Wallis Simpson

(Newser) - Before King Edward VIII could marry his great love—in the process, becoming the first British monarch to abdicate the throne—US socialite Wallis Simpson needed to secure her second divorce. It was a "judicial farce" nearly upended by her husband's choice of hotel, according to solicitor's...

(Newser) - Today's best bit of historical trivia comes compliments of the BBC , which reports on newly released secret documents that show Britain bugged the phone of its own king in 1936. That king was Edward VIII, most famously known for abdicating so that he could marry divorcee Wallis Simpson. But...

(Newser) - Within a decade of abdicating the throne, the former Edward VIII was plotting a return to power that involved an end run around his niece Elizabeth—better known today as Queen Elizabeth II. A letter the Duke of Windsor wrote in 1946, when his brother and successor King George VI...