The King's Son

Marie, Maria, Marcelle, May, Mary, Maggie … and the Duke of Windsor

Edward, known to his inner circle as David, was the eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary. He was invested as Edward, Prince of Wales on his sixteenth birthday, just nine weeks after his father, King George V, succeeded his grandfather as king in 1910.

In 1936, David succeeded his father as King Edward VIII. In the shortest reign in the past 450 years of British royalty, he abdicated 236 days later in favour of his brother when he was refused consent to his proposed marriage to Wallis Simpson.

As a young man, David served with the British Army in France during the First World War. In the years following, his relationship with his father deteriorated. The king was appalled by the continual reports of his very public relationships with mainly well-known, married women.

The first of his many trysts, however, was quite different – not only did the love affair continue for nearly three years – it resulted in the birth of a son in Paris in 1916 whilst the Prince was on active service in France… and remained a closely kept secret.

This is the incredible true story of the only son of Edward VIII ‒ later to become the Duke of

Windsor and marry Wallis Simpson.

RESEARCHED, WRITTEN & EDITED

by

J.J. BARRIE

Published by:

CUSTOM BOOK PUBLICATIONS

Asia's Global Print & Digital Publisher

CCLASSIC imprint

Copyright 2019 J.J. Barrie

The

KING’S

SON

A BIOGRAPHY of

PIERRE-ÉDOUARD GRAFTIEAUX

the only son of the

DUKE of WINDSOR

The Australian-born author has successfully published a number of books based largely on true events; and has professionally edited more than ninety books for Publishers. More books from this Author …

TO KILL A PRIEST

‘A marvellously well-plotted, topical novel … engrossing and … a sensitive treatment of paedophilia, and murder.’

Tom Flood, Miles Franklin Award-winning author. 2010

MONA LISA The Virgin Mother

‘A dog barked … another answered.

In the tiny, ancient walled village of Anchiario, an illegitimate baby boy was born to a nineteen-year-old barmaid. Fathered by a visiting notary, in due course he would be baptised into the mother church in his father’s village of Vinci. He would be named Leonardo – Leonardo da Vinci. The date was 15 April 1452.’

A most engaging and plausible plot... Daily Telegraph 2011

THE EMIGRANTS

Book One THE BROTHERS FIVE 2014

Book Two GOLD & GLORY 2016

Ships invariably departed with a largely human cargo – the wretches for transport to the colonies as convicts were chained hand to hand, foot to foot in one long row, shuffling forward to some unheard cadence. Now the exodus as emigrants was no less sad.

For many the only difference was the lack of chains and the crack of the cat-o-nine tails …

… and the best-selling

CURSE OF THE DIAMONDS

Her maid knocked softly.

When there was no answer, she knocked once more then entered.

Mesmerised she asked, ‘Do you require assistance with the necklace, m’lady?’ With no answer, she touched her employer on the shoulder. The shadow seemingly encasing her disappeared. The maid screamed.

Lady Winton was dead.

The Curse of the Diamonds!

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Extensive original research sourced much information from personal documents; diaries and journals; business records; photographs; public domain print and internet sources including Wikipedia; Dormoy and other Parisian couturier webpages and histories; Encyclopaedia Britannica; the Breteuil family histories; P&O archives; the history of Grosvenor House Hotel, Whites; French Army records; Colditz Castle archives; Prince of Wales and Duke of Windsor archives and biographical information; newspaper reports of the time; Marcel Dormoy and Prince of Wales letters 1914-16; World War I & II records, Daily Mail, US Army libraries, Studio Fémina archives, and other resources.

Some documents rely on translations, largely from the French originals.

Much information was sourced from François Graftieaux – the only living male relative, and grandson of Marie-Léonie Graftieaux – who provided his own translations of parts of L’homme qui Aurait dû être Roi, co-authored in the French language with Hélène Grosso and Jean Siccard; published by French publisher, Cherche Midi in 201; and not been published in English.

Many websites and publications stood out, none more so than

Les Parisiennes; How the Women of Paris lived, loved and died in the 1940s Anne Sebba - published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2016.

The final section is deliberately taken almost verbatim from Wikipedia without additional comment.

FOREWORD

The only surviving male descendant, François Graftieaux, the grandson of Marie-Léonie Graftieaux, was born in Morocco in 1946 into the French Military family of his father. He has spent a lifetime contemplating his Grandfather, naturally wondering as to the legitimacy of the lineage handed down by his Grandmother. From her retirement in 1951 until her death in 1981, he had the opportunity of regular and all-embracing discussions. Her unwavering recollections were supported by extensive memorabilia, family records, her letters, diaries and journals, and …her watch.

