In December 1936, King Edward VIII abdicated the throne—in effect breaking up with Britain—so he could wed Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee with whom he’d been having an affair. The oldest son of King George V and Queen Mary, Edward was proclaimed king in January 1936 following the death of his father. Later that year, when the new monarch informed British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin he planned to marry Simpson, who’d just been granted a divorce from her second husband, Baldwin tried to talk him out of it, arguing that the Church of England, government officials and the British people wouldn’t accept a divorced woman as queen. Edward chose love over the crown and became the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate. On December 11, 1936, he publicly announced his decision during a radio broadcast, stating: “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.” Prince Albert, Edward’s younger brother (and father of Britain’s current queen, Elizabeth) became king and Edward, who became known as the Duke of Windsor, left England. In 1937, he and Simpson married in France. The two spent the rest of their lives mainly on the European continent and in the U.S., and for many years had a strained relationship with the British royal family. However, when Edward died in 1972 he was buried in the cemetery for royals near England’s Windsor Castle; his wife was laid to rest there when she died in 1986.
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