A stroll through historic Green Mount Cemetery, founded in 1839, reveals the final burial places of the 19th and 20th century movers and shakers who helped shape Baltimore and the state — from governors to business and society leaders to writers such as Walter Lord of Titanic fame or the infamous John Wilkes Booth whose grave in the Booth family plot still remains unmarked.
For a time, it looked as though the Duke and Duchess of Windsor might come to rest there.
The upper-class soap opera which attracted worldwide attention arose when following the death of his father, King George V in 1936, Edward ascended the throne.
Edward became enthralled with the Baltimore born and bred Wallis Warfield Simpson, a formidable femme fatale who was divorced and still quite married to Ernest Simpson, a British shipping executive, at a weekend country house party, in 1930.
Before long, friendship turned to love, and by 1934, Edward, who was known as David, jettisoned his mistress and pursued Mrs. Simpson whose husband was not amused.
While news of the affair was kept from the British public, Americans reveled in it.
Furious at her son’s conduct, Queen Mary fumed and called Wallis “that woman,” while Winston Churchill, confidant of the king, labeled her a “cutie.”
Edward, who was never crowned, abdicated on Dec. 11, 1936, explaining in a worldwide radio address that he was “unable to continue without the woman I love.”
H.L. Mencken wrote that it was the “greatest story since the crucifixion.”
Wallis left England under an assumed name and went into exile at the Chateau de Cande, near Tours, France.
Wallis’s divorce from Simpson was final May 3, 1937, and she and Edward married a month later.
This marriage afforded Wallis, who hailed from Biddle Street, numerous social advantages, mainly a direct line into the British aristocracy.
But all was not well.
The royal freeze-out was complete when Wallis was not given the title of “Her Royal Highness.”
However, the couple was ostracized by the royal family, and then they became international freeloaders who lent their presence to the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in return for a spacious suite where they wintered, and presented checks to diners whom they invited at fancy restaurants.
When one guest protested being presented a bill, Wallis in her steely manner, intoned they had “enjoyed the privilege of dining with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.”
When not roaming the world, the couple resided at the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, as guests of the French government.
When it became clear that ostracism would continue after their deaths, the duke instructed his American representative, Clarence W. Miles, a noted Baltimore lawyer, in 1957 to purchase a plot in Green Mount Cemetery, where a mausoleum with two crypts would be constructed to hold their remains.
The site chosen was Rose Circle in the cemetery’s southeastern corner, near Ensor and Hoffman streets, about one-half mile from the Warfield family plot, where Wallis’ father, Teackle Wallis Warfield, is buried.
In 1965, Queen Elizabeth II relented and the interment of the duke and duchess would be allowed at Frogmore, the royal burying ground, at Windsor Castle.
Once the queen’s intentions were made known, the duke asked Miles to quitely dispose of the plot.
Had it not been for the queen’s change of heart, the couple would have spent eternity being serenaded by the passing of Amtrak and MARC trains as they rumbled in and out of the Hoffman Street tunnel.
However, there is another twist to this story.
Eleanor Douglas Wise, a Baltimorean, fell in love with Armand, duc de Richelieu, an international businessman, with extensive holdings in South American and Mexican railroads.
The Richelieu family name is one of the oldest of the French pre-Revolutionary peerage.
The couple were engaged in 1913 and their marriage at the Basilica of the Assumption, was conducted by James Cardinal Gibbons, as the bon-ton of Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York society, filled the pews.
A widow, she was 86 and died childless in Paris.
Unlike Wallis, she returned home and now rests in Green Mount — its only duchess.
