An album of unreleased photographs of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson on a cruise is to auction.
The shots date to August 1936, just a few months before Edward's abdication.
 The couple cruised round the Adriatic with friends in the summer of 1936 |
Edward came under enormous pressure over the relationship. Simpson was still married at the time and was just about to undergo a divorce.
It was unthinkable for a British king to marry a divorcee. Although the holiday was widely rumoured in media circles, it went unreported.
The lot is valued at up to £3,000 ($4,375) ahead of a June 14 sale at Kerry Taylor Auctions.
Auctioneer Kerry Taylor told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "You think you have seen it all and there is nothing left to come out and then something fresh and quite exciting emerges for the first time after all these years.
"This archive hasn't been seen before. It has literally been in a safe in a basement of a house in Canada for the last 80 years…
"It is astonishing to see any private Royal photographs but to find 200 of them in one album that chart the illicit romance of the king who gave away his Empire for the woman he loved is just remarkable."
The album comes from the collection of Herman and Kathleen Rogers, close friends of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
The sale will also include a gold cigarette case the couple gave to Herman as a gift at their wedding.
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