Behind the royal façade: what are they hiding from us?

Pictures for comparison

Mrs Baylock and Nanny Maria:



Damien and Prince George:

The Cambridges’ nannies: an ever-changing story

Apologies for the length of the post even when split into two parts, but timelines and key extracts from articles help us
to see patterns and make connections, even though the journalists may have been speculating and making
assumptions in the absence of hard information.  Something seems not quite right about all this.

Part 1 Prince George

July 2013 No nanny yet, just a busy multi-tasker
"No nanny, but Duchess of Cambridge will have key servant on hand SHE has so far resisted hiring a nanny but the Duchess of Cambridge does have a mother’s help. The couple have drafted in a key servant to help them look after Prince George: their housekeeper. Antonella Fresolone, who the Sunday Express exclusively revealed had been hired as the couple’s “right-hand woman” in May, was spotted decamping to Bucklebury, Berkshire, with the new family of three last Wednesday.

William, Kate and their son are staying with Michael and Carole Middleton at their £4.7million Georgian Grade II listed mansion while the renovations at their new home at Kensington Palace near completion. Although the couple have so far shunned a large entourage, it seems they could not do without their Italian multitasker, who was poached from Buckingham Palace, where she worked for 13 years as one of the Queen’s three top housemaids. The 42-year-old childless spinster beat fierce competition for her £23,000-a-year position overseeing the Cambridge’s domestic affairs.

Her duties include cleaning, laundry, running errands and preparing basic meals; making her the perfect mother’s help for Kate as she gets to grips with round-the-clock feeds and the dirty nappies. She even walks the couple’s ****er spaniel Lupo.”

recentworldnews.org/news/royal/417894/PICTURE-EXCLUSIVE-No-nanny-but-Duchess-of-Cambridge-will-have-key-servant-on-hand

Is that all she does? This seems more like slavery than service to me.

September 2013 That didn’t last long: Prince William’s former nanny arrives
“The Duchess of Cambridge made a pit stop at a McDonald's situated at a roadside station en route to Kensington Palace from Anglesey, accompanied by Prince George and Prince William's former nanny, Jessie Webb. There were reports in the media suggesting the Cambridges had hired 71-year-old Ms. Webb to look after little George which were obviously spot on. William and Harry obviously had a very positive experience with her and feel she's the perfect choice for the role.”

hrhduchesskate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/kates-mcdonalds-stop-this-weeks-calendar.html

Jan 2014 A new nanny is needed now
"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are searching for a new nanny to take on their tour of New Zealand and Australia.
Their current nanny, Jessie Webb – who looked after Prince William when he was a child – has reached the end of her contract.
According to sources close to the couple, Mrs Webb, 71, came out of retirement to look after Prince George on the condition that she would work only for three months.
It took a lot of persuading to get Jessie to take the job in the first place, but she loves William and wanted to help out,’ said a source.

‘I can’t imagine that she will want to be travelling around the world at her age. If she does, she will need an assistant.’
The Duke and Duchess did not hire a maternity nurse after George’s birth last July. Instead the couple moved into the Middleton family home in Berkshire so that Kate’s mother, Carole, could help out.
When they moved to Kensington Palace last September, they persuaded Mrs Webb to join their household.
It had been rumoured that Carole Middleton could join the tour Down Under to help look after George. However, aides insist that will not be the case."

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2537907/Duke-Duchess-Cambridge-seek-new-nanny-trip-Down-Under-William-Kate-looking-replacement-Jessie-Webbs-contract-runs-out.html#ixzz3tiTtHqDG

It sounds reasonable that someone who is 71 would not feel up to going on this tour of Australia and New Zealand.

March 2014: Spanish Norland Nanny arrives
"The new 'Spanish supernanny' hired by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to help them look after Prince George has been named as Maria Teresa Turrion Borrallo.

William and Kate are said to be 'delighted' that the full-time nanny has decided to join their royal household
The couple's new employee will be joining them and their young son on their forthcoming tour of Australia and New Zealand - and she will have been specially trained in self defence as well as how to 'skid pan' a car in poor weather conditions."

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2585389/Spanish-supernanny-hired-Duke-Duchess-Cambridge-look-Prince-George-named-Maria-Teresa-Turrion-Borrallo.html#ixzz3sghoyzoB

Queen Victoria, King Edward VII and the Munshi again

The more I learn about Prince Albert, the more I like the sound of him.

