Winifred May Birkin, better known as Freda Dudley Ward, was born on 28 July 1894 as the eldest of the three daughters and one son of Charles Wilfred Birkin and Claire Lloyd Birkin (née Howe). Freda’s first husband was William Dudley Ward, and they married on 9 July 1913. They had two daughters together: Penelope (born [read more]
In 1926, as Wallis waited out her divorce from Earl Winfield Spencer Jr., known as Win, she was invited by her old friend Mary Kirk to spend Christmas with her and her husband Jacques Raffray in New York. She and Mary got on well together and spent many days shopping and sightseeing. It was Mary [read more]
One of the more persistent stories that have continued to haunt the Duchess of Windsor after her death is that she had affairs following her marriage to the Duke. Perhaps the most famous story is that of Joachim von Ribbentrop, a German diplomat and later Minister for Foreign Affairs. Wallis was introduced to von Ribbentrop [read more]
The future King Edward VIII and Duke of Windsor was born on 23 June 1894 as the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, who were then known as the Duke and Duchess of York. At the time of his birth, his great-grandmother Queen Victoria was on the throne. Queen Victoria wrote to [read more]
“Mine is a simple story – or so I like to think.” On 19 June 1896, the future Duchess of Windsor was born Bessie Wallis Warfield as the daughter of Teackle Wallis Warfield and Alice Montague. Her parents had settled in Blue Ridge Summit for the summer, and she probably arrived a little earlier than [read more]
Read part one here. The ‘state visit’ to Nazi-Germany After the abdication and their subsequent marriage, the newly minted Duke and Duchess of Windsor visited Hitler’s Germany. In October 1937, the German government paid for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to visit Germany. They went against the advice of the British government, but there [read more]
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