Windsor's Living

Omitted from the Court Circular, usually meticulous in announcing movements of members of the Royal Family, was a luncheon at Buckingham Palace last week of the Queen Mother, the King and Queen and the Earl & Countess of Athlone. This was to consider the draft of a financial settlement for the Duke of Windsor brought from Austria by Sir Walter Monckton, and the Royal Family had to face among other matters the Duke's demand that provision be made not only for himself during his lifetime but for Mrs. Simpson, irrespective of whether he lives or dies. Windsor was in irascible mood last week, perhaps because of the bleak weather in Austria which kept him indoors. Incessantly he telephoned not only Mrs. Simpson but various people in England. At 1 a. m. the Buckingham Palace operator was told from Schloss Enzesfeld to put on the wire Major Ulick Alexander, Keeper of the Privy Purse of King George VI.

"He is not in the Palace, Sir," the Duke was informed, whereat Windsor used a few choice expressions and the Keeper of the King's Privy Purse was finally coerced to the phone. Among dignitaries of the Court, all now thoroughly tired of Windsor, the expression was current this week: "If he gets what he probably will get, the Royal Family will have precious little personal income left for themselves during the next five years."

Reputedly His Majesty is stipulating that Windsor must not wed sooner than ten days after the Coronation (May 12) and that the Duke & Mrs. Simpson must agree in writing not to act on stage, screen, radio programs or do memoirs or press articles.

Of late Mrs. Simpson has hurried home from Riviera parties by midnight, for Windsor has taken to telephoning her at odd moments in the dead of night, as well as morning & evening. He sent her last week a home movie titled I Take Ski Lessons full of spills. Abruptly this week Mrs. Simpson and her Cannes hosts Mr. & Mrs. Herman L. Rogers piled into the royal Buick, sped toward the French chateau country through a rainstorm. All Mrs. Simpson's previous large trunks plus three new ones just arrived from Paris were shipped after her from Cannes. Riviera friends said she planned to look over French chateaux with a view to rental while Edward keeps looking over Austrian castles. Meanwhile the Duke was said excitedly by the Philadelphia Record to have a rental option on The Cloisters, an elaborate pseudo-Tudor estate near Baltimore, Md.

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