James Wilby (Gosford Park) and Juliet Aubrey (Middlemarch) portray the reluctant royals who became king and queen of England when Edward VIII gave up the throne for the woman he loved, on Bertie & Elizabeth. Albert, Duke of York, called Bertie, married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 after a storybook courtship. Expecting a life of genteel obscurity, they were thrust into the limelight in 1936 when Bertie's older brother, Edward VIII, abdicated to marry the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.