In Memoriam

The Countess of Romanones on the Duchess of Windsor's funeral

Fourteen years ago the Duchess of Windsor exacted a promise of me:

"Aline, when I die, please accompany me to the cemetery and check the spot where they put me. I must be next to David. They've agreed to that."

Following her death in April, I duly received an invitation to the private funeral at Windsor Castle from the lord chamberlain. No sooner had I registered at Claridge's than I received a phone call from a friend who confessed that she was not attending the funeral, because it would hurt her popularity with the royal family. That made me wonder whether this funeral was going to be an uncomfortable affair—royalists versus loyalists.

Before the drive to Windsor the next day, I lunched with Guy de Rothschild and Alexis de Rede and several of the duchess's women friends. We were mystified by our seating cards. Ann Marie von Bismarck's and mine had a diagonal green stripe on them, Alexis's and Guy's had other colored stripes, with no explanation.

The streets of Windsor were lined with people, who peered into our car and took pictures of us. On a high tower above the castle walls flew a yellow flag, indicating the presence of the queen. We were early, so Princess von Bismarck and I asked an official if our green stripe meant that we would be present at the burial. "No," the man told us. "No one except the royal family and the duchess's staff." A driving force all her life, the duchess was evidently powerless in death. Contrary to her wishes, none of her close friends would be present at her interment.

Inside the chapel, we were seated in the inner choir, with carved wood walls. The royal family, stony-faced, were in the positions of honor, and below us, resting on a catafalque, was the duchess's brown English-oak coffin. On it was unequivocal proof that no love was lost, or ever found, between the duchess and the royal family: a paltry bouquet of small yellow and white flowers bestowed by the Queen of England.

Sitting there, I remembered so well the duchess telling me in the days right after the duke died, "How they hated me, that family of my dear husband's. Their cold, heartless ostracizing of us made him buy a plot in a cemetery in America so that we could be buried side by side. When his family found out, they were incensed. A King of England had to be buried with his ancestors. David agreed, on the condition that I would be placed next to him and given the same treatment as the wife of any other royal personage."

Though they had followed their agreement to the letter, the spirit was offensive. The duchess's funeral lasted only twenty-four minutes, and her name was never mentioned. There was no mention of her husband either. Not even death, it seemed, could redeem the man who had renounced the throne of England or the woman who had caused him never to regret it.

Once she said to me, "You know, Aline, every detail of my funeral has been written by David and agreed to. What a pity I won't be able to see it." As her close friend, I'm pleased that she didn't, even though her caustic wit would have rallied in the presence of her old enemy, the Queen Mother. I could just hear her saying, "Ah, Cookie has learned to dress better. In another hundred years, she might almost be chic."

As the Archbishop of Canterbury pronounced the blessing, a ray of sunlight fell on the coffin, and eight Welsh Guards in scarlet tunics raised it and carried it out on their shoulders. The duchess would have liked that.

In the Dean's Cloister, on the way out, wilted bouquets and wreaths were strewn about in a jumbled fashion. Journalists were picking through the mess to copy the inscriptions on the cards, from such notables as Diana Vreeland. I knelt down and read one from her old platoon of guards in Nassau.

That night, back in London, I was consoled by the thought that when other royal figures are forgotten, one King of England and a remarkable American woman will continue to fascinate the world. Hatred and anger are merely mortal. But their love story will endure forever.