A fan blog dedicated to Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, the only British monarch ever to voluntarily renounce the throne. His friends called him David, and so do we. Reblog, not repost please!
Forty years ago today, Wallis, Duchess of Windsor passed away at the age of eighty-nine. She is seen above in far happier times, shopping in Palm Beach.
Hey there! I thought you might enjoy this so id thought id send it here. I created a playlist (that im always adding to) for David. Some songs in there I think fit Wallis too! I hope you enjoy it! And if you wanna talk about any of the songs id be happy too!
Hello! was there humor, teasing or light moments in wallis and david's relationship or was the relationship more heavy and intense due to david's dependency and wallis' being practical?
Hi! Thanks for reaching out!
There was definitely a lot of light moments, a lot of teasing, and a lot of joking around in Wallis and David's relationship. There are so many examples of them joking around and being silly with each other that if I were to list them all it would probably take me weeks. They were also both, in general, very witty people and it makes sense that making each other laugh would've been a big part of their relationship.
So, just to give a few quick examples:
-Wallis's friend Aline, Countess of Romanones, who stayed with the Windsors on several occasions, recalled overhearing them joking around and bursting into laughter repeatedly in Wallis's room at night. (Source: The Dear Romance, Vanity Fair)
-Another friend, Etta Wanger said Wallis and David "really enjoyed each ohter" and recalled them making up silly dances to do together to records she and Wallis were playing on a jukebox they had in their sitting room. (Source: The Woman He Loved by Ralph G. Martin p. 465)
-If you read their letters, particularly the ones after they were married they both made a lot of little jokes, Wallis would tease David for his forgetfulness and he would tease her for her temper and perfectionism.
-Wallis herself said of their marriage "We've never had a real spat. I give him most of the credit there. I think we'd laugh first anyway." (Source: Duchess of Windsor by Greg King p. 431) Obviously there were some arguments between them, but their letters definitely bear out that they joked around more than they ever got seriously mad about anything.
-They also had a ton of nicknames and inside jokes related to their pets that show up in their letters throughout the years.
-Just if you scroll through this blog there are tons of photos and even gifs of them laughing and joking around. Which is quite telling given Wallis generally was more tense in public or when being photographed and most of the accounts of them joking around or being silly are about things that happened in private with only close friends present.
do historians defend wallis and edward's relationship or they also ride along the "wallis was a queen dictator and edward was a big baby to her" bullshit
Hi, thanks for reaching out!
Historians is kind of a broad category, and there is no one narrative everyone has decided to go with. That said, the pattern in my experience is that American writers are more sympathetic to Wallis and thus more likely to defend Wallis and Edward's relationship, whereas British authors are mostly very unsympathetic to her and very dismissive of the relationship in general. Two American authors, Greg King and Ralph G. Martin, do to some extent defend Wallis and Edward's relationship, as do two British authors (both of whom are very much exceptions to the rule) Anna Pasternak and Susan Williams.
Those who are dismissive of the relationship don't necessarily all follow the same narrative but the general theme tends to amount to Edward's interest in Wallis being purely because of something sexual, Wallis not having feelings for Edward at all, and their marriage having been unhappy on both sides. This is not fair or accurate, and there is tons of evidence that points otherwise, but I think it largely stems from them not really seeing Wallis as a human being but rather a one-dimensional villain character, which is a narrative that was initially set out by the monarchist press during her lifetime in order to defend the royal family for shunning her. The royal family didn't think Wallis was acting in good faith and therefor most monarchist authors continue to follow that narrative.
