was a good thing that happened but it wasn't what they sought but elizabeth i think knew very
00:10:45.540early on she would be a very good queen and she could rise to the occasion but she hated wallace
00:10:50.540then the rivalry between the two women is my book and it was a juicy epic historical
00:10:58.100lifelong feud i mean it actually is royal mean girls right and i want and i want to dig0.71
00:11:05.360dig into that feud. But first, let's take a really quick break.
00:11:16.280Okay, we're back. I do think that so much of this, you know, mythology around it has been so
00:11:24.800focused on, isn't this romantic? He gave up a throne for her. And it's like, it's such a male
00:11:31.980centric narrative instead of, you know, what did she give up? You know, was was this the happy
00:11:39.100ending, you know, that they made it out to be? And who was she to begin with? Right. Yeah. I did
00:11:47.840try to bring her backstory to light in this because I think I very much informed her actions.
00:11:53.640I mean, most people, most British people, I will say, who were not part of the circle of the
00:12:00.560then prince of wales they saw her as an american social climber a schemer um someone who was0.62
00:12:09.440predatory uh taking away their king from them you know they she went she had to leave the country0.96
00:12:17.340when the british press finally broke down their kind of silence around this and what people don't
00:12:25.220understand is for months before the abdication the foreign press knew what was going on and was
00:12:31.280posting articles and photographs of the king of england with this american divorcee but the
00:12:37.720british press was not they were protecting their king um and then finally when the scandal broke
00:12:44.340she had to leave the country they were so angry with her but i think wallace um there is some
00:12:51.280sympathy to be found she was born in baltimore her parents both of them were from fine old
00:12:57.220southern baltimore families society but her mother married a younger son and um they didn't
00:13:03.540have much money and her father died when she was just a baby and so for the rest of her young life
00:13:09.680she and her mother were very dependent on her uncle soul uncle uncle solomon to give them
00:13:15.180money and lodging and when he was very not generous in that way and her mother tried various
00:13:22.920ways to support her in walls but always she had to go back in bed for money to go to a private0.96
00:13:27.840school like everyone else in their society money to have a debutante ball like you know her cousins1.00
00:13:33.080had had she was constantly relying on men to to give her stability and um you know and a place1.00
00:13:43.120society which she was really born into and then she married her first husband was alcoholic and0.96
00:13:48.680abusive um and she couldn't get divorced for a very long time because her family wouldn't accept
00:13:54.140it and wouldn't give her the money to do it and then she finally did and then she married another
00:13:58.560man ernest simpson who could give her a little bit more i mean so i think the story of wallace
00:14:03.440is the story of a woman who he lives in a time when she can't get these things herself right
00:14:09.780And of course, I mean, it's a it's a it's a woman. Yeah, it's a woman who, like so many women then couldn't have agency or success or sometimes even purpose without yoking herself to a man or even getting out of an abusive marriage without, you know, without her uncle, you know, who ultimately refused to give her the money and refused to give his blessing.
00:14:33.500And she had to, you know, to years and years to extricate herself from that because of the men in her life refusing to do it.
00:14:41.180It was just, you know, so I think we have to know that a lot of people compare Wallace Simpson with Meghan Markle.
00:14:48.040I was just going to bring it up. I was just going to bring it up.
00:14:50.260OK, you know, Meghan was a successful entrepreneur and an actress.1.00
00:14:56.420And she did not need men to give her things in the way that Wallace Simpson did.
00:15:01.260You know, so I think some of the comparisons you can't avoid, but I think you have to understand there are big differences, too.
00:15:08.700Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, I say this all the time. I'm actually a big Meghan Markle fan. I think she's great. And I actually love their love story. I truly do.
00:15:18.220But are there similarities, even though we're talking about, you know, two completely different time periods, in how the British press treated the two of them?
00:15:27.500um well they're the racial component with megan you cannot ignore you know that is such the big
00:15:33.160thing because she's not you know harry is not king he's not he wasn't going to abdicate the
00:15:38.260throne for megan you know he he he is um he's a i think he's very much like his uncle though to a
00:15:45.820great great great uncle and so um i do think there's a there's a thing in my book where
00:15:51.380queen mary says that it's the windsor women who are the strong ones it's the windsor men are weak
00:15:57.660and are either made or broken by whom they marry and i think that's all very true which i love
00:16:04.880you love it so much yeah i mean you see that you can see that in all the generations of windsor men
00:16:09.220including charles um and i think harry you know look megan markle was never going to be queen
00:16:35.300And I think in that way, Meghan and Wallace are probably similar, right?
