==Wallis Simpson=
Wallis Simpson (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; 19 June 1896[1] – 24 April 1986), later known as the Duchess of Windsor, was an American socialite whose intended marriage to the British king Edward VIII caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication.
Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to U.S. naval officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, then Prince of Wales. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, and ultimately led to his abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love".[2] After abdicating, the former king was created Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Wallis married Edward six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, but was not allowed to share her husband's style of "Royal Highness".
Before, during, and after the Second World War, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathisers. In 1937, they visited Germany and met Adolf Hitler. In 1940, the Duke was appointed governor of the Bahamas, and the couple moved to the islands until he relinquished the office in 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Duke and Duchess shuttled between Europe and the United States living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history.
he Duke and Duchess lived in France in the pre-war years. In 1937, they made a high-profile visit to Germany and met Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, his Berchtesgaden retreat. After the visit, Hitler said of Wallis, "she would have made a good Queen".[91] The visit tended to corroborate the strong suspicions of many in government and society that the Duchess was a German agent,[17] a claim that she ridiculed in her letters to the Duke.[92] U.S. FBI files compiled in the 1930s also portray her as a possible Nazi sympathiser. Duke Carl Alexander of Württemberg told the FBI that she and leading Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop had been lovers in London.[93] There were even rather improbable reports during the Second World War that she kept a signed photograph of Ribbentrop on her bedside table.[94]
As the German troops advanced, the Duke and Duchess fled south from their Paris home, first to Biarritz then to Spain in June. She told United States ambassador to Spain Alexander W. Weddell that France had lost because it was "internally diseased".[95] The Duke and Duchess moved to Portugal in July and stayed at the home of Ricardo do Espírito Santo e Silva, a banker who was suspected of being a German agent.[96]
In August 1940, the Duke and Duchess travelled by commercial liner to the Bahamas where he was installed as governor.[97] Wallis performed her role as the Bahamas' first lady competently for five years; she worked actively for the Red Cross and in the improvement of infant welfare.[98] However, she hated Nassau, calling it "our St Helena" in a reference to Napoleon's final place of exile.[99] She was heavily criticised in the British press for her extravagant shopping in the United States, undertaken when Britain was enduring privations such as rationing and blackout.[17][100] She referred to the local population as "lazy, thriving niggers" in letters to her aunt, which reflected her upbringing in the Jim Crow South.[101][102] Prime Minister Winston Churchill strenuously objected in 1941 when she and her husband planned to tour the Caribbean aboard a yacht belonging to Swedish magnate Axel Wenner-Gren, whom Churchill said was "pro-German", and Churchill complained again when the Duke gave a "defeatist" interview.[103] Another of their acquaintances, Charles Bedaux, who had hosted their wedding, was arrested on charges of treason in 1943 but committed suicide in jail in Miami before the case was brought to trial.[104] The British establishment distrusted the Duchess; Sir Alexander Hardinge wrote that her suspected anti-British activities were motivated by a desire for revenge against a country that rejected her as its queen.[105] The couple returned to France and retirement after the defeat of Nazi Germany.[17]