The evidence emerging from the underlying research is more than persuasive. The substantial monetary and physical support provided through Frederick Finch – the Duke of Windsor’s ‘man’; the dairies, journals and letters; the son’s 19th birthday visit to London; the supporting P&O passenger list; the use of the well-known Paris ‘family’ photographer, Studio Fémina to produce portraits, and the gift of the Cadenas watch on the birth of the first grandchild …all add to a positive conclusion.

Coincidence can only go so far.

The easy way would have been to compare DNA samples. Over the years, attempts were made to have Buckingham Palace agree to a simple testing of the DNA of preferably HRH Prince Charles or another sibling of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Rejection of this request was not unexpected given the reluctance of the Royal family to assist in resolution of such hereditary claims.

The simple fact is that the Duke of Windsor, as the Prince of Wales, fathered the son in 1916, and is the paternal grandfather, acknowledging the child in various ways over the years. The extensive lineage of the Royal family is well-known and the assumed genetic markers relatively simple. His predominant DNA markers would have been a North-Western European with an Anglo-Celtic/United Kingdom bias, with a strong secondary marker from Northern European/ Germanic sources, given the family’s extensive German heritage.

Source-Ancestry.com

The mother – the paternal grandmother – was a working-class Parisian girl with substantially French antecedents. Later her son’s wife – the mother – from the French/Swiss Kenel family, had similar lineage.

Whilst nothing is absolute in genetics, the Duke of Windsor remains the only substantial source of Anglo/UK markers. The grandson would have inherited a quarter of his genes from each of his four grandparents, providing a result comparable to his actual DNA analysis in which he exhibits the following markers:

North-Western European ( Anglo/United Kingdom) …. 61%

South-Western European (France/Gallic) … 15%

Central European (German/Swiss) …21%

Traces: North Africa/ SE Asia.. 3%

.

This simplistic analysis of the DNA of the descendants, permits one to say only that the lineage fits. Although the evidence is there, one cannot with finality, identify the father from that information. Edward, Prince of Wales equally is not able to be dismissed.

The Son of the Duke of Windsor

after his ‘real’ marriage in 1944

Fascial Comparison

Another often telling feature of particularly male descendants, is that of facial comparison. Whilst there is nothing absolute in this test, it can be persuasive evidence.

The fascial images of the Prince of Wales have been compared with that of the son and grandson with compelling results.

PROLOGUE

The year is 1895…

Edward sat in his study, stretching his legs in front of the fire.

He raised the fine crystal glass to his lips … the tart aroma of the French Bordeaux wine activated his senses. He contemplated his family, something he had been doing more of lately. He would be fifty-five shortly and his dominant mother, Queen Victoria, had already been on the throne for fifty-eight years – a couple more years and she would celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. Both she and his father, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, failed to support him – their eldest son – against the complaints of his behaviour. Even though only rumours reached into these deep inner sanctums of the family, his mother believed each regardless.

As heir apparent, he was already the longest serving Prince of Wales and inevitably he met many handsome women in his travels throughout the realm he would one day rule – the main problem was that they were usually married. Although married to Alexandra of Denmark, he had to admit to many mistresses over the years and his mother continued to largely exclude him from political matters, no doubt in retaliation.

It was not his fault, he thought, that he had come to personify the fashionable, leisured elite and that he popularised many trends in fashion. But then no-one could suggest he was idle – at the behest of his mother he travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial public duties and representing Britain on visits abroad. His extensive tours of North America in 1860 had been a hugely popular success but despite this public approval, his reputation as the playboy prince continued to sour his relationship with her. His long visit to the Indian sub-continent next year would be a triumph and she would have nothing to complain about …he had no interest in Indian women.

His German-born butler, Hans Weber, poured another. Fine wine that, Edward thought.

Although his eldest son, Albert continued to be sickly, he should be taking more of these opening and ribbon-cutting ceremonies onto his program. Anyway he would be away for the next two months… he closed his eyes; his ship was leaving this coming Friday for France… tres bon!

The newly commissioned HMS Majestic, now deployed with the Channel Force, would leave from Portsmouth and take him and his entourage to Cherbourg, from where they would continue by rail to Paris.

