Kansas town holds unique connection to royal family

KINSLEY, Kan. (KWCH) – Whereas hundreds of thousands across the phrase keep in mind Queen Elizabeth and the affect and legacy she left, one story not broadly recognized is exclusive slice of historical past related with a small western Kansas city. A U.S. Navy pilot from Kinsley named Earl Spencer Jr. married, then divorced Bessie Wallis Warfield, a girl who later went on to marry King Edward VIII. That marriage into Britain’s royal household, Warfield’s third, got here with some controversy.

“The Church of England, and custom was you couldn’t marry a divorced lady, particularly when she had two husbands nonetheless alive,” defined librarian Joan Weaver with the Kinsley Public Library.

Edward would abdicate the throne for Warfield and can be succeeded by his youthful brother, George the VI, Elizabeth II’s father. George died on the age of 56 in February 1952. That’s when Elizabeth took the crown on the age of 25.

“If it hadn’t been for the divorces, perhaps Queen Elizabeth wouldn’t have been queen,” Weaver stated.

Data present Spencer, born in Kinsley in 1888, was married 4 instances earlier than his loss of life in 1950 on the age of 61. His marriage to Warfield lasted from 1916 to 1927.

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