Diana's Nightmare - The Family (39 page)

In Shanghai, Wallis plunged headlong into the war-torn city's corrupt gambling, drug-taking and sexually abandoned nightlife. She was suspected of having had sex with rich men in exchange for 'presents', of winning at fixed roulette tables, of selling drugs to the debauched clientele and of pedalling the secrets she coaxed from British naval officers to a foreign power. Many of these accusations were well informed, others conjecture. Doubts were even raised about the existence of the China Report, but it has been not only seen but read by reliable sources.

'I have spoken to three highly placed people who confirmed its existence and one of them had read it,' said John Parker. 'China was a hotbed of spies and intrigue, and she was in the thick of it. She was actually running a house of ill repute that attracted all kinds of diplomats and naval personnel so it was natural that she was kept under constant observation.' The evidence painted the unmistakable picture of a ruthless woman prepared to sell herself, and betray others, to get what she wanted.

After dumping Win Spencer in the divorce courts, Wallis moved to London where she married her second husband, Ernest Simpson, at Chelsea register office. Simpson, who she stole from his wife, was a half-English, half-American businessman involved in shipping.

A former Guards officer, he was unaware that his bride's finishing school had been an Asian whorehouse. The marriage suited both of them. Simpson encouraged Wallis to meld into her new surroundings while he stood back, drank a little, smoked a lot, and made a few useful contacts. In 1930, they were living at 5 Bryanston Court in George Street, W2, and mixing with expatriate Americans who, either through marriage or money, were linked to influential figures in society. One of them, Viscountess Thelma Furness, was the twin sister of the millionairess Gloria Vanderbilt. She was also Edward's current mistress; a married woman like many of his other conquests. He called her 'Toodles'.

Thelma, a darkly simmering beauty of Spanish blood, invited the Simpsons to her country home, Burrough Court at Melton Mowbray, for a house party. Never dreaming that Wallis might pose a threat, she introduced her to the Prince of Wales. Edward met Mrs Simpson. The date was Saturday, 10 January, 1931. The first eye contact established that he was weak and submissive, she tailor-made to dominate. It was far from love at first sight. Wallis, however, had achieved her purpose and the prospect of the chase excited her enormously. Edward had unwittingly set himself up for the kill.

Needing a country residence to entertain friends and lovers away from the more confining atmosphere of York House, the Prince of Wales had moved into Fort Belvedere. He had spent the summer renovating the eighteenth-century castellated house near Sunninghill and clearing away overgrown shrubs to plant a proper garden. Edward described it as 'a peaceful enchanted anchorage where I found refuge from the cares and turmoil of my life'. He had, in fact, moved into a prison where he could easily be separated from his family and old friends. It was to be the last peaceful summer of his life.

By the time Elizabeth encountered Wallis Simpson in person, it was too late to save him. Wallis had executed the coup she planned so cleverly with breathtaking audacity. All of Edward's paramours, including 'Toodles' Furness and Freda Dudley Ward, the long time favourite who George V called 'the lacemaker's daughter', had been vanquished from his life. 'You can see what a so-and-so he was from his treatment of Freda,' said the titled Chelsea lady. 'Just overnight - BANG! No letter, no nothing. Just silence.' He even stopped having what one royal private secretary called 'street-corner affairs'.

Wallis was virtually running The Fort and treating everyone there in a very hjgh-handed fashion. The staff hated her; she fired the most recalcitrant. Cut-off, Edward had been at her mercy. In private, the soft, lilting Southern drawl she had cultivated in polite society gave way to harsher tones. Her handwriting revealed 'a woman with a strong male inclination ... she
must
dominate, she
must
have authority... (she is) sadistic, cold, overbearing, vain.' (This was written
before
the extent of her hold over Edward, or the reason for it, was known.)

The role-playing that Edward found sexually exciting made him a slave. Wallis punished his every misdeed like a martinet, rapping his knuckles or belittling him with sharp rebukes. He was soon buckling her shoes (among other perversions, he had a foot fetish), painting her toenails and begging for cigarettes like a trained poodle - and that was in front of the servants.

