Cheiro: The man who foretold Wallis and abdication

Cheiro

Darling Madonna has single-handedly revived interest in dick chick Wallis Simpson with her much-mocked movie W.E. Since I have not seen the flick, and will probably successfully dodge it, I shall confine my commentary to a far more interesting aspect of this 'royal love story' - one that perhaps owes its provenance more to the exquisite bonding joys of PG-threatening tongue-fu than anything else.

I have in my possession an original copy of Cheiro's World Predictions, published in 1925. For those who don't know of Cheiro, he was an Irish astrologer and clairvoyant, aka William John Warner. Oscar Wilde's palm was familiar to Cheiro in which doom was writ large - the reading is recounted in Richard Ellmann's Oscar Wilde.

Thinking of Madge's W.E., I turn to page 72 of World Predictions to read Cheiro's forecast for the then Prince of Wales, later Mr King-Emperor Wallis Simpson.

'Rumour says that Queen Mary, and in a lesser degree, King George, have worried themselves seriously over this problem of the Prince who may be fond of a light flirtation with the fair sex but is determined not to "settle down" until he feels a grande passion,' he writes. Cheiro goes on to foretell: 'But, it is well within the range of possibility, owing to the peculiar planetary influences to which he is subjected, that he will fall a victim of a devastating love affair.

'If he does, I predict that the Prince will give up everything, even the chance of being crowned, rather than lose the object of his affection.'

Written 11 years before Edward VIII's abdication over Wallis, I'd say - in the spirit of compromise - that this wasn't such a bad guess.