Duke of Windsor

He was the first English or British monarch since King James II (1685-1688) whose reign did not end with his death.

First British or English monarch to die outside of Britain since King James II in 1701.

Prince Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David was born on June 23, 1894. He was the son of the future King George V and Queen Mary.

Brother of Mary the Princess Royal (aka Victoria, 1897-1965), Prince Henry (Duke of Gloucester), Prince George (Duke of Kent), and Prince John (1905-1919).

Elder brother of King George VI. As the first son of King George V, he had been invested as the Prince of Wales in 1911. He abdicated before his coronation.

He was in the army and was an uncrowned King for a little under a year after the death of his father in 1936. In the early 30s he met an American divorcee, Wallis Warfield Simpson, who was married to her second husband.

She and the Prince fell in love and she got divorced in 1936. The Establishment reacted against the idea of a twice married American divorcée as Queen, and Edward decided to abdicate in favour of his younger brother Albert who became King George VI.

He and Wallis married in 1937, and became Duke and Duchess of Windsor, though she was not made a Royal Highness. He met Hitler before the war started and Hitler said that Wallis would have made a good Queen. During the war Edward was named Governor of the Bahamas.

After Germany invaded France in May 1940 the Windsors fled to Spain, before moving to Portugal. Edward declined an invitation from the Nazis to return to Spain in July, and shortly afterwards he sailed to become Governor of the Bahamas.

He was unable to attend the state funeral of his former friend and ally Sir Winston Churchill in January 1965 because he was recovering from a serious eye operation at King Edward VII hospital in London.

Is portrayed by Richard Chamberlain in The Woman I Love (1972), Edward Fox in Edward & Mrs. Simpson (1978), Anthony Andrews in The Woman He Loved (1988), Stephen Campbell Moore in Wallis & Edward (2005), and Guy Pearce in The King's Speech (2010).