A controversial letter reveals that the Queen’s father had an affair with a socialite Australian Lady.
Albert Frederick Arthur George, also known as George VI, died aged 56, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from December 11, 1936, until his death in 1952. He was concurrently the last Emperor of India until August 1947, when the British Raj was dissolved.
Queen Elizabeth II’s uncle, Edward VIII, the Prince of Wales, has emerged with a shocking handwritten letter, revealing how he planned to help her father spend some time alone with a married woman he was infatuated with.
The letter was written on June 9, 1919, much before George VI ascended to the throne after his brother abdicated in 1936. The letter reveals how Edward plotted to get the two alone through a seemingly innocent game of golf.
George VI desires an Australian socialite named Lady Sheila Loughborough, despite his father King George V’s warning him from seeing her. The two were in their 20’s at that time, with George VI’s reportedly 1st meeting the Lady.
Edward and George visited Lord and Lady Loughborough’s home near Winchester, Hampshire, and Edward convinced the Lord to play a round of golf with him.
He laments in the letter, which is addressed to his own married lover at the time, Freda Dudley Ward, he said: “I simply couldn’t hit a ball at golf & Bertie beat my head off, f- him… we motored on to Winchester reaching Lankhills at 5:30.”
He continued: “After tea, I managed to lure Loughie (Lord Loughborough) away on the pretext of wanting to play a few more holes of golf on the local course, so as to give Sheilie a chance of being alone with Bertie (Prince Albert).”
“They said they were tired and we left them, but imagine my horror darling when on arriving at the links we found they were closed on Sundays!! However, I kept my head and took Loughie for a walk instead!” he added.
The royal affair with the socialite quickly came to its end in 1920, after King George V found out about it. It is said that he offered to make his son the Duke of York if he stopped seeing Lady Loughborough.
That year, he met Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the youngest daughter of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. He became determined to marry her. She rejected his proposal twice, in 1921 and 1922, reportedly because she was reluctant to make the sacrifices necessary to become a member of the royal family.
After a protracted courtship, Elizabeth agreed to marry him and later became the Queen Mother. While his brother left Freda in 1934 and met American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
Despite the end of the affair, the two continued to correspond, even when Lady Loughborough returned to Australia. George VI, who was in his early twenties at the time of the letter, met Lady Loughborough at a dance in Stafford House, London, in 1918.
The 103-year-old letter was not seen by the public before, but it started to emerge when the owner of it has decided to put it up for an auction. It is currently up for $3,300 at London-based Forum Auctions, with the sale set to take place on February 10.
The Duke and Duchess of York had two children, then known as Princess Elizabeth (called “Lilibet” by the family), who was born in 1926, and Margaret who was born in 1930. The Queen Mother sadly died in March 2002 aged 101.