LOVE ABOVE ALL Three commoners who rocked the UK royals

Wallis Simpson

It takes quite a woman to get a man to give up the English throne in order to marry her, but twicedivorced American socialite Wallis Simpson did that in 1937 when she married King Edward VIII, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, without the prefix “Her Royal Highness”. It’s probably best that the pair of them (above) took a back seat after that. She and the Duke were well-known Nazi sympathisers, and she once stayed in Hitler’s spare bedroom. Despite this, she has long been a source of fascination for scriptwriters and novelists — a few years ago Madonna was said to be in talks to play her in a movie.

Diana Spencer

Germaine Greer dismissed Diana as “devious”, “slow” and “disturbingly neurotic”, and Sue Townsend noted that she was a “fatal non reader” but neither assessment dimmed the princess’ era-defining star power. There were three of them in the marriage from the start, she told Panorama, through fluttering eyelashes, and thereafter the monarchy was never the same again. Her untimely death prompted an outpouring of mawkish grief and marked the royal family’s lowest point in modern times.

Sarah Ferguson

Spitting Image depicted Fergie as a sort of honking, Sloane-y Miss Piggy, and while that didn’t seem all that far off the mark, the duchess had a sort of loveable quality and the public largely forgave her for the toe job on the boat and her other indiscretions. There’s actually talk now that she might marry Prince Andrew again — they’ve remained BFFs since their divorce — and lately she’s taken to going by the name Margaret York for her business dealings.