Born Elizabeth Wallis Warfield in Pennsylvania, she married Earl Winfield Spencer, Jr in 1916. Divorced in 1927, she married Ernest Simpson in 1928. They met Edward, Prince of Wales in London in 1931. When the Prince became King, his insistence on marrying the twice-divorced American precipitated a constitutional crisis that led to his abdication in 1936. He was created Duke of Windsor and the couple married soon after. The couple settled in Paris after the war. Brockhurst's portrait hung against a mirror in the library of the Duke and Duchess's house in the Bois de Boulogne. It shows the Duchess, famed for her soignée appearance, wearing a Mainbocher blouse and a bouquet brooch by Van Cleef & Arpels, a gift from her husband.