00:16:39.340But it's just, Meghan didn't need Harry to give her the riches and the jewels,
00:16:43.540You know, the way that Wallace needed a protector, a rich husband, you know, in a way.
00:16:51.640So I do think that Harry and Meghan, I have to believe theirs is a true love story in a way.
00:16:59.360I want to think it is. I don't know why I want to think it is, but I do. I do. I really do.
00:17:05.520I don't think Harry really wants to be a member of the royal family.
00:17:08.600I mean, it obviously was born that way, but I think he, it was completely wounded by his mother's death, you know, devastated and broken.
00:17:17.620And here comes, here comes a strong woman to kind of like provide that figure to him.
00:17:22.660And I truly think that was part of the appeal of Wallace as well, you know, and even Bertie with Elizabeth, both of those, the older Windsors.
00:17:32.700now i'm going back to talk about the david and birdie um in the 1930s they they they needed a
00:17:39.920mother's love and they didn't have it their mother was not particularly maternal didn't like babies
00:17:45.680they had a very uh horrible nanny when they were very very tiny like from infancy to like three or0.99
00:17:52.540four who physically abused birdie at least almost to the point of starving him to death because she
00:18:00.260favored david and then she would pinch david whenever he was in the presence of his parents
00:18:05.660to make him scream so he would come running to her and there are allegations she sexually abused
00:18:10.580the young princess and finally another nanny finally told queen mary what was going on and
00:18:16.580they finally got rid of her but i i think you cannot discount their abusive you know very
00:18:23.200hard young childhood and i think they both sought mother figures and found them and i yeah there's
00:18:30.920a parallel there with harry you know yeah no that makes that makes so much sense i want to switch
00:18:37.120tracks really quick um just to to ask you a question and again this you know and then whenever
00:18:43.900there's any kind of drama in the royal family it has the chance to change history you know we would
00:18:51.160not have had queen elizabeth ii have the abdication if 1936 not happened you know so it's not just
00:18:59.880brothers against brothers the way it is still today in that case brothers against brothers
00:19:05.640altered the the the line of secession yeah yeah and that's such an interesting point i mean that
00:19:13.540one just kind of like smacked me in the face these dramas do have the ability to completely
00:19:19.500changed history had we not had Queen Elizabeth on the throne. I mean, can you think of the
00:19:23.880alternate history? Now, that's a novel that could be written. Right? I mean, everyone would have
00:19:29.240accepted Wallace Simpson had he just kept her on the side as a side piece, right? I mean, it was
00:19:34.480like, that was expected of kings back then, right? His grandfather, Edward VII, had famously, you know,
00:19:41.940had mistresses all over the place, but married a suitable person. And then even after he abdicated
00:19:48.300and then Elizabeth Bozelyan and her husband Bertie became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth,
00:19:55.420there was still an expectation they might have children. And had they had another, more children,
00:20:02.180other than Elizabeth and Margaret, and had they had a little boy, he would have been king,
00:20:07.080not Elizabeth II. Because at the time, it was very much based on gender. Now it's not. They
00:20:14.080changed the rules but back then you know had her parents had another child and that child been a
00:20:20.020boy king queen elizabeth would not act on the throne so i also i also think a lot about the
00:20:27.000history of world war ii would have been completely different had king edward the eighth and queen
00:20:34.980wallace been on the throne you know i think right that would the outcome would have been different
00:20:40.680and um you know you kind of think thank god for the abdication in that case because i truly
00:20:46.800truly don't know that germany might have been defeated had there been a king edward the eighth
00:20:53.040and queen wallace on the throne of england i don't think so oh why why do you think that
00:20:57.960well because we know now they uh they well so the stain of wallace and edward beyond the
00:21:06.740abdication, which so many British could never forgive him for, right? I mean, what's the point
00:21:11.260of divine right if you can just chuck it all if it doesn't suit you, right? But he and Wallace
00:21:17.560met with Hitler in, I think it was 1937 or 38, before the war. They admired Hitler. They were
00:21:27.020on the record of saying Great Britain is on the wrong side of this. They need to side with Germany.0.99
00:21:36.740and part of that was the memories of world war one um which david um who became you know the
00:21:46.300former king who became the duke of windsor he witnessed he wasn't he wasn't in battle the way
00:21:52.160birdie was but he they wouldn't let him but he witnessed the horrors of war so i think part of
00:21:57.360it was that but then during the war uh the germans the nazis famously had a plan drawn up we know
00:22:05.760this. There are files now. If Britain was defeated to set up, you know, Wallace and David to be back
00:22:17.500on the throne, and they would be puppet king and queen. And in fact, they were hoping David would,
00:22:23.620you know, knowing of this plan, would actively then try to get his brother basically to surrender.
