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It’s good to be king. Perhaps it’s better to be happily married.
After the way Henry VIII treated his wives, Edward VIII may have felt the need to redeem the English monarchs with eights after their names, at least regarding having a lasting marriage. He would do anything for love, even abdicate.
—On this Day in History Shit Went Down: June 3, 1937—
On January 20, 1936, at the age of 41, Edward ascended the throne upon the death of this father, King George V. And while his reign wouldn’t last, his marriage would. Although there’s debate regarding how happy that marriage was.
Edward served in the British Army during World War I and had a penchant for putting his royal penis in places his father did not approve of. He had an affair with a Parisian courtesan during the war, then with a married textile heiress. His womanizing ways would not change during the 1920s and 30s. He seemed to like the married women. I believe the British term for his behavior is “cad.”
The king preferred Edward’s younger brother Albert and Albert’s daughter Elizabeth as heirs to the throne, saying, “I pray to God that my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne.”
Unsurprisingly, Edward didn’t like being king, and didn’t take his role seriously. A few months into his reign he caused a constitutional crisis by proposing marriage to a soon-to-be-twice-divorced American woman, Wallis Simpson. Oh goodness gracious me no. A twice divorced yank as queen consort of England. Perish the thought!
It was religiously motivated, because the Church of England didn’t approve of remarrying after divorce if the former spouse still lived. The actual crisis was that the current democratically elected government, headed by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, stated it would resign if Edward married Wallis, forcing a general election and violating the rules of the monarchy being politically neutral.
But Eddie was all fuck you guys. Take this crown and shove it where the bangers and mash come out. He abdicated on December 10, reigning for less than a year. He was demoted to Duke of Windsor, and on June 3, 1937, after her second divorce was finalized, Wallis and Edward married.
In the early days of World War II, Edward and Wallis were stationed with the British Expeditionary Force in France. But Eddie and Wallis were a bit too cozy with those Nazis fellas, and when this became public, he was special-projected into irrelevance as Governor of the Bahamas. After the war, the couple retired to France to be party people. They remained married until Edward’s death in 1972, six days shy of their 35th wedding anniversary.
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