Meet the married lover who came BEFORE Wallis Simpson

As never-before-seen photos are auctioned, meet the married lover who came BEFORE Wallis. Edward VIII had a 15-year affair with a woman he called Mummie (and begged her to beat him ‘to bring him to his senses’)

• As Prince of Wales, Edward had a number of long-running affairs 
• For a decade Freda Dudley Ward was the most important person in Edward’s life
• Freda had both an emotional and sexual power over Edward

Intimate new photographic portraits of Edward VIII as a young man are up for auction.

Taken when he was the 25-year-old Prince of Wales in 1919, they are likely to have been a gift for his married lover of the time Freda Dudley Ward – whose 15-year affair with Edward ended only when she refused to leave her husband.

Edward would end up marrying another married woman, Wallis Simpson, and abdicate the throne in the process. 

But in some ways the long relationship with Freda was the most passionate and illuminating of all, as this extract from Rachel Trewethy’s compelling biography makes clear… 

Previously unseen images of Edward VIII as a 25-year-old Prince of Wales are to be sold at Chiswick Auctions. Signed E on the front for Edward and David on the back – the name by which his family knew him – they are thought to have been a gift for the Prince’s married lover, Freda Dudley Ward. The photographs are expected to sell for up to £1500

It was a letter written by a man who clearly felt trapped. Weighed down by responsibility, the author was desperate to escape it all with the woman he loved. 

And, as he fantasised about resigning his position as heir to the throne and starting a new life, Edward, then Prince of Wales, told his married lover he could be ‘free to live or die according to how hard I worked, though I should have you all to myself sweetheart and should only then be really happy and contented’.

For anyone familiar with the abdication crisis of 1936, such sentiments might seem unsurprising. After all, Edward VIII had gone so far as to relinquish the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

Yet this particular letter was written 17 years earlier – and the lover he addressed was not Wallis but another woman entirely.

Socialite Freda conducted a long affair with the Prince of Wales. She was married to William Dudley Ward, MP for Southampton and a Lieutenant Commander of the Royal Naval Reserve

Freda is pictured between the future George VI and his brother  Edward, who was briefly Edward VIII. The photograph is taken around 1925 

Socialite Freda, left, pictured in 1937 with Lady Birkenhead attending a Christening at Gray’s Inn Chapel in London. By this stage, Freda’s former lover had moved on to Mrs Wallis Simpson – and abdicated as King

For a decade and a half, Freda Dudley Ward was the most important person in Edward’s life, a woman for whom he felt an all-consuming passion every bit as strong as that he later felt for Wallis.

Indeed, Freda’s power over Edward was emotional as much as sexual. She was not just the prince’s lover, she was also his confidante, one who seemed almost to wield the authority of a dominatrix. 

As he repeatedly begged her to marry him, Edward demonstrated an unsettling level of devotion, frequently abasing himself with baby talk in letters to his ‘precious darling little Mummie’ and even begging for punishment – a fervour no doubt increased by the knowledge that Freda not only had a husband, but a second, more agreeable lover.

Freda’s hold over Edward was powerful indeed – and had she acquiesced and agreed to marry him, then it is likely she would have been the woman provoking a constitutional crisis. And we would never have heard the name Mrs Wallis Simpson.

Freda and Edward first met during a Zeppelin raid in March 1918, after Freda took refuge in the doorway of a grand house in Belgrave Square, London. 

A party, with the Prince of Wales among the guests, was taking place inside, and when the hostess invited Freda inside, Edward was captivated. Petite and pretty, with dark curly hair and sparkly, periwinkle blue eyes, 24-year-old Freda exuded sex appeal and warmth. She gave the impression of needing a man’s protection, yet beneath the vulnerable exterior, she was a strong woman.

Perhaps the quality that made her most attractive to men – particularly rather insecure ones – was her ability to build them up and make them feel good about themselves. And the prince, charismatic, charming and dapper but with complex insecurities, was looking for a woman just like Freda.

True, there was an awkward disparity in social status as Freda was no aristocrat. Born Winifred Birkin in 1894, she was the eldest child of a Nottingham lace manufacturer, Colonel Charles Birkin, and his American wife. There was, however, another, even more significant problem: she was not free.

Freda had married William Dudley Ward, a handsome, up-and-coming Liberal MP, shortly before her 19th birthday in 1913, and together they had two daughters, Penelope (‘Pempie’) and Angela (‘Angie’).