00:22:31.420We don't know 100% for sure if Wallace and David said yes to this plan. Pretty sure they knew of it. And David did say on the record he thought it was okay for the Germans to blitz London, resulting in the death of, you know, millions of his former subjects, if it meant Britain would surrender to Germany and end the war.
00:22:56.960so this we know and uh you contrast that to the king and queen on the throne during world war ii
00:23:06.280george and elizabeth they they became the faiths of british resilience and you know they they
00:23:12.640visited every bombed outside and buckingham palace actually was bombed when they were in it
00:23:17.580they they i think the war made them as monarchs and forever like solidified them as the most like
00:23:26.440beloved monarchs ever, right? And defied Hitler. And so you can't help but say, well, thank God
00:23:34.480the others abdicated. Who knows what history would have been like?
00:23:40.080That's a book I would also read. Okay, let's take a quick break. And when we get back,
00:23:44.420I want to dig more into this real housewives of the UK and the royal family in this time period.
00:24:50.840I think initially when they first met Elizabeth, I mean, Elizabeth met her probably before she was David's mistress because Elizabeth was close to David's mistress at the time, another American, but she was married into British gentry.
00:25:08.300She was a lady, Thelma Furness, and was never going to, she was never going to marry David.
00:25:15.660Whereas once it kind of became evident that Wallace wasn't going to say no, that David wanted to marry her, that's when the feud became real.
00:25:26.300And David really broke protocol and inserted Wallace, this at the time still married, divorced woman.
00:25:34.160He just kind of shoved her down the throats of his family, taking her to court when it really wasn't appropriate, presenting her at court and just every, you know, entertaining with her, ensconcing her as the hostess of his private home, the Port Belvedere, just throwing her in their fate in a way he had not really done with previous mistresses.
00:25:55.140So I think that is what started it. The royals were very traditional. Queen Mary and King George were appalled by their son's behavior. They saw him getting more reckless with Wallace, more blatant, more reluctant to do his job.
00:26:12.440and and the entire royal family then very much took a dislike towards wallace but elizabeth i
00:26:20.020think was the most affected because she could see that if this continued down this path suddenly her
00:26:27.400cozy little domestic life is going to be upended and her husband who was not a strong man at that
00:26:34.520point was going to be king and she was horrified by this and also felt betrayed by david's behavior
00:26:40.880so she immediately and she you know she was american wallace was american and the opposite
00:26:45.980of elizabeth in every way wallace was divorced she was stylish she was thin she to the point0.90
00:26:50.700of anorexia she as david was too she wore you know fashionable fashionable clothes she danced0.97
00:26:56.360at nightclubs till dawn and elizabeth was the english rose you know the mother of two adorable
00:27:01.840little girls wearing her chintzes her flounces and enjoying her scones with tees and and and
00:27:09.940just, you know, so they were immediately, they were so different. But yet what I found as I was
00:27:16.780writing the book is they were so similar in many ways. Both strong women married to weaker men,
00:27:23.360both really smart, really ambitious. But Elizabeth kind of cloaked her ambition in a little more,0.98
00:27:30.520I'm going to say, quote unquote, acceptable, traditional way versus Wallace being a little
00:27:35.400bit more blatant about it. So they just took this instant dislike to each other and they saw each
00:27:40.780other as rivals and they saw each other as enemies because Wallace saw Elizabeth as perhaps the
00:27:46.520strongest person opposing her from taking the throne. And she accused Elizabeth, I think, of
00:27:54.380spying on her and David, which I think Elizabeth probably did. She thought Elizabeth manipulated
00:28:01.820the press in Elizabeth's favor. And I think Elizabeth probably did. Versus Elizabeth looking0.67
00:28:09.040at Wallace and seeing her as this divorced American who is going to take away their beloved1.00
00:28:14.940king or turn his head or make him do things that he shouldn't. And there might have been some0.51
00:28:20.680jealousy there. Maybe Elizabeth had a little crush on David when she was younger. Kind of right about0.74
00:28:25.680that i think she might she might have so they were just they just they were like two different
00:28:31.540rivals at court they each had their own team your team was you were team elizabeth yeah and i mean
00:28:39.540again i don't want to keep comparing this to megan and kate and i don't know if there's a necessarily
