 The courts could not grant a divorce by consent of both parties, and so the case was being handled as if it were an undefended at-fault divorce brought against Mr Simpson, with Mrs Simpson as the innocent, injured party.The divorce action would fail if the citizen's intervention showed that Mrs Simpson had colluded with her husband by, for example, conniving in or staging the appearance of his adultery so that she could marry someone else.On 7 December 1936, the King heard that Goddard planned to fly to the south of France to see his client.