The opposite applies to his eldest son Prince Albert Edward, known as Bertie and later King Edward VII.
Bertie made an extensive tour of India in 1875/76, and was appalled by the way the natives were treated and spoken to and about by their British masters.

Yet, as we have seen in a previous post, he himself behaved badly towards an Indian after Queen Victoria died. Shortly after her funeral, he ordered Abdul Karim to return to India and all the letters she had written to Karim to be taken away from him and burned. It seems that Edward and Alexandra resented the close relationship that the odd couple had had.

I had barely heard of Abdul Karim; I had no idea that he had been so influential in Queen Victoria‘s life. The Daily Mail is full of background information and revelations about this relationship.

Queen Victoria displayed extreme favouritism towards her Indian servant. She gave Karim two houses and had a cottage built for him. He cooked curries for her and taught her the Hindu language. She used to write to him several times a day. Like John Brown and Benjamin Disraeli before him, he gave her some personal attention and helped to alleviate her loneliness. He was her closest companion.

All this generated much ill feeling in many circles - politicians, servants, courtiers and the royal family. The Prince of Wales was furious with his mother because of all the favours she showered on Karim.

When Victoria died, it was payback time.

The Queen Mother and her butler William Tallon

The Queen Mother showed great favouritism towards her butler William Tallon, or Billy. He was her confidant and close friend. They looked like a couple who had been married for a long time. She refused to listen to the concerns of senior palace staff that he was a security risk and a cause of contention among his fellow servants. He could do nothing wrong in her eyes. She gave him a cottage in the grounds at Clarence House for his personal use.

It sounds similar to the relationships that Queen Victoria had, except that there was a lot less dignity and a lot more fun in it.

She used to play George Gershwin’s songs on the gramophone over and over again and they would dance together. Sometimes, after having had a lot to drink, he would do a camp version of a Scottish sword dance that made her cry with laughter. He used to wear her flowery hats.

As always, Tallon was resented in some circles. He said this about the time he became distraught when the Queen Mother became very frail and he was not permitted to see her:

“…the truth is some members of the Royal household enjoyed my unhappiness. It was time for their revenge. They knew the Queen Mother could no longer protect me so the knives were out. I suppose I was silly not to have known it would happen.”

He made many enemies, some powerful; it was not just other royal servants who had a grudge against him.

He had of his own volition pushed Princess Margaret in her wheelchair to the gates of Clarence House. She looked dreadful, and his action was resented. The Queen is said to have taken a dim view of this episode, which brought her sister’s frail condition and the decline in her appearance to the attention of the public.

When the Queen Mother died, it was payback time.

The odd couple in 1988:

Yet more history laundering and letter burning by the royals

Many more royal papers and letters have gone forever, as an extract from an interesting article
shows:

“Now, about the letters which you wrote to me the other day, Victoria replied to her eldest daughter, the Crown Princess of Prussia, in March 1874. I am not for burning them except any of a nature to affect any of the family painfully . . . I am much against destroying important letters, as I every day see the necessity of reference.

But before she died in 1901, Victoria instructed her youngest daughter Beatrice to rewrite the journal the Queen had kept almost daily since adolescence, deleting similarly painful passages. The original was to be destroyed. For 30 years, Beatrice laboured at her task, burning each volume of the journal as she proceeded. Although the sanitised version ran to 111 volumes, it is a fraction of what once existed.

Where Beatrice literally blazed a trail, other courtiers followed. Lord Knollys, Private Secretary to Edward VII (1901-10), obeyed Queen Alexandra’s wishes and destroyed virtually all the late King's personal papers. His younger sister Charlotte performed the same service for Alexandra when she died in 1925. For several days, the smoke could be seen billowing from the chimneys of Sandringham House, where Alexandra had lived in widowhood.“

This makes it sound like a funeral pyre, or a burnt offering.

Angela Kelly, the Queen’s sister

My second post from 2013 about Angela Kelly:

It seems familiar; it reminds me of Jimmy Savile in that it is all accepted and taken for granted without any judgements being made.

"London - The Queen’s trusted dresser and PA Angela Kelly is said to be writing a book on the royal that will likely focus on the monarch’s preference for fuchsia frocks rather than containing royal secrets.

Dressing The Queen: The Jubilee Wardrobe has raised a few eyebrows, not least because Angela Kelly seems to have unprecedented permission from Her Majesty to do so.