It's become increasingly obvious to me that most authors who write negatively about the W/E marriage do so not based on actual evidence; a shockingly large percentage of them don't seem to have read Wallis and Edward's letters at all, much less done any deeper research into the meaning of various phrases or the inscriptions on the jewelry. Instead it's entirely based on how they feel about the monarchy, how they feel about the abdication, and how they view Wallis as a person. And beyond loyalty to the monarchy, misogyny also plays a large role because men who married into the royal family (or tried to marry in) are never subject to the kinds of narratives you see about Wallis, but other women have certainly been.
was wallis with edward on his deathbed? i've found two accounts and one was she never visited him and he kept calling for her up until his last breath and the other was she held his hand (also depicted on the crown) while his last words were "mama, mama"
You're kind of in luck with this question, because I have a very detailed answer ready to go! I've been working on a massive document debunking the various false allegations made against Wallis off and on for the last eight years and the story that Wallis was callous or abandoned David on his death bed is one of the ones covered and one of the only ones I'm almost completely finished with. I went through a ton of different sources, and this is what I found:
(Click below for *lengthy* answer but the tl;dr version is she was with him the entire day prior to his death but went to bed shortly before he actually died at his insistence. Also I don't mention his last words but the "mama" story originates from Sydney Johnson who wasn't present when David died and was disputed by those who were present.)
David's death:
This smear is particularly below the belt. As someone who’s lost people close to me and felt guilty that I wasn’t there, to attack someone for how they handled the death of a loved one in anything but the most extreme situations feels very cruel.
This is not a story I initially planned to address because it feels minor in the grand scope of things, but as I was doing research and getting my facts together I realized that this particular story has become extremely ubiquitous over the last few years. On social media especially, I see this story used against Wallis as much or more than the Nazi stuff.
The story of Wallis callously abandoning David on his death bed comes from Andrew Morton's 2018 biography Wallis in Love, though I think more people probably learned of it in the Daily Mail, where Andrew Morton, like most royal biographers, published some of the juicier excerpts of his book to drum up interest. Morton's source for this allegation is a single witness, Julie Alexander, who took care of David during the night shift during the last weeks of his life and was present, alongside a few others, when he died.
Julie told a similar story, though with some interesting added context, in an interview with The Baltimore Sun that same year. I find Julie's account mostly credible; memory and hindsight are always going to be factors after forty-five years, but I don't think she's lying. But there is a lot more to the story than the narrative presented by Andrew Morton.
David's live-in nurse, Oonagh Shanley, who spent several weeks in their home caring for him and was the person who hired Julie Alexander to cover nights, gave a detailed account of her time with him and Wallis both in interviews with Wallis's biographer Greg King and in her own memoirs The Voice of Silence. Oonagh remembered that Wallis was “full of affection for HRH.”1 She recalled: “The Duke and Duchess were in love, and their interaction was like a young couple in love. There was a real togetherness about them, a harmony which must have been there always because such virtues don't suddenly come into being.”2
Wallis had meals with David and spent hours with him every day during Oonagh’s time with them and when David wasn’t up to eating formally with Wallis he would encourage her secretary to invite friends to see her or try and make plans for her outside the house so she wouldn’t get lonely. He told Oonagh: “Wallis loves people, parties, and good conversation. The very last thing I want is that she should be at all worried about me.”3 His doctor Jean Thin separately expressed a similar perception: “His only concern seemed to be that the Duchess should not be made too anxious.”4
David and Wallis weren’t told his actual prognosis5 and French medical ethics at that time barred telling elderly, terminally ill patients that they were terminally ill.6
When he had hemorrhages and his throat was bleeding, David insisted Wallis not be told. Oonagh said Wallis “was not fully aware of the gravity of his illness.”7 He insisted her hair and make up artists still come to work on her and her routine go on as closely to normal as possible.8 Oonagh said David “was so courageous and never complained, always keeping his spirits up, never wanting the Duchess to worry about him.”9
