Pop Queen Madonna's potshot at the Queen Mother

Almost eight years after the death of the Queen Mother, the British Royal Family are bracing themselves for a distressing new take on the Abdication Crisis.

A film by Madonna — the so-called Queen of Pop — is set to portray the former royal favourite in a brutal light as it re-examines her role in the decision by King Edward VIII to put his love for American divorcée Wallis Simpson ahead of the throne.

"It is a vicious hit job on the Queen Mother," says a film industry insider. "If there is an evil person in Madonna's film, it is the Queen Mother, who is shown as hating Mrs Simpson."

The singer has long been fascinated by the 1936 crisis, in which Edward's desire to marry the unsuitable Simpson caused a constitutional crisis which was resolved only by his abdication and his succession by his brother, who became King George VI (the Queen's father).

Edward was given the title the Duke of Windsor and he married Simpson.

The film, for which Madonna has worked on several draft screenplays, is understood to be "very sympathetic" of Simpson.

The project, currently titled W.E., is expected to be completed by next year. It will star Abbie Cornish, an Australian actress, as a contemporary woman obsessed with the story of the twice-married American-born adventuress. Vera Farmiga has also been linked to the project.

‘Great romance'

Says a source: "There is one scene where Wallis cries that she gave up ‘her privacy, her freedom and her reputation' for Edward. It has not been lost on us that this could be some kind of metaphor for Madonna's own life with her former husband Guy Ritchie."

The film claims it has unseen letters in which Simpson rails against events. In one, the duchess is said to write that Edward "used me to escape his prison only to incarcerate me in his own... you have no idea how hard it is to live out the greatest romance of the century".

The film hinges on a suggestion that historians might take issue with — that Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) plotted with her father-in-law King George V so that she and Bertie (George VI) could take over the throne on his death.

Histories of the period suggest that becoming king and queen was the last thing on the couple's mind.

Writer William Shawcross' recent official biography of the Queen Mother underlines the horror she felt at the prospect of the couple succeeding to the throne.

The movie is likely to make for uncomfortable viewing for the Queen and other members of the Royal Family, but a courtier says: "I very much doubt Her Majesty will be seeing this film."