Bewitched, Edward began paying her in money and jewels for her services, if she were what I call a respectable whore, I wouldn't mind,' complained the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. Wallis frankly admitted that she did not love Edward, but he couldn't live without her. Moustache bristling ineptly, Ernest Simpson fell in with the arrangement. His wife terrified him, too.

Elizabeth heard the scandal that followed the Prince and 'his American floozie' wherever they went. At a Buckingham Palace reception two days before the wedding of George, Duke of Kent, to Princess Marina of Greece, they came face to face. Edward had smuggled Wallis, stunning in a violet
lame
gown with bright green sash, into the party. The King was furious at the deception and Queen Mary fixed her with a look that came straight from the North Pole. Elizabeth's famous smile disguised her real thoughts. 'The Duchess was never discourteous, but you could always tell when she did not care for someone,' said one who was present, it was very apparent to me she did not care for Mrs Simpson at all.'

When George V died at Sandringham, he expressed his hatred of Edward and Mrs Simpson in the most practical way. He cut his eldest son off without a penny. The grand old King Emperor was thoughtfully killed off with an injection of morphine and cocaine by his doctor, Lord Dawson of Penn, to catch the last edition of
The Times.
This unlawful act of euthanasia went unpunished because the Family had been consulted in advance, but it gave a new meaning to the term 'deadline'. 'Dawson later admitted that the moment of the King's death was timed for its announcement to be made in the respectable morning papers, and
The Times
in particular, rather than "the less appropriate evening journals",' wrote Sarah Bradford in her biography of George VI. 'He even telephoned his wife in London to advise
The Times
to hold back the morning's edition as the announcement of the King's death was to be expected.' This kind of news management makes Diana's efforts at playing up to the media half a century later seem harmless by comparison.

Queen Mary even permitted the
Daily Mirror to
photograph the monarch's corpse for the front page, another progressive, if somewhat macabre, royal first. 'Queen Mary was not a well woman, partly because of her uncertain childhood. Her parents were chronic spendthrifts even though the family had no money,' said the royal historian. 'This deeply embarrassed her as a young woman and she became shy and withdrawn. She had always loved collecting things but she became a kleptomaniac, an illness that progressed with age. She used to take things: a sugar bowl would go missing during one of her visits. Sometimes a lady-in-waiting would return an article which had found its way into the royal handbag. She would also admire other people's antiques and expect them to be given to her.'

Queen Mary passed away just before Elizabeth's coronation in 1953, having ignored Edward's often frenzied entreaties to have his wife recognised as Her Royal Highness. She remained as emotionally aloof as ever towards her eldest son, denying him the love which he had craved since childhood and which she was incapable of giving. All of his bizarre behaviour, including his infatuation with Wallis Simpson, could be traced to the treatment he received in the nursery.

As Mary had lacked any maternal instincts and her. husband had wanted his children to be rarely seen and never heard, Edward had been abandoned into the care of a sadistic nanny who alternately adored and abused him. One of her practices was to pinch him severely on the arm just before delivering him into his parents' presence. Bawling loudly, the young Edward would be swiftly handed back into the clutches of his tormentor. He was at Wallis's mercy because she fulfilled the roles of mother, lover and nanny. She indulged his bisexual flings with other men, then tortured him with her own infidelities.

Chris Hutchins was staying at the Waldorf Towers, Manhattan in June 1971 in a suite just below the penthouse. At six o'clock one evening, he got into the lift to go downstairs to the lobby. There was one other occupant, a lone figure draped in a grey herringbone overcoat, its collar turned up protectively against an imagined chill.

'Almost immediately, I was aware of two things: This man had a presence which was not of normal men; I could
feel
something special about him. Then, rather than recognise him, I
realised
who he was: the Duke of Windsor,' recounted Hutchins. 'I turned to face him and, sure enough, it was the famous exile whose face I had seen a thousand times in newspapers. He didn't turn away; he seemed accustomed to people looking at him. His hands were thrust deep in the pockets of the overcoat, which seemed several sizes too big.

'I didn't know then, but he was suffering from cancer of the larynx and he had only a year to live. It was his face that mesmerised me: not so much the Windsor bags under the eyes or the familiar twist of his mouth. The overwhelming impression was one of deep and inconsolable sadness. The pain of it was etched into every line of his face. The lift doors opened and I watched him move slowly across the lobby, a tragic figure in an overcoat tailored for another, much bigger, man.'