Until Friday the 26th of May, just two days before he died, David would get up and get dressed to see Wallis in the sitting room between their bedrooms. It was only in those last two days Wallis was “fully aware of how ill he was.” But 'even up to six hours before he died he tried to tell her he didn’t feel “too bad.”'10
Oonagh Shanley and Jean Thin both attested that in the last couple of days Wallis “rarely left her husband’s side” and that she was “sitting quietly at the side of his bed, holding his hand and whispering to him”.11
Wallis stayed with him all day on the Saturday that was the last day of his life and she wanted to stay with him all night, but he insisted she go get some rest and that he intended to do the same.12
David died around 2:20am, three hours or so after Wallis went to bed.13
“The Duke died as he lived, not wanting to be a burden to anyone, but his love for Wallis had not diminished one iota. His greatest concern, those last weeks of his life, was that the Duchess should continue her life as usual and be spared his suffering. That was the sole reason for the supreme effort he made in appearing strong when the cancer in his throat would not allow any respite. I admired his fortitude- he was the great romantic hero, perhaps the last in our time. His love and his confidence in Wallis proved that his abdication was justified.”14
The gossip columnist and society hostess Elsa Maxwell, who was something of an on-again-off-again friend of Wallis and David and could often be critical of Wallis, expressed deep respect for how Wallis had taken care of David during an earlier illness: “She cared for the Duke when he had a bad case of shingles a few years ago- an agonizing ailment. Her care of him would be a lesson to most modern wives.”15
In 1965, when David and Wallis traveled to London so he could have an operation on his eye, the surgeon who attended to him James Hudson reported that he was “absolutely enchanted with the duchess and her devotion during the duke's time in hospital” and that Wallis had sat with David all day long, reading newspapers to him.16
As David's health declined, Wallis would carry his doctors' phone numbers around in her purse and, after David collapsed at a dinner party, a fellow guest commented on both Wallis's “tender solicitude” and “remarkable presence of mind” when she was able to produce the phone number quickly and get in contact with doctor's to determine if he needed to go to the hospital or not.17
According to some sources, Wallis had begun showing signs of dementia as far back as 1969, when David had to occasionally call their friends to ask if they knew who's house they were having dinner that night because Wallis, who had made the plans, couldn't remember. In 1970, he told their close friends Winston and C.Z. Guest that Wallis was “losing her mind.”18
Richard Burton, who's wife Elizabeth Taylor was friendly with Wallis and later bought and proudly wore one of Wallis's jewels, saw Wallis on two occasions in December of 1971, about five months before David's death and said Wallis was “nearly completely gaga” and that Wallis's “memory has gone completely and then comes back vividly in flashes.”19
Julie Alexander herself said Wallis was suffering from dementia, though she “was still enjoying life.” Using similar phrasing to Richard Burton, Julie said: “She wasn’t gaga completely but you could see it coming on the horizon.”20
At David's funeral, Wallis asked repeatedly where he was21 and was visibly disoriented to such an extent that Queen Elizabeth had to guide her through the service.22
A friend who saw her in the few years after David's death said: “She drifts in and out. The trouble is, sometimes you're not absolutely sure whether she's out or in.”23
Wallis never took off the wedding ring David had given her, even as her hands grew stiff and swollen with severe arthritis, and when she was laying senile on her death bed her doctor had to have it cut off of her finger24, presumably with bolt cutters or something of the sort.
(The only element of the story I'm still working on here is the significance of Julie Alexander being the *night* nurse in the context of Wallis's dementia. I need to do a little more research but the general impression I've gotten is that dementia symptoms are significantly worse for many people at night due to something known as "sundowning" and this is likely the reason Julie Alexander's impression of Wallis and how she handled the situation was so different from the impressions of people who were there and saw her during the day. A lot of what she described in terms of Wallis being aloof seems to fit the bill perfectly. This is something I never thought of until after that infamous 2024 Presidential debate when sundowning became the subject of extensive discourse in the media and IMHO it explains the discrepancies between different accounts of Wallis's behavior but I still want to do more research.)