By the time Freda met the prince, however, the marriage was under strain. And when, in 1917, her husband William, or ‘Duddie’, was made vice-chamberlain to the Royal Household – a job that took him away from home – a bored Freda found new ways of amusing herself; among them, a growing dalliance with the most eligible bachelor in the world.

Soon, the besotted couple found ways to be together almost every day. Physically they were well matched. Edward was a little taller than Freda, but both were fashionably svelte. When not in London, Freda stayed at Kilbees Farm, near Windsor, owned by one of her husband’s sisters, and the couple could meet there undetected.

Mrs Dudley Ward pictured in The Tatler with daughters Penelope and Angela

The Prince of Wales, second from the left, stands next to Mrs Dudley Ward at the Plaza Theatre. With them are Viscountess Furness and Prince George of Hanover

Edward and his TWO menages a trois…at the same time

This remarkable photograph, above, illustrates how Edward conducted two of his affairs simultaneously.

Though his adultery was kept secret from the public, his lively social life meant it was well-known on the London scene.

This 1932 picture shows the prince accompanied by two of his mistresses on a trip to the theatre. On the left is Freda Dudley Ward, the glamorous, sexually dominant woman who was one of the loves of his life, despite her being married and conducting a separate affair with banker Michael Herbert.

On the right is another lover, Thelma Furness, an American who was at the time married to Marmaduke, Viscount Furness.

She later introduced Edward to Wallis Simpson.

Edward’s passion for his married mistress became all-consuming. If they were apart, he would phone her four or five times a night. If she were not at home, he was bereft.

He spent much of the 1920s on a series of Royal tours around colonies to thank them for their war effort. While he was away, he bombarded Freda with dozens of letters written to ‘My Angel’ and signed with ‘tons and tons of love from your E’.

He would look at her photograph, which was kept in a little leather frame by his bed when it was not in his pocket, and kiss it. He told her that thinking of her made him feel ‘fearfully naughty’.

READ MORE: The Prince and the prostitute – and a sensational shooting at the Savoy

Freda was the grown-up in their partnership, and that was a large part of her appeal. Indeed, Edward had found dominant women attractive long before Wallis Simpson arrived on the scene. Explaining to Freda what he needed in a relationship, he wrote: ‘You know you ought to be really foul to me sometimes sweetie and curse and be cruel; it would do me worlds of good and bring me to my right senses!!’

In one he asked her to come up to London ‘to give me that hiding’. In another he wrote: ‘I do need you so so badly to chase me into bed with a big big stick.’

Sex had been a major preoccupation for him since 1916, when his equerries took him to Amiens and introduced him to a French prostitute called Paulette.

Soon afterwards, he began having an affair with a Parisian courtesan called Marguerite Alibert, known as Maggy, who enjoyed a reputation as a dominatrix (and who would later make headlines when, in 1923, she shot her Egyptian playboy husband, Ali Fahmy, in the Savoy).

In his relationship with Freda, it was clear that he was looking for a mother figure as much as for sex. He complained to her about the stifling formality of court life, his dislike of official duties and even his doubts about whether he ever wanted to be King. For all his popularity, meeting so many people who had such high expectations of him was a constant strain.

When he said to Freda that he had had enough of ‘princing’ and wanted to be an ordinary person with a life of his own, she was honest with him. She told him that he could not be an ordinary person because he was born to be King and whether he liked it or not, that fate was awaiting him. He could not escape it. Edward wrote to Freda that the only thing he wanted in the world was ‘to be with you always’ and that it would break his heart if she stopped loving him.

He promised ‘to just nip off with you at any moment and to any place in the world if you will make up your mind to do so – if you knew how very deeply and truly I loved you to the exclusion of all else in the world…’

For Freda, though, the idea of marrying or running away was ridiculous. As she was already married there would have to be a divorce, and his parents and the Church would never have allowed it. Nonetheless, the couple enjoyed a lively social life, with dances every night in Mayfair and Chelsea. The prince loved to dance. Gossip columnists noted how ‘perfectly’ he partnered Freda.

A portrait of Freda from an unknown date. She was the grown-up in the relationship; he called her ‘Mummie’

Freda arrives at St Margaret’s Westminster for her wedding to William Dudley Ward in 1913

They went to nightclubs including Ciro’s, Quaglino’s and the Kit Kat but their favourite was the Embassy, in a basement in Old Bond Street.

When the Charleston arrived in London from the US they had lessons at the Cafe de Paris.

