King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson (Duke and Duchess of Windsor)

[grandduchessella]

It seems like the conversation has reached an end (at least about the Duke and Duchess) so this would be a good time to start Pt 2. This thread is already waaaay too long and I've been waiting for a lull in the conversation to make a break.

[Alixz]

I have researching lately and I had a thought about all the names that Edward VIII had.

George V, his father, came to be in line for the throne after the death of his brother Albert (grandfather) Victor (male of Victoria) Christian (Danish grandfather) Edward (father and great- grandfather).

At first, I thought that George V and May had given their first son the same name as the deceased Prince. But it is somewhat different.

Edward VIII had the names Edward (grandfather) Albert (great grandfather) Christian (Danish great grandfather)  George (father)  Andrew  Patrick  David - no Victor for Victoria and why Andrew, Patrick, and David?

I know that Prince Andrew of Greece (Danish/Greek relative of George) was born in 1882, so I suppose that is where the Andrew came from.  But who is Patrick and who is David?

[Kalafrana]

St Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, St Patrick of Ireland and St David of Wales, while St George is the patron saint of England.

Ann

[Alixz]

I never thought about saints!  I was concentrating on relatives.

[grandduchessella]

Yes, they decided that the future King would have a name Saint from all the countries making up Great Britain. It was a nice gesture, I think. Of course, they had to do all the justification for naming him Edward 'after Dear Eddy' (not Edward VII) to which Queen Victoria responded that Eddy was actually Albert Victor so were where those 2 names! They made up for it next go-round, of course. The irony being that that 2nd child ascended to the throne but there still wasn't a King Albert.

[Alixz]

I have always thought about all those children and grand-children named Albert who never used the name or became King Albert.  Poor Victoria, it was not something she ever expected and would never know about.

[grandduchessella]

I always thought about how Albert Edward became Edward VII and wonder how much he had that planned the whole time and if Victoria thought she had it in the bag).

[Alixz]

I always imagined the it started when he was young and the idea grew more and more as his father kept pushing him to be something that he was not.

I don't think he liked his father enough to be be crowned as King Albert. That would be too much of bowing down to both his mother and his father and their dislike of him and his choice of his way of life.

After all Queen Victoria blamed Bertie for his father's death.  Why would Bertie want to celebrate the man's life and name by becoming the first King Albert?

[Grace]

Victoria blamed Bertie for his father's death in the early days after Albert's demise but she didn't after a while, their relationship got better and better as the years went by.  Bertie didn't want to be called Albert, probably because he knew he wasn't like Albert and didn't want to be compared with him in any conceivable way.

[Kalafrana]

Albert was also not a terribly English name when Edward VII was growing up. It became a popular name for boys precisely because of the association with the royal family, but I imagine that Edward himself was the first British-born Albert.

Albert, Duke of York, chose George VI as his regnal name to suggest continuity from his father.

Ann

[CountessKate]

I have always thought that Queen Victoria knew perfectly well that none of the Alberts in the British line were going to call themselves 'Albert I or II', hence her increasingly shrill tone in the letters about the new son of the Duke of York - she did rather go on and on about it, and even then Albert was only his second name.   I'm not sure that personal reasons really entered into Edward VII's choosing not to take his father's name as King - Albert had no weight of tradition behind it in England and the British public was becoming increasingly jingoistic and resistant to perceived Germanic influences, while Edward was a perfectly good old English name and had no association with the Hanoverian, mad or profligate Georges either.  Edward was very tuned in to public perception - he was one of the first British monarchs to think about his image carefully and play to it where he felt it appropriate, and names were very important in that regard, and his views I believe had greater influence with his son than did Queen Victoria's.

[Kate_S]

Does anyone know how the Duchess of Windsor appropriated her royal cypher - the one with the interlocking WWW surmounting a crown?  Was it a monogram that she adopted herself or was it codified in some way by the Royal Family?  Queen Alexandra's monogram changed a lot having looked at its representation on a variety of objects such as handkerchiefs and chemises etc which makes me think that these more informal cyphers were just adapted on a whim.  Maybe this was a design that Wallis chose and had applied to her personal effects without the need for formalities?

[Kalafrana]

Since the Duchess was a non-person as far as the royal family was concerned, hercipher would certainly not have been approved by them.

Ann

[CHRISinUSA]

I did a little searching around on the web but couldn't find any reliable references suggesting that Wallis was awarded a cypher in the usual fashion.  Edward, as a HRH and a Duke of the Realm, obviously was entitled to a cypher - the "E" with the coronet above it.  Wallis adopted / used a similar one, with the E turned on its side to form a W, again with the coronet above.

Then again, this is a couple who bent rules to suit themselves.  Example, within their household the duchess was addressed as HRH, even though she was not entitled to be.  So her use of a cypher - with or without entitlement - is no surprise.

[Kate_S]

Thank you for those thoughts.  I don't know a great deal about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor outside of popular mythology but it is such an elaborate cypher.  It was the coronet that made me think that perhaps it had been formally validated in some way but I agree that they did not appear to worry too much about those kinds of establishment precedents.