1King 457
2King 458
3Shanley-Toffolo 110
4Bloch Secret File 301
5 Shanley-Toffolo 102
6Bryan and Murphy 582
7King 458
8Shanley-Toffolo 111
9King 458
10Shanley-Toffolo 118
11King 463
12Shanley-Toffolo 118
13Shanley-Toffolo 118
14Shanley-Toffolo 120
15Martin 470 citing Elsa Maxwell's column
16Anna Pasternak The Real Wallis Simpson 266
17Diana Mosley The Duchess of Windsor 201
18The Windsor Story 603
19King 457 citing Richard Burton: A Life by Melvyn Bragg
I don't know for sure one way or the other, he never expressed strong feelings himself in any sources I can find.
My personal feeling is he didn't want to 'produce heirs' for the monarchy due to his own negative views on his childhood which is one of the many reasons he put off getting married as Prince of Wales, but I think after the abdication he would've liked to have had kids with Wallis.
We don't have much in terms of evidence for this, but two minor things do suggest he might've wanted kids with Wallis:
-Beyond saying she regretted not having children in her memoirs, Wallis told a friend of the early years of her marriage with David: "The one thing missing in our lives was a child." (Source: Duchess of Windsor by Greg King p. 361) The fact that she said our lives, not my life suggests the feeling was mutual.
-Michael Bloch's biography of Wallis mentions that her and David visited a fertility doctor early in their marriage to see if it would be possible for them to conceive and also briefly considered adoption. (Source: The Duchess of Windsor by Michael Bloch p. 125) But he doesn't provide a source for either of these claims and that book in general is less reliable and lacking in the research and sourcing present in all of his other WE books. The claim about them considering adoption also showed up in The Windsor Story so I think it's very plausible this is at least something they told friends they were thinking about. Obviously if you're going to a fertility doctor and thinking about adoption that would suggest both parties want kids.
It's also just generally true that he liked kids and usually got along well with the kids of his friends and relatives. However it's very likely he and Wallis knew before they got married that having children at least biologically would be unlikely due to a variety of reasons and this was something he was okay with.
good day! i am curious, Wallis was often referred to in newspapers as "Wally", can i ask if that meant to be derogatory towards her since there were rumors that she was a man and Wally is an often male-given name or was it just the nickname given to her?
I don't think it was intended as a gendered thing, arguably the name Wallis was considered somewhat masculine on its own anyway. I've found no accounts of anyone who knew her well ever calling her "Wally" or Wallis ever referring to herself that way, so I think it's just a nickname the press came up with and once one outlet started using it, perhaps based on bad intel from someone falsely claiming to be friends with her, the rest of the press followed suit. It was common in those days for men named Wallace to go by Wally.
But similarly the press continue to refer to Catherine Middleton as "Kate", even though she herself apparently doesn't go by that, so I don't actually think this particular naming issue was meant as an insult.
hi!! do you think wallis or edward was more in touch with their feelings and emotions? thank you!!
Hi! Thanks for reaching out!
Honestly I'm not really sure. I think Edward was more open with his emotions and wore his heart on his sleeve, and I guess in that sense he was more in touch with his emotions. But Wallis was much better at actually understanding and interpreting what she was feeling.
You can really see this in their letters to each other. Edward writes down every little thought/feeling that he's having with little analysis, whereas Wallis is more stoic but at various points when she has strong feelings about something she actually breaks things down explain why she's feeling the way she is and where it's coming from and how they should both respond to it.
Do u think Edward married wallis on his dad birthday on purpose and that's why his family didn't come?
I've always thought that the date choice might've been an intentional middle finger of sorts to the royal family, but I'm pretty certain the final decision was made only after Edward had been informed no one in his family planned on attending.
But I decided to do a little research and consult some of my books to refresh my memory on why June 3rd (George V's birthday) was chosen and there isn't much in the way of smoking gun evidence that it was anything but a coincidence.