His second son, George was an officer on board Majestic … he had not seen him since last Christmas. Friday, he thought…

On 3 June 1895, in another part of London at Marlborough House, St James’s, Mary – the wife of Prince George, went into labour. Her husband was in Portsmouth serving on the Royal Navy battleship HMS Majestic, which was being cleaned, painted and spit-polished in readiness for the embarkation of Edward, the Prince of Wales this coming Friday on his official visit to France.

‘Oh, my God! The pain…’ she uttered as the next contraction ripped through her body…

A few months later another birth occurred in vastly different circumstances. On the 16 August 1895, in a tiny two-room apartment in the Paris suburb of Moulin de la Vierge in the 14th arr., a girl was born to Alexis and Marie Graftieaux. Her parents named her Marie-Léonie – after her mother and grandmother.

They were poor and both worked long hours to survive – he as a butcher’s assistant and, when there was work, she was a cutter in a clothing factory located between nearby rue de l’Ouest and the adjacent railway tracks. When there was none, she worked as a house cleaner. They shared their tiny abode with her ageing mother who had agreed to look after the baby while she worked her long eleven-hour shifts, six days each week. Her foreman, however, allowed her thirty minutes off each four hours so she could walk the few minutes to her home and feed her baby. Alexis worked from dawn for ten hours a day so he could relieve her mother most afternoons.

From this start in life, both a young Marie-Léonie Graftieaux and Marcelle Dormoy in due course, would emerge … just as a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis!

Ten days before Christmas 1895 at York Cottage, a house in the grounds of Sandringham House in Norfolk, England, Mary of Teck – wife of George V – gave birth to their second son.

Succession was not a problem – last year on 23rd June, she had given birth to his elder brother, Edward. He was first in line to the throne after her husband and destined to be the Prince of Wales and the next king – Edward VIII.

Although unplanned – subsequently he became the next king and then the Duke of Windsor.

PART ONE

The Seamstress and her Prince

March 1912

The young prince had not been out of Great Britain since visiting Denmark when he was aged four, a trip he hardly even remembered. When his father suggested that he should visit France in order to improve his French, he could hardly contain himself.

‘David, you will be staying with an old friend …a friendship which goes back to my father…’ King George continued slowly. ‘The Marquis has two sons about your age; a year or two older, I suspect… yes, yes, you will be well looked after. I have agreed that you may stay in France for three months, returning home for your eighteenth birthday; however you may return after those celebrations are complete if you wish. Have Finch organise everything. Now…’

He put the taper to his cigar and puffed until satisfied it was alight; coughed once, then again before continuing. ‘Umm… maybe Finch should go with you; he probably needs time off, as well.’

‘Thank you, Father; that’s wonderful. I will discuss arrangements with him.’

Buckingham Palace has served as the London residence of the British sovereigns and their families since 1837 and is today the administrative headquarters of the Monarchy, as well.

David sat in his favourite chair in the sitting room of his Buckingham Palace suite.

Frederick Finch, his ‘man’ for some years, sat opposite. Finch had been, or was, variously his nanny, tutor, companion, loyal assistant and butler. He had just turned forty-one years-old, was tall, well-built and fit. Totally committed to his charge, he was intensely loyal.

His smile was unusually large; the Prince was becoming quite excited as the details of his visit were resolved.

Finch replied to his question.

‘You shall be incognito… we must take care not to cause any embarrassment to the French Government. You will travel as the Earl of Chester. This is a private trip at the invitation of Henri, Marquis le Tonnelier de Breteuil, ostensibly to improve your French, if I may say so, sir.’ Finch smiled.

‘I am aware of the reason… but how will we make that work?’

‘Well, the primary improvement will come from you joining the two boys, François and Jacques, but we should consider some formal instruction in the final month… in any event you should try to speak only French from the time we reach their coast until your return. One thing the French do not do, is speak any English and they are very proud of their language. In those circumstances you will be surprised how quickly your language skills will improve. To assist I have purchased a small two-way dictionary, to improve your vocabulary. That is quite important… no doubt you will find an evening or two available?’

‘I trust not too many, Frederick. Paris… how exciting! Have you made any decision to come; Father said you could? I am so excited… when do we depart?’

‘Yes, I will go with you for the first few weeks; after that we shall see. Do not concern yourself with me, I am an old hand at finding plenty to occupy myself. Paris is a great city at any time but March and the first days of spring are superb.

I suggest we depart from Dover on the morning of Thursday – nine days’ time; that will allow a sufficient period to make our arrangements.

On arrival we shall require a car to transfer us to the station at Calais; then on to Paris by rail where we shall be met at Gare du Nord. The Marquis’ home is near the Arc de Triomphe, so we will drive