00:28:46.680a comparison in real life but i think there is a comparison again in how the media likes to
00:28:54.060portray and then also caricature women and put women in boxes you know Kate she's a mother she's
00:29:01.840very elegant she's she's a princess even though she was a commoner uh and then you know Megan
00:29:08.480she's an actress she's edgy right like and that's that's not even getting into the racial component1.00
00:29:14.220of it but you know in the press these two women have been pitted against one another but then also
00:29:20.360just completely separated into like what kind of woman are you yeah yeah and this it's very again
00:29:28.060i think this is where the strongest parallels are to wallace and ozbeth elizabeth boselyan and
00:29:34.620pate middleton represent i think that more traditional the more i want to say again
00:29:41.780quote unquote acceptable feminine strong but cloaked in femininity woman that is more acceptable
00:29:49.640to those who want their royals to continue to be very traditional, right? You know, the mothers,
00:30:00.360you know, with the beautiful family and their fashions are very similar too, I think. You know,
00:30:06.740they're not cutting edge. They're not going to, you know, going to be wearing the hottest designer
00:30:11.600labels um and then you have wallace and megan who american lots of energy divorced which again to0.91
00:30:19.940some people means something um kate was never divorced um women who were a little bit more
00:30:25.880cutting edge more modern more more of their time you know and wallace wore all these crazy
00:30:32.620schiaparelli and chanel um you know cutting edge fashions versus elizabeth who just was never going
00:30:41.540to rock a boat in that way and i see that with kate today as well and um so yeah i mean i think0.62
00:30:47.240you can't deny they're all strong women that the americans are just a little bit0.54
00:30:55.000more modern and naked louder louder yeah the americans tend to be right look and i think1.00
00:31:03.640that's an asset in a lot of ways right you know versus then you've got third the the women who1.00
00:31:10.000are going to not rock the boat traditionally, who are not going to push, are not going to
00:31:17.120question, they're going to do the job and they're going to do it very, very well, but
00:31:21.020they're going to, they're not going to upend the monarchy and try to modernize it, which
00:31:26.260I think was a great fear about Meghan in a lot of ways, too.
00:31:34.080I mean, just what is old is new again and history repeats itself.
00:31:38.740And this is not to disparage any of the women. I think they're all strong. I think they're all swell. But it's just that it's just interesting that 90 years later, the public opinion still veers.
00:31:57.060and again this is manipulated by the press coverage veers toward the more traditional feminine
00:32:05.820thing versus the strong woman girl boss thing yeah no no exactly and again even even as we're
00:32:17.340talking about this we're also in so many ways still talking in archetypes right it's like we
00:32:25.460men can be anything, any number of things. In fact, most men are, I think a lot of men are often
00:32:33.640weaker than women and less competent than women. And yet they just never get categorized the way
00:32:41.820that women do. No, we're still there. We're still there. In some ways, things have changed. But I1.00
00:32:49.340mean, I'll really honestly, when you when you look at the press coverage of these poor women that
00:32:54.040we're talking about right now, it's then it's not changed at all. It's not changed at all. And so
00:33:00.480that actually takes me right into my next question for you. How did you research this book? And so,
00:33:06.120I mean, did you read all of the press from this time? Were there any people that you that might
00:33:11.440not have been alive at the time, but they're experts in this? Like, who could you talk to?
00:33:16.060And also, that sounds like so much fun. And I am a huge Anglophile. Okay, I love
00:33:21.720British history I've you know I'm obsessed with I loved the crown except for the last season
00:33:28.100uh you know um so I know this history like you know I'd read there's a there's a wonderful
00:33:37.180biography of Queen Mary who was the mother of these two kings um that I'd read a hundred years
00:33:43.380ago I mean my bookshelves are full of British history I love it so this was not new news to me
00:33:49.580None of it was. So I tended to write novels, historical novels that are set in a time period
00:33:57.640or about historical era that I do know quite a lot about. So I'm kind of starting on a higher
00:34:04.400level. I'm not having to start from scratch. I hadn't read any biographies of these two women.
00:34:12.020I mean, you know, the crown does touch on the abdication more of its aftermath, much focusing, you know, solely on David, not Wallace.0.97