Freda, however, was interested in politics and preferred thinking people to the cocktail set.

One friend described her as one of the brightest women he’d ever known. She visited slums and reported back to the prince about the experience.

Meanwhile, Freda’s husband seems to have accepted his wife’s relationship with the heir to the throne. It is likely that Duddie would have wanted to avoid the inevitable scandal involved in divorce, not to mention the detrimental effect on his career and on his daughters. Increasingly, Freda and Duddie led separate lives.

Freda introduced her daughters to the prince and he genuinely adored them. Pempie and Angie saw so much of their mother’s lover that he was soon treated as an honorary uncle whom they called ‘Little Prince’. When Freda was away, he would sit with the girls, cutting out pictures until their bedtime.

Much of London society knew about Freda and Edward, as did the Government, but the affair was kept secret from the public.

When Edward’s parents discovered the truth, they were horrified, of course, seeing Freda as ‘a scarlet woman’ or, in the snobbish words of King George V, ‘the lace-maker’s daughter’. As time went on, upset by all the gossip and suffering bouts of depression, Freda made several attempts to end the relationship, but Edward just would not let her go and used every form of emotional blackmail he could muster.

On one occasion, he wrote in terms that would give Freudians a field day: ‘From now onwards I’ll twy [sic] to teach myself to look on you only as Fredie Mummie though it’s going to be the hardest task of my life; […] but I swear I will twy [sic], though a chap can love his mummie.’ Addressing her as ‘little slave’ or ‘parpee’ (puppy), there was a slavish quality to his adoration that prevented it being completely reciprocated.

There was another barrier, too – because for most of their relationship, Freda had been involved in an equally intense affair with Michael Herbert, a banker and a cousin of the Earl of Pembroke.

Dark-haired, handsome and slight, not only was Michael an eligible bachelor, he was fun to be with and had an infectious smile.

The prince, too, had additional affairs, often with women in Freda’s circle. It was even rumoured that he had a fling with her youngest sister, Vera.

In 1926, Edward met, and later started seeing, a twice-married American, Thelma Furness – as well as Freda, of course. Thelma was kind and beautiful, yet she could only provide the physical comfort the prince needed, not the emotional support. Thelma recognised that Edward was a complex personality, but she never came near to understanding him – although for that there was no need, as Freda was still there, playing the role of mother confessor in his life. He continued to visit her most afternoons.

In June 1930, Freda finally divorced Duddie on the grounds of his adultery. The divorce came too late for Michael. In September 1932, he died from an abscess on his lung, bronchio-pneumonia and cerebral toxaemia. He was only 39. Freda was devastated. Her family believes that he, rather than the Prince of Wales, was the love of her life.

Now, for the first time, the prince could have been the only man in Freda’s life. Yet, as with Michael, her freedom had come too late. The relationship with Edward, although intense, was already past its peak.

Today Thelma Furness is best-known for her role in introducing her fellow American Wallis Simpson to Edward. It was at Burrough Court, her country home, that the two first met on January 10, 1931.

After that, Thelma encouraged Edward’s friendship with Wallis, then married to Ernest Simpson, an Anglo-American shipping broker, because she hoped finding witty guests outside of his usual circles would keep him amused.

Wallis’s sharp wit and repartee had piqued the prince’s interest more than Thelma – one of his two mistresses – had intended, however. In 1934, after returning from a trip to America and reunited with Edward at her Regent’s Park house, she found him polite but distant.

The next weekend, she joined the prince and the Simpsons at Fort Belvedere, Edward’s home in Windsor Great Park. At dinner, Thelma noticed that Edward and Wallis had developed private jokes.

After watching her friend and lover together, Thelma knew what had happened: she had been replaced. She left Fort Belvedere the next morning, never to return.

The end of Edward’s 16-year relationship with Freda was equally brutal and abrupt. After she hadn’t heard from him for a few weeks, she called St James’s Palace and was told by the operator: ‘I have orders not to put you through.’

Freda and the prince never spoke again, and she was deeply hurt by his neglect. He had made up his mind that he wanted to be with Wallis. And this time, he was not willing to listen to reason and take no for an answer. Edward was determined to make a lasting commitment, no matter how great the cost.

© Rachel Trethewey, 2018

• Abridged extract from Before Wallis: Edward VIII’s Other Women, by Rachel Trethewey, published by The History Press. First extracted in The Mail on Sunday

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