Wallis Simpson, (1896 - 1986) was the mistress of Edward VIII of the United Kingdom and is indirectly responsible for his abdication.
She was christened Bessiwallis Warfield but always known by the short form, Wallis, was born in Pennsylvania, on June 19, 1896. Her first marriage was to Earl Winfield Spencer, in 1916, and divorced him in 1927. Her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, lasted from 1928 until their divorce in 1936. By this time she was living in Britain and had been introduced to the Prince of Wales by a mutual friend. She became his mistress, but was regarded by the royal family as a totally unsuitable wife for the heir to the throne.
It was her status as a divorced woman that made it difficult for Wallis to marry the prince. As king, he would become head of the Church of England, and remarriage for divorcees was strictly forbidden by that church. However, both were determined to make their relationship legal. On his accession to the throne as King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, he looked for ways around the problem and consulted the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury, but no acceptable compromise could be found. The result was the abdication crisis of 1936. King Edward renounced his throne, and the following year he married Wallis, who thus became Duchess of Windsor.
The British royal family never accepted Wallis and would not receive her formally, although the former king sometimes met his mother and brother after his abdication. The couple lived near Paris for most of the remainder of their lives. After the Duke's death in 1972, Wallis lived as a recluse, and herself died on April 24, 1986. She had no children.