Edward didn't publicly announce the wedding date until May 8 (Source: The Windsor Story page 361). The final decision was probably made in late April or early May. There's some discussion in Wallis and Edward's letters about possible wedding dates, but June 3rd was never mentioned specifically and there's no indication the final decision had been made prior to their last letters being exchanged in mid-April. George VI sent Edward a letter informing him that no member of the royal family would be allowed to attend on April 11th. (Source: King Edward VIII by Philip Ziegler page 307) So just judging by the timeline I don't think the choice of date was a factor in no one from the family attended; in fact George VI cites Church of England views on divorce and a fear of public backlash as the primary reasons in his letter. He was under significant pressure from courtiers, his mother, and the Church to make this particular decision and I don't think Wallis and Edward choosing a different wedding date would've made the slightest difference.
Wallis wrote to Edward on March 7th that she believed it would be better from an optics standpoint to get married after the coronation of George VI, which was scheduled for May 12th. In that letter she suggested announcing the engagement and wedding date on May 5th, and then getting married on May 19th (Source: Wallis and Edward Letters page 319-20). There was some confusion as to when Wallis's divorce would be finalized; it ended up being May 3rd, but Wallis initially thought it would be April 27th. So there was really no chance of them getting married much earlier than mid-May under any circumstances. But soon after they decided on June. On March 22nd, Wallis wrote to Aunt Bessie: "As I think I wrote to you the Duke and myself decided it would be more politic to have the wedding after the coronation and as May is very booked for all members of the family George VI has suggested June 4th as a convenient time for him to send a member to the wedding. I see that is a Friday so am going to try and change it to the 5th." (Source: Wallis and Edward Letters page 330) This comment is pretty interesting for several reasons. As weird and counterintuitive as it might sound to thing that George VI was suggesting wedding dates, I think Wallis is probably telling the truth here because we know from comments Wallis and Edward both made later on they were initially led to believe that at least some members of the royal family would attend their wedding and as such they had already sought guidance from the palace about which locations would be suitable and they used that guidance in selecting Chateau de Candé as their wedding venue. (Source: The Windsor Story page 355) I suspect that George VI knew the whole time that he didn't want anyone from his family at the wedding, but he was playing along with Edward's assumption that some family members would attend so he could stay in the loop about what their plans were and because he was procrastinating having to break the news about no one coming to David.
As for why Wallis preferred June 5th over the 4th, my initial guess was simply that she thought a Saturday would be preferable to a Friday so as to be more convenient for guests coming from the UK who might have work commitments during the week. While royal weddings are commonly held on weekdays, commoners typically get married on Saturdays to make it easier for guests who work during the week. But only just now, another possible reason occurred to me: Friday weddings have historically been considered bad luck because Jesus was crucified on a Friday and Wallis was extremely superstitious. A similar superstition about May weddings being bad luck has also been suggested by many sources as one of the reasons Wallis ultimately chose to get married in the first week of June instead. I can't find a contemporary primary source indicating that either of these superstitions definitely played a role in her decision-making process, but her being superstitious is well-documented so I think it's pretty likely it was a factor.
Either way, it seems as though by late March Wallis and Edward had already decided to get married during the first week of June. I think this was always going to be the most likely choice for them, regardless of George V or anyone else's birthday. As aforementioned, they didn't want to compete with the coronation festivities happening in mid-May. Because of legal issues related to Wallis's divorce, Wallis and Edward had to remain separated until early May. Choosing early June for their wedding would give them a month together in person to make some of the final decisions and preparations together. But they had no desire to delay the wedding any further: Charles and Fern Bedaux had lent them their house both as a wedding venue and a place to stay prior to the wedding and Wallis and Edward didn't want to inconvenience the Bedauxs for any longer than necessary. Wallis especially was eager to get away from the press and hoped once she and Edward left on their Honeymoon some of the attention would die down.
