Gossipers have long been interested in the secrets of important people. One woman, however, broke all records in this field. Through an affair with the king, she became the target of countless rumors and the heroine of a gigantic scandal. Anyway ... maybe it wasn't a woman at all?
When the British heir to the throne Edward (1894-1972) met Wallis Simpson, he was still a prince. We have already written about how this agile American woman turned his head and the way she was welcomed by his family. This time we will do something completely different. The rumors about the would-be British Queen of Baltimore are juicy indeed…
Queen hermaphrodite?
It is enough to look at the photo of Wallis Simpson's silhouette and the photo of her face to notice slight deviations from the norm. Obviously, the representatives of British society - for whom the king's wedding to a divorcee outside the aristocracy was an unacceptable breach of convention - watched very, very carefully. Thus, in the mainstream moral scandal, there were rumors that the king's mate ... was not a woman at all! Well, there could be a grain of truth in them. Wallis's features are sharp, even angular, her jaw is strong and square, with a really uninspired shape. And the silhouette? Like carved from a trunk:neither the hips, nor the waistline, not to mention the breasts. And that awful thinness…
Were it not for a few simple tailoring tricks, Wallis on the day of his wedding with Edward would be completely flat (wrinkling optically enlarging the bust) and square (arms widened with pillows and a tight waist).
According to a study by Wallis Simpson biographer Anne Sebba (author of "This Woman"), it is very likely that the would-be queen suffered from a sexual differentiation disorder called intersexuality or hermaphroditism.
Another biographer, Michael Bloch, lived in the Duchess' house in Paris and worked there when, at the end of her life, the main subject was in a coma. His own observations prompted him to consult Wallis with doctors. As a result of this endeavor, there was a borderline supposition that she suffered from androgen insensitivity syndrome. Women affected by it are genetically male, but their body is insensitive to the testosterone it produces, and the body takes on anatomical female features (vagina and small breasts). Besides, as shown by psychologists, people with androgen insensitivity syndrome have a need to prove their femininity to themselves and the world through, for example, early marriage (Wallis married for the first time at the age of 20) and they want to dominate, wield power (remember:she a little hair did not become a queen!).
Queen Mary's biographer James Pope-Hennessy wrote about his doubts about the gender of the would-be British monarch, who, after visiting the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, noted: [Wallis was] one of the strangest women I have ever seen. When you look at it, it looks phenomenal. It has a flat and angular shape, designed like a medieval playing card (…). I would be inclined to classify her as the American woman par excellence (...) if I had not suspected that is not a woman at all . Today, however, one can only speculate, and since 1986 (†) Mrs. Simpson has been all the same ...
A Nazi spy is seducing the king?
In 1936, the main concern of his Majesty Edward VIII was finding a way to marry Wallis Simpson. If we consider two things, namely the political situation in Europe and the pro-German but pacifist views of the king, it becomes clear how worried the British establishment was. Wallis not only had an overwhelming influence on the king at that time, but also almost unlimited access to his secret documents (it even happened that she read more of them than Edward, who treated it as a boring and annoying duty). Even the monarch's immediate family doubted how loyal Simpson was to Britain. A few years later, Edward's successor, George VI, wrote directly to the then prime minister: I must confess to you that I do not believe in loyalty the Duchess [Wallis] (Quote from A. Sebb, "That woman. Wallis Simpson").
According to an account of one of the friends of the future Duchess of Windsor, the Ambassador of the Third Reich to London, Joachim von Ribbentrop, visited Wallis practically every day unless he had to leave the capital urgently. In the latter event, Mrs. Simpson always gave him a basket of flowers. Well, Ribbentrop was, according to many ladies, handsome, and Wallis loved to romance elegant diplomats who, in turn, valued intimacy with those who had access to classified material ...
No wonder the British in power whispered to each other that the king's beloved might pass on sensitive information to the Nazis. Some went even further in their speculations:in Mrs. Simpson they saw a German spy ! Nevertheless, the Wallis' betrayal hypothesis is not supported by sources. Maybe in Ribbentrop she was attracted only to Aryan facies and affectionate words?
Very peppery Chinese folders
When in the 1920s, the future wife of the English king went to the Far East with her then-husband Win, she could not foresee how much rumors this journey would grow.
The later Duchess of Windsor quickly became disgusted with her husband's company. In her memoirs, Wallis wrote that before she joined her husband, Win spent a lot of time in local brothels. Upon her arrival, he allegedly forced her to accompany him. We can find out what they did there. In any event, Wallis' author Anne Sebba states that since admitted visiting places (probably in a triangle) that usually also offered opium and gambling and were only one step above the usual brothels, it is possible that that she also visited brothels on her own and learned ancient techniques from Chinese prostitutes to please men . This hypothesis cannot be verified or rejected. One thing is certain:a woman with such inexhaustible energy and an appetite for life, traveling alone in the Orient, must have become the target of gossip.
Was Wallis a Nazi spy, passing on confidential information to her lover Ribbentrop? At least that's what British statesmen suspected…
In any case, there are rumored to have existed mysterious "Chinese files" which described Wallis' sexual excesses in Far Eastern brothels. Well, it is impossible to prove the truthfulness of these materials, because no "Chinese folder" has been found so far. It's a bit like a UFO:everyone has heard that there is such a thing, but no one has conclusive proof that it exists.
Wallis Simpson electrified Britain's elite while ordinary bread eaters knew almost nothing about her due to the self-censorship of the press. When the go-getter American brushed against the throne, which she did not really desire, she put the establishment into a pre-attack state. The saddest thing is that the heroine of the greatest pre-war moral scandal that almost destroyed the British monarchy, died in oblivion. Though her life was loud, she left this world quietly, caring only to be buried by Edward's side.
Sources:
- Anne Sebba, That woman. Wallis Simpson , Znak Literanova, Krakow 2012.