Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David) was King of the United Kingdom, the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India, from 20 Jan 1936 until his abdication on 11 Dec the same year.

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Edward was the eldest son of George V and Mary of Teck. He was named Prince of Wales on his sixteenth birthday, nine weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young man, he served in the British Army during the First World War and undertook several overseas tours on behalf of his father.

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Edward became king on his father's death in early 1936. However, he showed impatience with court protocol, and caused concern among politicians by his apparent disregard for established constitutional conventions. Only months into his reign, he caused a constitutional crisis by proposing marriage to Wallis Simpson, an American who had divorced her first husband and was seeking a divorce from her second. The prime ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions opposed the marriage, arguing that a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands was politically and socially unacceptable as a prospective queen consort. Additionally, such a marriage would have conflicted with Edward's status as the titular head of the Church of England, which at the time disapproved of remarriage after divorce if a former spouse was still alive. Edward knew that the British government, led by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, would resign if the marriage went ahead, which could have forced a general election and would ruin his status as a politically neutral constitutional monarch. When it became apparent that he could not marry Wallis and remain on the throne, Edward abdicated. He was succeeded by his younger brother, George VI. With a reign of 326 days, Edward was one of the shortest-reigning monarchs in British history.

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After his abdication, he was created Duke of Windsor. He married Wallis in France on 3 June 1937, after her second divorce became final. Later that year, the couple toured Germany. During the Second World War, he was at first stationed with the British Military Mission to France but, after private accusations that he held Nazi sympathies, he was appointed Governor of the Bahamas. After the war, Edward spent the rest of his life in retirement in France.

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Edward was officially invested as Prince of Wales in a special ceremony at Caernarvon Castle on 13 July 1911. The investiture took place in Wales, at the instigation of the Welsh politician David Lloyd George, Constable of the Castle and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Liberal government. Lloyd George invented a rather fanciful ceremony in the style of a Welsh pageant, and coached Edward to speak a few words in Welsh.

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When the First World War broke out in 1914, Edward had reached the minimum age for active service and was keen to participate. He had joined the Grenadier Guards in June 1914, and although Edward was willing to serve on the front lines, Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener refused to allow it, citing the immense harm that would occur if the heir to the throne were captured by the enemy.

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Despite this, Edward witnessed trench warfare first-hand and attempted to visit the front line as often as he could, for which he was awarded the Military Cross in 1916. His role in the war, although limited, made him popular among veterans of the conflict. Edward undertook his first military flight in 1918, and later gained a pilot's licence.

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Throughout the 1920s, Edward, as Prince of Wales, represented his father, King George V, at home and abroad on many occasions. His rank, travels, good looks, and unmarried status gained him much public attention, and at the height of his popularity, he was the most photographed celebrity of his time.

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In 1930, George V gave Edward the lease of Fort Belvedere, in Windsor Great Park. There, Edward had relationships with a series of married women, including Freda Dudley Ward and Lady Furness, the American wife of a British peer, who introduced the prince to her friend and fellow American Wallis Simpson. Simpson had divorced her first husband, U.S. naval officer Win Spencer, in 1927. Her second husband, Ernest Simpson, was a British-American businessman. Wallis Simpson and the Prince of Wales, it is generally accepted, became lovers while Lady Furness travelled abroad, though Edward adamantly insisted to his father that he was not intimate with her, and that it was not appropriate to describe her as his mistress. Edward's relationship with Simpson, however, further weakened his poor relationship with his father. Although King George V and Queen Mary met Simpson at Buckingham Palace in 1935, they later refused to receive her.

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Edward's affair with an American divorcee led to such grave concern that the couple were followed by members of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, who examined in secret the nature of their relationship. An undated report detailed a visit by the couple to an antique shop, where the proprietor later noted "that the lady seemed to have  the Prince of Wales completely under her thumb." The prospect of having an American divorcee with a questionable past having such sway over the heir apparent led to anxiety among government and establishment figures.

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Edward succeeded as King on the death of his father in January 1936. Due to the Depression, high unemployment existed throughout Britain. South Wales was an area that was particularly affected, resulting in many families being reduced to poverty. Edward visited the area in the summer of 1936 and was very moved by the deprivation he witnessed. When he remarked that "something must be done to find these people work." it gained him the approval of the people, but not well received by the government.

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Edward informed his Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, that he intended to marry Mrs Simpson as soon as her impending divorce from Ernest Simpson was ratified. Since the monarch was also head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith, a conflict of interests was imminent. The King decided he should abdicate rather than create a constitutional crisis. On 10th December, 1936, Edward signed the Instrument of Abdication at Windsor, which was witnessed by his three brothers.

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On 11th December, Edward made a radio broadcast to the nation, stating "You must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love." He was succeeded by his brother, Albert, Duke of York, who chose to reign as George VI, to mark the continuity with his father's reign, one of his first actions was to create his brother Duke of Windsor.

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The Duke of Windsor married Mrs Simpson in a civil ceremony at the Chateau de Conde, near Tour in France on 3 June, 1937. He remained in exile in France, regarded as a virtual outcast by the rest of the royal family. The marriage produced no children and his brother, the new King, George VI continually refused to grant the Duchess of Windsor the style of Royal Highness, which became a lasting source of ill feeling and friction between the brothers.

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In October 1937, the Duke and Duchess visited Germany, against the advice of the British government, and met Adolf Hitler at his Obersalzberg retreat. The visit was much publicised by the German media. During the visit the Duke gave full Nazi salutes.

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On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, they were brought back to Britain by Louis Mountbatten, and the Duke, although an honorary Field Marshal, was made a Major General attached to the British Military Mission in France.When Germany invaded the north of France in May 1940, the Windsors fled south, first to Biarritz, then in June to Spain. In July they moved to Lisbon.

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In July 1940, Edward was appointed Governor of the Bahamas. At the end of the war, the couple returned to France and spent the remainder of their lives essentially in retirement as the Duke never occupied another official role. The Duke's allowance was supplemented by government favours and illegal currency trading.

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The Duke and Duchess effectively took on the role of celebrities and were regarded as part of café society in the 1950s and 1960s. They hosted parties and shuttled between Paris and New York

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He died of throat cancer in Paris on 28th May, 1972. Toward the end of his life, he experienced a reconciliation with his niece, Elizabeth II, who visited the seriously ill Duke when on a state tour of France. His body was returned to Frogmore, Windsor, where his American wife was eventually brought to lie beside him in a grave marked simply Wallis, his wife.

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Edward's father George V was an emotionally distant father who ruled his own household with an iron fist.

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Sad, none of Edward's family attended his wedding to Wallis, in 1937.

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Edward's unorthodox approach to his role also extended to the coinage that bore his image. He broke with the tradition that the profile portrait of each successive monarch faced in the direction opposite to that of his or her predecessor. Edward insisted that he face left (as his father had done), to show the parting in his hair. Only a handful of test coins were struck before the abdication, and all are very rare!

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Source: Wikipedia.org/englishmonarchs.co.uk

Edward (second from left) with his father and younger siblings (Albert and Mary) in 1899

Edward as a midshipman on board

HMS Hindustan, 1910

Edward, Prince of Wales at Merville, France during the First World War

Edward in 1932

King Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson on holiday in Yugoslavia, 1936.

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Edward reviewing a squad of SS in 1937

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Photo: National Maritime Museum/UK Government/Wikimedia

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Edward outside the White House on the day the Japanese surrender ending World War II.

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President Nixon greets the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, 4th April 1970