was no going back. 25
Other guests on the Rosaura were Mr and Mrs Lee Guinness, Lord Hamilton and Sir John Aird. The Prince of Wales and Mrs Simpson occupied two separate bedrooms in the fore part of the ship, while all the other guests slept in the aft or on the lower deck. One of the stewards later stated that he thought it strange that Mrs Simpson should be occupying a bedroom close to the Prince's 'and I was a little nosy':
I mean I made her bed on most occasions and I changed her bed linen about every other day. I watched the sheets but I never saw a mark upon them. Sometimes when I went to Mrs Simpson's bed her maid had already made it. I never knew she was going to make the bed and I don't know what reason she had for making it.
The Prince always had breakfast on deck at about xo a.m., while Wallis had breakfast in her bedroom, which was always taken to her by her maid. The steward never noticed any endearment between Wallis and the Prince, such as walking arm in arm together, but he often saw them 'sitting alone together and laughing'. 26
So intimate did they become that they developed a private language in which to communicate their feelings to each other. The most important word in this language was 'WE', which joined the first letters of the names Wallis and Edward. One weekend in 1935, when they were staying as guests of Lord Brownlow at Belton House in Lincolnshire, Wallis sent Edward a gardenia with a note which said, 'God bless WE. Good-night, From Her to Him.' 27 Another important word was 'eanum', meaning something like 'dearest little thing'. In a letter Edward sent to Wallis in Spring 1935, he used both these special words:
My Eanum - My Wallis
This is not the kind of Easter WE want but it will be all right next year . . . I love you more & more 8c more each & every minute & miss you so terribly here. You do too don't you my sweetheart. God bless WE. Always your DAVID. 28
According to Walter Monckton, a friend of Edward's from Oxford days, it was a
great mistake to assume that he was merely in love with her in the ordinary physical sense of the term. There was an intellectual companionship, and there is no doubt that his lonely nature found in her a spiritual comradeship . . . No one will ever really understand the story of the King's life, who does not appreciate . . . the intensity and depth of his devotion to Mrs Simpson. 29
It seemed to Churchill that their 'association was psychical rather than sexual, and certainly not sensual except incidentally. Although branded with the stigma of a guilty love, no companionship could have appeared more natural, more free from impropriety or grossness.' 10 However, Edward's cousin Louis Mountbatten thought that the chemistry between them was intensely physical. He observed that once their friendship had reached the point where they went to bed together, Edward lost all sense of reason. 31
Wallis understood some of the reasons why she had fallen under the Prince's spell. Beyond his warmth and charm, she explained in her memoirs years later,
he was the open sesame to a new and glittering world that excited me as nothing in my life had ever done before. For all his natural simplicity, his genuine abhorrence of ostentation, there was nevertheless about him - even in his most Robinson Crusoe clothes - an unmistakable aura of power and authority. 32
This was an aura that had captivated many other women, too. 'He was the Golden Prince', said Diana Vreeland, a stylish fashion designer. 'You must understand', she added, 'that to be a woman of my generation in London - any woman - was to be in love with the Prince of Wales.' 33
What Wallis understood less well than her own emotions was Edward's love for her. 'Searching my mind,' she said later,
I could find no good reason why this most glamorous of men should be seriously attracted to me. I certainly was no beauty, and he had the pick of the beautiful women of the world. I was certainly no longer very
Other guests on the Rosaura were Mr and Mrs Lee Guinness, Lord Hamilton and Sir John Aird. The Prince of Wales and Mrs Simpson occupied two separate bedrooms in the fore part of the ship, while all the other guests slept in the aft or on the lower deck. One of the stewards later stated that he thought it strange that Mrs Simpson should be occupying a bedroom close to the Prince's 'and I was a little nosy':
I mean I made her bed on most occasions and I changed her bed linen about every other day. I watched the sheets but I never saw a mark upon them. Sometimes when I went to Mrs Simpson's bed her maid had already made it. I never knew she was going to make the bed and I don't know what reason she had for making it.
The Prince always had breakfast on deck at about xo a.m., while Wallis had breakfast in her bedroom, which was always taken to her by her maid. The steward never noticed any endearment between Wallis and the Prince, such as walking arm in arm together, but he often saw them 'sitting alone together and laughing'. 26
So intimate did they become that they developed a private language in which to communicate their feelings to each other. The most important word in this language was 'WE', which joined the first letters of the names Wallis and Edward. One weekend in 1935, when they were staying as guests of Lord Brownlow at Belton House in Lincolnshire, Wallis sent Edward a gardenia with a note which said, 'God bless WE. Good-night, From Her to Him.' 27 Another important word was 'eanum', meaning something like 'dearest little thing'. In a letter Edward sent to Wallis in Spring 1935, he used both these special words:
My Eanum - My Wallis
This is not the kind of Easter WE want but it will be all right next year . . . I love you more & more 8c more each & every minute & miss you so terribly here. You do too don't you my sweetheart. God bless WE. Always your DAVID. 28
According to Walter Monckton, a friend of Edward's from Oxford days, it was a
great mistake to assume that he was merely in love with her in the ordinary physical sense of the term. There was an intellectual companionship, and there is no doubt that his lonely nature found in her a spiritual comradeship . . . No one will ever really understand the story of the King's life, who does not appreciate . . . the intensity and depth of his devotion to Mrs Simpson. 29
It seemed to Churchill that their 'association was psychical rather than sexual, and certainly not sensual except incidentally. Although branded with the stigma of a guilty love, no companionship could have appeared more natural, more free from impropriety or grossness.' 10 However, Edward's cousin Louis Mountbatten thought that the chemistry between them was intensely physical. He observed that once their friendship had reached the point where they went to bed together, Edward lost all sense of reason. 31
Wallis understood some of the reasons why she had fallen under the Prince's spell. Beyond his warmth and charm, she explained in her memoirs years later,
he was the open sesame to a new and glittering world that excited me as nothing in my life had ever done before. For all his natural simplicity, his genuine abhorrence of ostentation, there was nevertheless about him - even in his most Robinson Crusoe clothes - an unmistakable aura of power and authority. 32
This was an aura that had captivated many other women, too. 'He was the Golden Prince', said Diana Vreeland, a stylish fashion designer. 'You must understand', she added, 'that to be a woman of my generation in London - any woman - was to be in love with the Prince of Wales.' 33
What Wallis understood less well than her own emotions was Edward's love for her. 'Searching my mind,' she said later,
I could find no good reason why this most glamorous of men should be seriously attracted to me. I certainly was no beauty, and he had the pick of the beautiful women of the world. I was certainly no longer very
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