Poor Baldwin is apoplectic. The King must not marry a divorcee. Besides, we all know the divorcee in question would make an appalling Queen and has no love of children. She pretends with the York girls but it’s clear she has no interest in them. She is furious that the British press now have the story (I don’t know how we stopped them for so long – the foreign press has been running it for months) and the King is threatening abdication. It’s a poor threat.

God knows what this is doing to his mother. The respect Queen Mary has within the royal household and among the people is second to none.

Does the King really think Mrs Simpson could live up to that?

Presumably he cannot bear to be out of the company of his American friend for more than twenty-four hours. I hear he has given her £50,000 of jewellery which has been in the royal family for several generations. Unfortunately, somebody told the Queen this, and she has showed her displeasure by being distant and cool towards him. Both commendable and proper.

All those years I spent in service to him when he was Prince of Wales, I witnessed such disgraceful behaviour. He was always late, keeping dignitaries waiting, arriving smelling of the previous evening’s excessive drinking and, on one occasion, unshaved. Unforgiveable.

I was right to leave him when I did. I had hoped that, returning to work with him after more than a decade, I would find some maturity in him. He has never said an unkind word to me, but I find his character as appalling as ever.

My love to the children, and perhaps you could make a trip to London soon, and allow your old husband to take you to lunch?

With my fondest love,

Tommy

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Windsor, 11^th December 1936

The worst had happened.

Sitting at his desk, staring across the room, Tommy’s head was clear and focused.

The Prime Minister had done all he could to dissuade the King from abdicating, but the King insisted he could not sit on the throne without the woman he loved by his side.

This impasse had gone on for weeks but now the final blow had fallen. The King was to be forever severed from his birthright.

The end had come.

Tommy had been witness to one dreadful conversation where the Prime Minister almost begged the King. ‘Think of the country, sir. Your father. Your mother. There is time to change your mind.’

But the King was determined. ‘The answer is the same, Mr Baldwin. No marriage, no coronation.’

Mrs Simpson had been distraught. Finally she understood that she was the one responsible for the situation. Tommy did not doubt that there were strong feelings between her and the King, but she did not wish to be the most hated woman in British royal history. She wrote a statement declaring her wish to ‘withdraw forthwith from the situation’. Was it gallantry or cowardice? Tommy couldn’t be sure, but the blithe, quick, gay and unconquerable Wallis had fled that night from England’s shores to await her divorce in France.