A documentary on the history of Queen Elizabeth II, The Queen's Diamond Decades," shows how the British monarch managed the reconciliation of the royal family and her estranged uncle, Edward VIII, who had spent 30 years exiled in France.
The said series comes in six episodes and tells the monarch's story from the start of her reign until her Diamond Jubilee. Spanning more than six decades, it not only touches on the definitive history of Her Majesty the Queen since she gained the throne at age 25 years, but also gives a peek into Britain through the years and its role in events around the world.
Interestingly, the coverage disclosed how the 93-year-old monarch managed to welcome back into the fold the former ruler of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, King Edward VIII, who had abdicated his throne in his first year of rule, in 1936.
Moreover, the account tells of how, thereafter, the royal then reverted to his title of Duke of Windsor and married his sweetheart, Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite. He had only sat on the throne for ten months when he stepped down.
The couple since lived in France for three decades, until in 1967, Queen Elizabeth issued an official invitation that would bring the Duke and Duchess of Windsor home. The royal couple did go to attend the ceremony of the centenary memorial of Queen Mary, the Duke's mother, and grandmother to reigning Queen Elizabeth.
The Duke though remained casual about the homecoming, however momentous it had been. Some scenes caught in footage from that time revealed the matter-of-fact manner that the he viewed his attendance during the event.
In the aforementioned footage, he was quoted to have said that it was a "natural" matter for him to have been present, being the "eldest son," and take part in the "purely private" memorial for his mother which had been attended by "family" only.
In this documentary series, it was told that the Queen had been the primary instrument in "gently" bringing back the Duke as well as his wife into the life of the royal family, long after the scandal of the Duke's marriage.
The factual series had also shown footage of Queen Elizabeth in conversation with the Duchess, however it was noted that the Duke's mother, was nowhere near. That supported the notion that Mrs. Simpson's reception by the Queen mother was anything more than icy.
More so was this opinion made evident in a letter that Queen Mary had written, referring to the Duke's wife as the "lowest," in her estimation, "of the low," as well as "thoroughly immoral."
That visit was the only one the Duke and Duchess of Windsor made to the United Kingdom for a public royal visit. The other time when Edward set foot in England had been an earlier visit, in 1965, when he had to undergo some surgery for his eye. During this latterly mentioned sojourn, he was visited by Queen Elizabeth discreetly.
The next time the Queen saw her uncle was on his deathbed. This was in his Paris home in 1972. The encounter had been told of by Hugo Vickers, a historian, in another documentary which was aired in 2018 on Channel 5.
The special was entitled Elizabeth: Our Queen. In it, Vickers tells of the meeting of the Queen and her uncle, as well as of her annoyance with Wallis Simpson, who was of course present at the residence.
Vickers described the visit, saying the Queen had called upon the Duke and Duchess, and shared tea with the latter. An incident with the resident dogs had apparently "annoyed" the Queen, since she disliked "badly behaved" pets. The two women were said to have talked about "anything and everything" but the "dying man" who was in the upstairs room.
Finally then, the Queen ascended the stairs to see her dying relative. But when she had gone inside the room, her uncle had struggled to get up from bed to offer his obeisance to his queen. The royal historian explained that his niece's visit had meant "a great deal" to the Duke for her to have offered him that "final courtesy."
Not long after the Queen's visit, the Edward, the Duke of Cambridge, died. Mrs. Simpson was then invited by the Queen to the Buckingham Palace for the duration of the funeral, which was carried out at the St. George's Chapel in Windsor.
The Duke was buried at Frogmore in Royal Burial Ground, where later, Mrs. Simpson would also be laid to rest in 1986. The arrangement had been agreed upon in 1965; prior that, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had made plans for their final resting place to be in Baltimore, which was the birthplace of Mrs. Simpson.
During the Duke's funeral, it was Queen Elizabeth who had convinced her grandmother, the Queen mother, to stay by the gravesite by Mrs. Simpson, as a step toward reconcilement.
The documentary on Queen Elizabeth's sixty years as a monarch, The Queen's Diamond Decades, is presented in six episodes, each covering a decade in the Queen's long reign.