There were many good reasons to choose that specific week for the wedding and there is some amount of documentation as to the thought process that led them there. But as to why Thursday, June 3rd specifically, we don't really know. For whatever reason, Wallis didn't want to get married on Friday, June 4th. I actually looked to see if there were any other dates that week that would've been more problematic than George V's birthday, such as a prior wedding anniversary or the birthday of one of Wallis or Edward's exes, and found nothing. There also doesn't seem to have been any other significance of June 3rd (such as some personal romantic anniversary between Wallis and Edward) that would make that date desirable for them. We know from inscriptions in Wallis's jewelry that March 12th, April 9th, and May 14th were dates of personal significance in their relationship that were repeatedly commemorated; June 3rd did not seem to carry any special meaning in their relationship prior to them choosing it as their wedding date.
Now there's also a possibility that someone else involved in the wedding had a preference for June 3rd that was a deciding factor. For instance, maybe Charles and Fern Bedaux wanted to do something else that weekend. Maybe Reverend Jardine, who performed the ceremony (and was pretty much the only person willing to do that for them) had an issue with other suggested dates. Maybe one of Wallis and Edward's friends told them Thursday was the only day that they'd be able to attend. We have no evidence this happened, but also no evidence it didn't happen, and it's very common for couples to end up changing their wedding date due to these types of concerns.
The main person who commented on the significance of the day was Queen Mary, who was also naturally the person most bothered by it. She wrote to her daughter-in-law Queen Elizabeth on May 21st that the choice of date hurt her: "Of course she [Wallis] did it, but how can he be so weak. I suppose it is out of revenge that none of the family is going to the wedding." (Source: Counting One's Blessings page 369) This reiterates the sequence of events I suggested earlier: the date was announced and probably chosen after Edward found out no one in his family was attending the wedding. But I find Queen Mary's analysis of the decision extremely unlikely: if the date was chosen intentionally because it was George V's birthday I doubt Wallis had anything to do with it. Wallis's letters make pretty clear she'd had more than enough drama with the British press and desperately wanted her wedding to happen with as much dignity and as little drama as possible. I also honestly don't even think Wallis would've known June 3rd was George V's birthday until someone else brought that to her attention, and I think if she took the significance of the date into consideration at all it would've been more of a negative than a positive. However, I could see Edward, who had a lot of resentment towards his father for how he was treated throughout his life and had always wanted to rebel against him, perhaps seeing some benefit to choosing his father's birthday as a posthumous 'fuck you' of sorts as well as punishment for his family refusing to attend as Queen Mary speculated. Not only had George V strongly disapproved of Wallis, but he had disapproved of all of Edward's romantic relationships and had made attempts throughout the years to interfere in several of them. So I could see a scenario where Edward intentionally pushed for June 3rd. But it's also entirely possible Wallis suggested the date, not even realizing its significance, and Edward agreed to it, knowing the significance but not really factoring it in.
Either way, it's worth remembering that it's not like he chose June 3rd out of all 365 days in the year purely because it was George V's birthday. There was a limited window of possible wedding dates and June 3rd was likely chosen of somewhere between five and ten possible options.
Thanks for reaching out and have a nice day!
I wonder if the grave of Edward and Wallis can be visited? I heard that the estate is open some days, but I also saw that flowers can supposedly be laid on their graves. Is that true? If so, please explain in more detail how to implement it.
Edward and Wallis are buried at the Frogmore Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore House, which is located on the grounds of Windsor Castle. While Frogmore House has sometimes been open to the public, it isn't currently, and the burial ground hasn't been open to the public at any recent point in history.
I don't believe it's possible for anyone to lay flowers on their grave without special permission from the royal family that you would likely need an inside connection to get. The author Anna Pasternak was granted access to the site by Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York and laid flowers on their graves at some point (I believe in 2016 or 2017) and detailed this experience in her biography of Wallis and in various articles she's written as well. That's probably where you heard about being able to lay flowers on their grave. But Anna Pasternak is a royal correspondent who had personal connections to the royal family which allowed her to do this. Sarah Ferguson herself also laid flowers on Wallis's grave and recounted doing so in her memoirs.
More information on Frogmore Royal Burial Ground.
