Weeping for Wallis

AT THE burial of the Duchess of Windsor in 1986, Princess Diana was astonished to see her mother-in-law weeping. This was all the more extraordinary because the Queen had met the former Mrs Wallis Simpson only infrequently and barely knew her.

‘I can’t believe this is really happening,’ Diana thought to herself – and she never saw her cry in public again.

Later, she reflected that the Queen must have been unusually moved because Wallis had spent her final years as a bed-bound recluse. The Queen, said Diana, had been ‘incredibly kind’ to the duchess during this period, and helped pay her bills.