A love affair
He was our most popular young royal, a celebrity in uniform. She had a reputation as a well-connected and charismatic American. Together, they paved the way for a wedding that promises a more liberal future for today’s royals.
THEIRS was no chance meeting, these lovers of the century. Nobody wins a prince by accident; there’s usually a plan.
The setting was discreet, arranged by trusted friends. Famous since infancy and our most popular young royal, his reputation came before him as a party-goer and a lover of fine things.
Yes, he sometimes indulged himself, but his public liked him – we indulged him in return. He wasn’t seriously settling down but there was time enough for marriage, wasn’t there? So, there were clubs and cocktails, dinners and parties, exotic holidays and women: women everywhere.
She had a past, too, mind you – which modern woman doesn’t, especially by her thirties? Darkeyed, dark-haired, a failed marriage behind her, she’d worked hard to be welcomed here by London’s most glamorous. After all, she wasn’t born into all this, but rather to an ordinary American family with everyday problems.
But, by the time she met his royal highness, she’d become striking and sophisticated, wellconnected, charismatic and urbane. She wore designer clothes. She knew her best angles. She’d learned from her romantic mistakes. Arguably, she was at the height of her social and sexual power.
This fateful meeting with a popular prince was a once-ina-lifetime chance to realise her every dream.
No, not Meghan Markle meeting Harry on a blind date in 2016 but Wallis Warfield Simpson, being introduced to the dashing Edward, Prince of Wales in 1931, at a private party.
It’s still Wallis, not the newlyminted Duchess of Sussex, who remains the most famous American divorcee ever to turn a royal head. Wallis always did bask in attention, according to biographers, and so naturally made her presence felt at this most modern of royal weddings: she lies buried near Frogmore House within the grounds of Windsor Castle, where Harry and Meghan’s guests partied into the night.
It’s tempting to compare the two brides, married 81 years apart; there are certain elements in common.
This weekend Meghan is the most famous woman in the world. She dazzled the highest-born eligible bachelor in the Commonwealth. Harry was instantly hooked. ‘‘This beautiful woman just literally tripped and fell into my life,’’ he said wonderingly, in the interview confirming their engagement last year. Here was a prince crazily in love, who clearly couldn’t believe his luck.
Like Wallis, Meghan is divorced, but then so are many of the Windsors. In the 21st century, there’s no longer anything shocking about a woman with a sexual past. In the thirties, Wallis’s royal romance was the talk of the Empire. She was also her own woman – a refreshing romantic change for an heir who had everything.
Edward, however, could never have spoken as Harry has when he described the Crown’s response to his choice of royal bride: ‘‘The family, all together, have been absolutely solid support and my grandparents as well have been absolutely wonderful’’.
With her two ex-husbands still alive – a situation unacceptable to the Church, the British Cabinet and the Dominions – Edward could never say that of Wallis. If there was going to be a wedding, it wouldn’t be a ceremony fit for a king.
The differences between the women, though, are also stark. Meghan and Wallis chose very different men, despite both princes being the leading celebrities of their time.
The New Zealand public has always adored a young royal. We