BBC Drama

Royal Wives at War (2016x2)

Air date: Jan 08, 2016

It is nearly 80 years since the Abdication Crisis, and this drama documentary, inspired by real events and based on letters, memoirs, biographies and interviews, examines the friction that characterised the relationship between two women: Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and American socialite Wallis Simpson. After Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936, public confidence in the monarchy had been severely eroded. A popular and charismatic king was suddenly gone, having chosen his twice-divorced mistress over his Crown and country, and instead, the responsibilities of monarchy now rested on the nervous shoulders of his younger brother, King George VI, a man very different from his confident and gregarious brother. This would have been challenging at any time, but with Hitler driving Europe to the brink of war, the pressure would test the new King to the very limits of physical endurance. Royal Wives At War returns to the some of the original words and opinions of the two women at the heart of that battle and unravels the story of a frosty relationship between the Queen Mother and Wallis that lasted for decades.