Just a few weeks earlier, his brother George VI had been crowned in an impressive coronation to which he was not invited.
But perhaps the wandering duke who had reigned briefly as Edward VIII reflected on what might have been while he stood topless, scythe in hand, in a garden that was not his.
This extraordinary image, never before seen in public, was taken in the summer of 1937, less than a year after Edward renounced the throne to marry the divorced Wallis Simpson.
It is one of several previously private images to be revealed in a Channel 4 documentary airing on Saturday.
Also seen in the collection are Edward and Wallis on their sad wedding day on June 3, 1937, in a French chateau owned by pro-Nazi businessman Charles Bedaux.
Neither looked happy as they tied the knot in front of just a handful of guests, with no members of the Royal Family present.
And the low-key nature of the day was summed up in a photo of Wallis, with no servants present to perform the task for her, serving tea to her husband.
Wallis would have more than one affair and, biographers believe, she did not even love her husband.
Former King Edward VIII is seen with scythe in hand in a mysterious garden in the summer of 1937, just weeks after his brother, the new King George VI, was crowned at Westminster Abbey. It is one of several photographs that will be revealed for the first time in a new documentary.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor strike a strange and awkward pose while holding hands, summer 1937.
This contrasted with Eduardo’s devotion to her, a fact demonstrated in his abdication speech in December 1936, when he said that he had found it “impossible” to fulfill his duties “without the help and support of the woman I love.”
The couple’s nuptials took place at the opulent Chateau de Cande in western France.
The newly revealed images of the wedding and of Edward and Wallis’ less formal moments were kept in the castle’s archive for years, before being acquired by its current owner, collector Richard Lobel.
They are shown on television for the first time in the two-part series Edward v George: The Windsors at War.
The photographs of Edward shirtless in a mysterious garden are believed to have been taken in the days after the couple’s wedding.
The new documentary is based on the book The Windsors at War: The Nazi Threat to the Crown, by Alexander Larman.
Mr Larman, who appears in the documentary, told MailOnline: “What was so surprising to me was that these photos had never been seen in public before.
‘There was a real sense of discovery when I looked through the collection.
‘I thought I had seen everything there was to see.
‘Those photos of him shirtless, they feel very intimate. It feels like you’re investigating someone’s private life.
An unseen image of former King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson on their wedding day, June 3, 1937.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor stand on a balcony at the Chateau de Cande on their wedding day, June 3, 1937.
Wallis serves tea to her husband as her godfather, Major Edward ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe, looks on
“We’re so used to seeing the Royal Family in these formal poses, but it’s surprisingly very informal.
“If those photographs had appeared in newspapers in the 1930s, it would have been a real scandal.”
He added of the couple’s wedding day: “I couldn’t take it too seriously.”
“It was vanity, vanity on a grand scale. With Wallis there’s a real sense of “this is what I’m going to have to endure for the rest of my life.”
The discreet wedding was a spectacular fall from grace for a man who had been King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India and who was to enjoy a spectacular coronation at Westminster Abbey.
Instead, his brother Prince Albert had to take on the role of George VI in his place, despite not wanting to be king.
In the weeks leading up to their wedding, the Duke of Windsor (as he became after his abdication) had been enraged by his brother’s refusal to grant Wallis HRH status.
Edward bitterly joked that it was a “nice wedding present.”
Wallis Simpson seen on her wedding day with Walter Monckton, Edward’s lawyer
Edward and Wallis are seen leaving through a gate in the castle on their wedding day.
When his mother, Queen Mary, did not send him a royal gift, he told her he was “bitterly hurt and disappointed that you practically ignored the most important event in my life.”
A box of Fabergé sent by his younger brother, Prince George, Duke of Kent, was rejected by Edward, on the grounds that his brother had shown no desire to deviate from the family’s official stance towards him.
The official photographs (not Richard Lobel’s) were taken by royal photographer Cecil Beaton, who noted in his diary that Edward had an “essentially sad” look in his eyes.
He added that the former king had “ordinary hands, like those of a mechanic, weather-beaten and quite scaly and with a disfigured thumbnail.”
And Beaton guessed, after speaking to Wallis the day before the ceremony, that while she had “tremendous admiration” for the duke and was “determined” to love him, she was not “in love” with him.
Wallis wore a blue wedding dress that she combined with silk gloves of the same material and a straw hat.
Around her neck she wore a stunning diamond and sapphire brooch and she also wore sapphire earrings and a sparkling sapphire bracelet.
Her second divorce, from naval broker Ernest Aldrich Simpson, had been finalized just a month earlier.
The small group of guests seen outside the castle on Edward and Wallis’ big day.
Edward and Wallis walking outside after getting married in a low-key ceremony
Another image of Edward tending a garden with a scythe, while wearing only a pair of shorts.
The duke had originally wanted a royal chaplain to officiate at his wedding, but this wish was quickly torpedoed by his brother the king.
His second choice had been the Reverend Martin Andrews, who presided over a parish in the Duchy of Cornwall.
But the priest refused, saying that “it would be defrauding the church, and as long as I hold a position in the church I must follow the rules, no matter how cruel they may seem.”
In the end, the Reverend JA Jardine, a Darlington priest whom Edward’s biographer Philip Ziegler described as “turbulent”, intervened and offered his services.
This was a challenge to the Church of England, which ruled until 2002 that it would not celebrate weddings of rulers with divorcees who had living ex-spouses.
Jardine would later be stripped of his duties when he returned to the United Kingdom. He then officiated at a church called ‘Windsor Cathedral’ in Hollywood, before dying suddenly in 1950.
As well as Charles’ best man, Major Edward ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe, guests also included the Duke’s hairdresser, Charles Topper, and Mrs Buchanan Merryman, Wallis’s aunt.
The service itself was made up of a French civil ceremony and ten minutes later an Anglican counterpart led by Reverend Jardine took place.
In both versions, Wallis promised to obey her husband.
Incredibly, the duke was unable to kiss his bride in either the civil or religious ceremony, although he had tears in his eyes when he put Wallis’s ring on her finger.
George, Queen Elizabeth II’s father, would reign until 1952, when he died after suffering from lung cancer.
The first episode of Edward Vs George: The Windsors at War airs on Channel 4 on Saturday at 9.15pm.