|
Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (previously Wallis Simpson and Wallis Spencer, born Bessie Wallis Warfield; 19 June 1896〔 – 24 April 1986) was an American socialite. Her third husband, Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, abdicated his throne to marry her. Wallis's father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to U.S. naval officer Win Spencer, was punctuated with periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1934, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she allegedly became the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales.〔Edward sued one author, Geoffrey Dennis, who claimed that Wallis and Edward were lovers before their marriage, and won (King, p. 119).〕 Two years later, after Edward's accession as king, Wallis divorced her second husband in order to marry Edward. The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, and ultimately led to his abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love".〔Duke of Windsor, p. 413〕 After the abdication, the former king was created Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI. Edward married Wallis six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, without the style "Her Royal Highness". She was instead styled as "Her Grace", a style normally reserved only for non-royal dukes and duchesses. Before, during, and after World War II, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were suspected by many in government and society of being Nazi sympathisers. In the 1950s and 1960s, she and the Duke shuttled between Europe and the United States, living a life of leisure as society celebrities. After the Duke's death in 1972, the Duchess lived in seclusion, and was rarely seen in public. Her private life has been a source of much speculation, and she remains a controversial figure in British history. ==Early life== An only child, Bessie Wallis (sometimes written "Bessiewallis") Warfield was born in Square Cottage at Monterey Inn, a hotel directly across the road from the Monterey Country Club, in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania.〔Weir, p. 328〕 A summer resort close to the Maryland–Pennsylvania border, Blue Ridge Summit was popular with Baltimoreans escaping the season's heat, and Monterey Inn, which had a central building as well as individual wooden cottages, was the town's largest hotel.〔"Baltimore in Her Centennial Year", ''Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly'', Volume 43 (Frank Leslie Publishing House, 1897), p. 702〕〔Blue Ridge Summit referred to as "a fashionable summer resort ... then greatly patronized by Baltimoreans" in Francis F. Bierne (1984), ''The Amiable Baltimoreans'', Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 118〕 Her father was Teackle Wallis Warfield, fifth and youngest son of Henry Mactier Warfield, a flour merchant described as "one of the best known and personally one of the most popular citizens of Baltimore" who ran for mayor in 1875. Her mother was Alice Montague, a daughter of insurance salesman William Montague. Wallis was named in honour of her father (who was known as Wallis) and her mother's elder sister, Bessie (Mrs D. Buchanan Merryman), and was called Bessie Wallis until at some time during her youth the name Bessie was dropped.〔King, p. 13〕 According to a wedding announcement in the Baltimore Sun (20 November 1895), her parents were married, by Reverend C. Ernest Smith, at Baltimore's Saint Michael and All Angels' Protestant Episcopal Church on 19 November 1895,〔"Montague—Warfield", Baltimore Sun, 20 November 1895〕 though Wallis claimed her parents were married in June 1895.〔Duchess of Windsor, p. 17; Sebba, p. 6〕 Her father died of tuberculosis on 15 November 1896.〔Tombstone in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore; King p. 13; Sebba, p. 9〕 For her first few years, she and her mother were dependent upon the charity of her father's wealthy bachelor brother Solomon Davies Warfield, postmaster of Baltimore and later president of the Continental Trust Company and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Initially, they lived with him at the four-story row house, 34 East Preston Street, that he shared with his mother.〔Carroll, vol. 3, pp. 24–43; Higham, p. 5; King, pp. 14–15; Duchess of Windsor, p. 20〕 In 1901, Wallis's aunt Bessie Merryman was widowed, and the following year Alice and Wallis moved into her four-bedroom house on West Chase Street, Baltimore, where they lived for at least a year until they settled in an apartment, and then a house, of their own. In 1908, Wallis's mother married her second husband, John Freeman Rasin, son of a prominent Democratic party boss.〔King, p. 24; Vickers, p. 252〕 On 17 April 1910, Wallis was confirmed at Christ Episcopal Church, Baltimore, and between 1912 and 1914 her uncle Warfield paid for her to attend Oldfields School, the most expensive girls' school in Maryland.〔Higham, p. 4〕 There she became a friend of heiress Renée du Pont, a daughter of Senator T. Coleman du Pont, of the du Pont family, and Mary Kirk, whose family founded Kirk Silverware.〔Higham, pp. 12–13; King, p. 28〕 A fellow pupil at one of Wallis's schools recalled, "She was bright, brighter than all of us. She made up her mind to go to the head of the class, and she ''did''."〔Higham, p. 7〕 Wallis was always immaculately dressed and pushed herself hard to do well.〔Higham, p. 8; King, pp. 21–22〕 A later biographer wrote of her "Though Wallis's jaw was too heavy for her to be counted beautiful, her fine violet-blue eyes and petite figure, quick wits, vitality, and capacity for total concentration on her interlocutor ensured that she had many admirers."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wallis Simpson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|