She was unable to forgive her brother-in-law, who became the Duke of Windsor, for what she regarded as a betrayal of the Royal family. She blamed him for her husband’s early death.  Even 60 years after the greatest constitutional crisis to affect the modern monarchy Queen Elizabeth called the affair a “terrible tragedy”. She made the remarks in a series of interviews with Sir Eric Anderson, the former Head Master of Eton, in 1995 the transcripts of which were made available to her biographer, William Shawcross.  She said: “He [Edward] must have been bemused with love, I suppose. You couldn’t reason with him, nobody could. The whole government tried, everybody tried. The only good thing is, I think he was quite happy with her.”  At the time of the crisis the King’s younger brother, the future George VI, had two young daughters Princess Elizabeth, later the Queen, and Princess Margaret. Extracts from a letter he wrote to his mother Queen Mary show his fears for the future over the looming possibility that his older brother might defy the Cabinet and marry Mrs Simpson.  “It has been awful for all of us, but much more so for you, when David (the King) has been trained for the great position he holds & now wants to chuck away. I am feeling very overwrought as to what may befall me, but with your help I know I shall be able to carry on...”  The King had proposed a solution to the problem – a morganatic marriage where his wife would not become Queen and take a lesser title but the government was opposed. So was the future Queen Elizabeth. In a letter to her sister May she said: “I feel so sad, & yet there is only a very straightforward case – if Mrs Simpson is not fit to be Queen, she is not fit to be the King’s morganatic wife.”  The book discloses that she refused a request from Queen Mary, her mother-in-law, to bury the hatchet with the Duke. “Queen Mary asked the King to persuade the Queen to see him – 'to bury the hatchet at last’ .... he seemed so anxious to see her again but E [Queen Elizabeth] could not face it. With the King still frail, she did not feel that she could.”
The late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother believed that Edward VIII was   &ldquo;bemused with love&rdquo; when he abdicated over Wallis Simpson, an American   divorcee, her official biography discloses.