Card Signed by King Edward VIII and His Bride for Whom He Gave Up the Throne, Wallis Warfield Simpson

King George V died on January 20, 1936, and his son and successor, Edward VIII, was proclaimed King the next day. The period of mourning for the dead King followed, and the new monarch’s Coronation was set for May 13, after mourning would be concluded. The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England, traditionally officiates at coronations, and Edward would be crowned and invested with the regalia of Kingship.

Edward was in a relationship with divorcee Wallis Simpson. He had never hid this fact, but he started flaunting that relationship the day he was proclaimed King. When he took her to the Mediterranean that August, acting before the world as if she were already Queen, many were horrified. With Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Geoffrey Dawson, the editor of the Times of London, he began a campaign to remove the King from office unless he gave up Wallis. The pressure on the new King escalated, and he abdicated on December 13. He was named Duke of Windsor, and after marrying Wallis, she became the Duchess of Windsor.

Their official notecard, signed by him “Edward, Duke of Windsor,” and her “Wallis, Duchess of Windsor.”