Edward, disillusioned and disappointed to the end, died on 28 May, 1972, at a house which once belonged to Charles de Gaulle in the Bois de Boulogne. His Duchess, the royal who never was, flew to England for his burial at Frogmore. She was permitted to stay at Buckingham Palace. The Queen Mother greeted her as distantly as good manners would allow. The Queen, however, consoled her aunt during the funeral service by touching her gently on the arm and offering her some kind words.

The Duchess lingered for another fourteen years in her Paris home, which she converted into a shrine to Edward's love. She died on 24 April, 1986, and was buried beside him at Frogmore. She had called her memoirs
The Heart Has Its Reasons,
a title that another in the Family, HRH Princess Margaret Rose, could identify with very strongly indeed.

'We're very glad to get rid of Diana'

Princess Margaret

THE showdown Princess Margaret knew was inevitable between Diana and herself could wait no longer. Not always the most tactful royal, Margaret had nevertheless allowed the feud to simmer away in deference to her nephew's wishes. As his personal agony aunt, she often gave Charles the benefit of her advice whether he had sought it or not. But she accepted that the last thing he wanted was a confrontation between her and Diana which would prove damaging to him and his sons. So Auntie Margo, the only royal with a real past, held her tongue.

Despite her troubled life, Margaret had never flinched in one important role. Bonded like twins in childhood, she had been, and always would remain, the Queen's most steadfast defender. When the Abdication had become final on 11 December, 1936, the young Elizabeth had dashed upstairs at 145 Piccadilly to tell her sister.

'Does that mean you will have to be the next Queen?' asked Margaret.

'Yes, one day,' replied Lilibet.

'Poor you,' said Margaret.

She had never really envied her sister this awesome destiny even if the actress in her might occasionally compete for the limelight. Like Prince Charles, however, she had difficulty in coming to terms with her lack of a clear-cut royal role. By her very position, the Queen had given them something in common.

As a child, Margaret had been small, dark and chubby while Elizabeth was taller, blonde and slim. Describing the sisters in their swimming costumes, Marion Crawford wrote: 'Lilibet looked so pretty in hers. She was a long, slender child with beautiful legs. Margaret looked like a plump navy-blue fish.'

When her father ascended the throne in 1936, Margaret was reputed to have said petulantly: 'Now that Papa is King, I am nobody.' But six-year-old Margaret was simply reacting to the news that she was no longer Margaret of York. As she had just learned to spell 'York', her confusion was understandable. In fact, she immediately became second in the line of succession, a position she held until Prince Charles was born twelve years later. By 1993, she had slipped to eleventh place after the Queen's four children and her six grandchildren.

Sometimes the little sisters had argued over trivial things and there were occasional fights. 'Lilibet was quick with her left hook,' according to Crawfie, but 'Margaret was more of a close-in fighter, known to bite on occasions.' Although Lilibet complained loudly that 'Margaret always wants what I want', her sister, in fact, resented her mother's practice of saving hand-me-down dresses for her to wear. Outbursts of childish jealousy had been little more than the normal rivalry between siblings. Whatever disagreements they may have had, nothing was stronger than her loyalty to her sovereign sister.

Painful though it was, Margaret even understood the Queen's position in opposing her marriage to Peter Townsend, a man twice her age whom she had loved since she was sixteen. Rumours that she had refused to speak to her sister for a year after the enforced break-up were untrue. 'Margaret was very upset, naturally,' said a friend. 'But she didn't blame the Queen, she blamed the System.' She did, however, have reasonable grounds for disliking Prince Philip, who saw her as haughty, spoiled and, in her affair with a married man, deceitful.

Margaret's power lay in her ability to twist her father around her little finger. 'I know I should not spoil her, but I cannot help it,' he confessed. His pet name for her was 'Meg'. When he sensed that she had grown fond of his equerry, he tried to keep them apart. Not once did he suspect that the affair was anything more serious than a schoolgirl crush on a handsome older man. One source suggested that the sweethearts had been caught making love at the Palace, but if that were true the news was certainly kept from the King.