Anne Sebba

An audience in the Assembly Room at the Town Hall on Saturday afternoon heard from Ms Sebba, visiting the town as part of Devizes Festival, that the double-divorcee never for one moment thought Edward would abdicate to marry her.

To her dismay, she found herself shackled to “one of the most boring men in the world” for the next 36 years.

Ms Sebba had unprecedented access to an archive of letters between Wallis and Ernest Simpson that made it clear she retained a high level of affection for her former husband and that he was “the only man who understands me.”

Born in genteel poverty in the US mid-West, with her father dying of tuberculosis at a young age, the young Wallis Warfield – she chose to drop her given name of Bessie – was determined to marry into wealth.

Her first foray foundered after husband Wynn Spencer proved to be a violent, abusive alcoholic.

She developed a unique method of ensnaring rich men by finding out all she could about them and skewering them with her violet eyes.

Finding herself in London, she inveigled her way into society and soon found a new victim in the heir to the throne.

But it backfired, as the new King of England became besotted and threatened to cut his own throat sooner than give her up. He wasn’t joking.

When the news of the affair broke, she found herself the most hated woman in the world and begged Edward to give her up. He would not.

Ms Sebba had even more astonishing revelations to make.

Mrs Simpson did not have “all the equipment” necessary to a woman who wants to have a family and it is highly likely that the king was infertile as well.

Ms Sebba also revealed that, in researching her biography, she had gone to Mexico to interview free diver Aaron Solomons.

He was the son of Ernest Simpson by the woman he married after Wallis. Mr Simpson was Jewish and had changed his name from Solomons for “business reasons.”

The duke died of throat cancer in 1972 and his duchess was said to have endured another 14 years of miserable solitude, with nothing but her jewellery to keep her company in the Paris home the couple had shared.