Yet the winsome royal bachelor, Ziegler shows unmistakably, worried family and associates even before the abdication crisis because he drank too hard, loathed his duties and goldfish-bowl existence, lacked intellectual ballast, carried on affairs with married women, and refused to leave Wallis Simpson, a calculating two-time American divorcee who probably dominated him more through shrewishness than love. At first, Edward won affection with his common touch and his impassioned pleading for WWI veterans and better housing. Ziegler quickly dismisses Charles Higham's sensational gossip ( The Duchess of Windsor, 1988)-e.g., lesbianism, prostitution, sadomasochism-yet even what he does tell about the "half child, half genius" described by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin is painful. Given access to a wealth of crucial sources, including the Royal Archives and more than 2,000 of the Duke of Windsor's long-lost love letters, Ziegler ( Mountbatten, 1985 The Sixth Great Power, 1988, etc.) strikes a balance between the two images in this evenhanded but rueful authorized biography. Was King Edward VIII simply a Prince Charming who yielded his throne for "the woman I love" or was he, as recent biographers have claimed, a political naif bewitched by a sexual adventuress?
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