How Churchill thanked the king’s cuckold
Winston Churchill sent a plane to reunite the dying wife of Wallis Simpson’s former husband with her son in America
Wallis Simpson left her husband Ernest for the then King Edward VIII (Private Collection)
Winston Churchill commandeered a plane to reunite a dying woman with her son.
It was his way of saying thank you to her husband for his discretion during
the abdication crisis.
She was Mary Simpson, the third wife of Ernest Simpson, who remained
resolutely silent as his second wife, Wallis, conducted a less-than-discreet
affair with Edward VIII. He then allowed Wallis to divorce him in 1937 to
marry the king.
In the summer of 1941 Mary Simpson was dying from cancer. With the second
world war at its height, the prime minister had her flown to America, where
she had to be ferried to and from the plane in an ambulance.
She returned with their son, also called Ernest, who had been evacuated from
Britain in June 1940 when he was nine months old.
Churchill made his gesture in appreciation of Ernest Simpson’s tact before and
after the abdication in