Had Queen Elizabeth not granted Edward permission for him and Wallis to be buried at Frogmore, their intention was to be buried at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore where many of Wallis's relatives are buried. They even bought a plot there. That is a normal cemetery that's open to the public and I've actually been there.
Do you think that either edward or wallis were intelligent (emotionally or academically) he is portrayed as being kind of dim alot of the time. Thank you (I love your blog btw)
Thanks for reaching out!
This is a very subjective question, though still an interesting one and largely I'm just going to answer based on my opinion. I don't believe there is any one clear metric of intelligence and like most people Edward and Wallis were intelligent in some areas and unintelligent in others and in many cases made unwise decisions based on emotions and stress rather than any kind of rational analysis.
Of the two, I definitely think Wallis was the more intelligent, both in terms of book smarts and street smarts. I think this is obvious just from reading their letters; not only did Wallis write in a more educated and intelligent way, but she was also better at assessing risks, making plans, and predicting other people's behavior. I think overall Wallis had well above-average intelligence. She was praised for her intelligence by some of her friends over the years, but also by quite a few of her enemies who thought a clever woman was something to be suspicious of. Wallis herself was pretty self-deprecating about her intelligence, particularly when it came to her complete inability to do math, but I don't think that ever actually held her back all that much.
When it comes to Edward, I think his intelligence overall varied wildly depending on whether he was interested in a topic and his mood and impulses. He was certainly not book smart, though I also don't think he was quite as ignorant as he's sometimes been accused of being. It's worth noting he genuinely did write pretty much all of A King's Story and both the published book and his unpublished drafts (many of which were later published in the recent book Once a King) reveal him to be a pretty decent writer, capable of using the kind of words and prose that would be expected of someone with a college education. But he also wasn't really on the level of a professional writer or someone with an advanced degree, and in his personal writings his spelling and grammar were awful. He did speak three languages fluently (English, German, and Spanish) and knew bits and pieces of French as well, which is certainly more than I can say for myself as someone who, like most Americans, is only fluent in English. Intelligence is generally some combination of innate ability and education, and Edward himself believed he had been very poorly educated, particularly in his early childhood when he was privately tutored instead of attending school, and almost all of his biographers tend to agree with him on that point. Edward was often prone to acting impulsively and making bad decisions, which some have attributed to a lack of intelligence (and I guess thinking rationally is a type of intelligence) but I think to think that was more of an emotional problem than an intellectual one.
Neither Edward nor Wallis were intellectuals and neither had much interest in highbrow art, though Edward was probably the greater philistine of the two. Edward's general lack of interest in, or knowledge of, great works of literature and classical music is one of the main sources of the view that he was 'kind of dim' as you put it, and this is something that was noted and frowned upon by many courtiers and aristocrats. Both in Edward's time and to a lesser extent today, being 'well-read' and 'cultured' is a pretty significant class marker, and I think it was viewed by some as problematic that the person who in theory was at the very top of the class system was only concerned with less-prestigious art forms like fashion and popular music. But I don't think he was unique in that respect among members of the royal family, nor in terms of the general population. The same criticism has been leveled at many of Edward's relatives. I think there is some merit to the idea that art and media consumption is correlated with intelligence, but it's hardly the only factor and these critiques also fail to account for the fact that Edward was actually a very creative and artistic person, but he was just drawn to the 'wrong' kind of art, especially in regards to fashion, so it doesn't count.
And overall when it came to third party accounts of Edward's intelligence, the views ranged from very stupid to very smart depending on how much someone liked him and how he came across in that person's company. The most glowing review he probably got was from Wallis, who told Cecil Beaton that Edward was "one of the greatest brains" of their era. Of course, she was a little biased. Accounting for all of the many types of intelligence a person can have, I would guess Edward was above-average in some areas, below-average in others, and on the whole it balances out to him being of roughly average intelligence, not someone particularly notable either for his brilliance or lack thereof.
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