Is Meghan Markle really the new Wallis Simpson?

The former actress’s wedding car was the
same model that carried Wallis Simpson to her husband’s funeral

In Depth

Markle, who grew up in Los Angeles, was married to Hollywood
producer Trevor Engelson from 2011 to 2013 before she met Prince
Harry at the age of 34.

Simpson, who grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, had divorced US
naval officer Win Spencer and was still married to her second
husband Ernest Simpson when she met Edward, then Prince of Wales,
in 1931. She was also 34.

Unlike Markle, Simpson’s royal romance caused a constitutional
crisis. King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 after less than a year
so he could marry Simpson and the couple were exiled to France.
After their deaths, they were buried at Frogmore, Windsor, where
Prince Harry and his bride held their wedding reception.

The royal family’s “stigmatisation of divorce” seems to have
finally faded away, says Vogue.

Prince Harry’s parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana,
divorced in 1996. The Church of England started to allow divorcees
with living spouses to remarry from 2002.

Accordingly, the public response to Markle has been very
different to Simpson, with the latest royal wedding celebrated
across the country.

“Markle and Simpson’s American roots and previous marriages are
about all the women seem to have in common,” says Newsweek.

Andrew Morton, author of the biography Wallis in Love,
says the biggest difference is that “Meghan Markle seems to have a
sense of wanting to give back, whereas Wallis only ever wanted to
take”.

He told Fox News that Simpson was “quite bitter” and
uninterested in helping others, spending lots of money on clothes
and jewellery and doing “nothing other than sit around”.

Strikingly, Markle’s ancestors are said to have worked as slaves
on the cotton plantations of Georgia, while some of Simpson’s
relatives built their fortunes on the back of slave labour.

“In their markedly different ways, Wallis Simpson and Meghan
Markle have changed the monarchy – or at least the way the monarchy
is perceived,” says Morton.

“Yet, while the first American duchess divided the nation,
Meghan, simply by being herself – biracial, divorced and American
and certainly not from the upper classes – is a uniting
figure.”