A Royal Romance With A Whiff of Warrenton
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By John T. Toler
etermining “superlatives” for over the past 100 years, some may argue that the “Romance of the Century” was the courtship and marriage of England’s King Edward VIII (1894-1972) and Wallis Warfield Simpson (1895-1986), a twice-divorced American socialite. The eldest son of King George V (1865-1936), Edward was the heir-apparent to the English throne. The prospect of a foreign-born divorcé with a questionable past marrying the King caused great anxiety among English government and establishment figures. In the U.S., the courtship and marriage had all of the elements of a fairy tale—a forbidden love affair, high-level intrigue, and sacrifice. There are local connections to this story. As a child, Wallis visited her aunt, Mrs. George Barnett, at Wakefield Manor near Front Royal. Later, she attended summer camp at Burrland outside of Middleburg, owned by Foxcroft founder Miss Charlotte Noland. One of her steady beaus was Lloyd Tabb, whose parents owned Glenora near Middleburg. In December, 1913, Wallis made her debut into Baltimore society, made possible by her uncle, Sol Warfield. She became a popular figure among the young Baltimore set, and was soon looking for a husband. In April, 1916, she accepted an invitation from her cousin, Corrine, to join her and her husband, Lt. Commander Henry C. Mustin, a pioneer naval aviator, at his post at Pensacola, Florida. That’s where she met Lt. Earl Winfield “Win” Spenser, also a Navy aviator who swept her off her feet. They announced their engagement in September, and were married on Nov. 18, 1916. However, Win had a drinking problem, made worse by a twisted sense of humor that hurt and humiliated Wallis. His superiors became aware of his alcoholism, and his career was destined to go nowhere. What followed were a series of non-flying assignments, and in 1923, he was assigned to a gunboat off Canton, China. Wallis joined him at Hong Kong, but she soon learned he was bisexual and when he was recalled to the States in 1925, she stayed behind. Wallis came home in September, 1925, and while staying at her mother’s home in Baltimore, she proceeded with the divorce. She met with her cousin Corrine at Wakefield Manor, who introduced her to their family attorney, Aubrey “Kingfish” Weaver of Front Royal. He advised her to take up a one-year residency in Virginia and file there. Wallis relocated to Warrenton, arriving on Oct. 5, 1925. She first stayed at Oakwood, the home of Major and Mrs. Sterling Larrabee, old friends of Corrine’s, before taking room 212 in the old Warren Green Hotel, now part of the courthouse complex in Warrenton. She quickly renewed acquaintances, including Lloyd Tabb and Phoebe Randolph, a former classmate from the Arundell School in Baltimore. On Dec. 6, 1927, Wallis’s divorce petition was submitted to Judge George Latham Fletcher, and granted on Dec. 10.
While she was staying at the Warren Green, she took up with Ernest Aldrich Simpson, a married man in the ship trading business with ties to London. He divorced his ill wife, and he and Wallis were married on July 28, 1928 – seven months after her divorce was final. It proved to be an “open marriage” that exposed Wallis to the highest levels of British society while in London. Wallis had met Edward, then Prince of Wales, before her presentation to the Royal Court in 1931, and the mutual attraction between them became a serious relationship. With the death of King George V on Jan. 19, 1936, Edward acceded to the throne, and speculation that Wallis would be the next Queen ran rampant.
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MIDDLEBURG SUSTAINABLE COMMITTEE| Autumn 2022
Photo courtesy of Richard Gookin
At the hunt meet held honoring the Duke and Duchess at Oakwood on Oct. 20, 1941, Edward and Wallis’s old friend, Phoebe R. Pool, were photographed with Amory S. Carhart, MFH of the Warrenton Hunt.
Photo courtesy of the Fauquier Club
Wallis and Edward at Clovercroft, posing with British school children sent there to escape the war in Europe.
Wallis was still married to Simpson, and she petitioned for a divorce decree on Oct. 27, 1936. In the meantime, she and Edward conducted their affair quite openly, much to the dismay of the Royal Family and members of Parliament. The mood was different in America, where the possibility of Wallis becoming Queen, or at least married to a King, was quite exciting. Resistance to the marriage in England resulted in Edward abdicating the throne in a radio address on Dec. 10, 1936, when he spoke of stepping down “…for the woman I love.” His brother George became King George VI, and Edward was named Duke of Windsor. Edward and Wallis were married on June 3, 1937, in a ceremony that none of the Royal family attended. In his new role, the Duke held several minor government assignments. He was appointed governor of the Bahamas, where they spent most of World War II. On October 19, 1941, the Duke and Duchess came to Warrenton, where Wallis’s friends had arranged a weekend of events honoring the couple. Arriving on Friday, they spent the night with the Larrabees at Oakwood, and on Saturday morning enjoyed a hunt meet and breakfast staged by the Warrenton Hunt. After the war, the Duke and Duchess were based in France and traveled extensively. Admired and respected throughout his reign, King George VI led his people through the horrors of WWII. With his death in 1952, his daughter Elizabeth II became the much-loved Queen of England who serves today.
