When King Edward VIII proposed marriage to two-time divorcée, Wallis Simpson, he brought the storied British monarchy to a crossroads. King for just 11 months, he avoided a constitutional crisis by voluntarily abdicating the throne in 1936. His younger brother, then the Duke of York, succeeded to the throne, making a then 10-year-old Princess Elizabeth newly second-in-line and sparking a new line of succession that may have never come to pass.
The Duchess of Windsor on board Frixos
Darrell Russell
In the weeks following Edward VIII’s abdication, the pair, now known as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, decamped to France, settling in at 4 Route du Champ d’Entraînement, a 14-room manse in the Parisian park, Bois de Boulogne, which they rented for a small sum from the city. Despite being ostracised by society and hounded by the press, the Duke and Duchess quickly settled into the French lifestyle, which included luxurious tours of the Mediterranean as captured in never-before-seen photographs of the pair, which have recently come to light.