“Everyone is talking about Angela and her book,” the Daily Express quoted a royal insider as saying.

“No one can comprehend how she’s got away with it,” the insider said.

The fact is, Kelly is not an average royal flunky. The 60-year-old divorcee grandmother is known as one of the Queen’s very closest confidantes.

She sees the Queen every day, travels on official trips with her, is responsible for how the monarch looks on royal duties and organises her private diary.

What’s more - she and the Queen speak about “anything and everything” and Kelly is reputed to give the monarch pieces of celebrity gossip.

“We could be sisters,” the Queen once told her while a friend of the family, Lady Anne Glenconner, once observed that when the two are together “there is lots of laughter”.

In the only interview she has ever given, back in 2007, Kelly herself had said that she “adores” the sovereign.

It has been two decades since the pair met. Kelly, a former member of the Women’s Royal Army Corps, was working as housekeeper to the British ambassador to Germany, Sir Christopher Mallaby, when the Queen and Prince Philip came on an official visit to Berlin in 1992."

www.indiavision.com/news/arti...tional/356701/

Maybe there was a big gap in the Queen’s life when she first met Angela Kelly, who became the Queen’s first ever personal assistant in 2001. Maybe this position was created just for her.

Angela Kelly: feuding and fighting

‘Sources’ and ‘insiders’ have been telling tales about Angela Kelly:

“The close relationship she has developed with the monarch in recent years has now evolved even further, giving her extraordinary influence over who is chosen to work closely with the Queen, and — just as importantly — who is not…

Beverley Jones, who has worked under Angela Kelly as one of the Queen’s dressers for the past 12 years, has also been moved to other duties. Bev, as she is known, held the same role for many years to the Queen Mother, who was very fond of her. She was offered a post on the Queen’s floor at Buckingham Palace after the Queen Mother’s death in 2002.

Now, however, she is to be found in the linen pantry, pressing tea-towels and organising dry cleaning after being moved to the housekeeping department.”

What a comedown! Angela Kelly may not want people she sees as rivals to get too close to the Queen. She has also been involved with personal feuds and fights:

“…her relationships with others around the Queen have not been smooth. Her partnership with fellow dressmaker Alison Pordum broke up some four years ago after reports of a ‘verbal confrontation’ between the two.

On another occasion, royal protection officers were said to have had to intervene to separate Angela from housemaid Hannah Coullett, whom she accused of seeing her then boyfriend, pastry chef Tony Ferriroli.

The women were pulled apart as they grappled with one another at the servants’ entrance to the Palace.

When, later, she had a bust-up with security officials over her Palace pass, she acquired a new nickname. Staff are known by their initials: fiery Angela, who is AK, instantly became AK47.

None of this troubles the Queen.”

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2624790/The-Queens-missing-hot-water-bottle-knives-minder-Scouse-dockers-daughters-growing-power-sparked-mutiny-stairs.html#ixzz4xUXcDiYm

Of course it doesn’t trouble the Queen. The actions of favourites, no matter how outrageous, never do.

More about the little Windsor princes’ abusive nanny

From the article where I first learned about this horrible episode in the early lives of two future kings:

“The story of this Mary Poppins from hell still remains somewhat mysterious to most royal historians. To this day, the author has yet to uncover a published source that reveals her name. What is known about her is that she was the primary nanny the (then) Duke and Duchess of York put in charge of caring for their two eldest sons when they were infants. While this woman occasionally abused Prince Edward, usually by savagely pinching him and Prince Albert just before they saw their parents so the boys would cry and George and Mary would infuriatingly order them sent back to the nursery, she nonetheless was respectful enough of his position as the future king to feed him properly. She felt no such regard for his little brother. Either out of punishment, or simply because she constantly forgot, she went long periods of time without feeding Prince Albert. As Lady Colin Campbell observes in her biography Prince Albert’s future wife, The Queen Mother, while his brother was obsessed over by this woman, none of Albert’s behavior was either acknowledged nor rewarded. Early childhood photos of him tell their own story. He appears unusually thin, small and sickly. This condition didn’t occur naturally.”

www.royalfoibles.com/the-tragic-childhood-of-a-spare-apparent/

It is not easy to determine the established facts of this sad case. Accounts vary and contain speculation, assumptions, hearsay and embellishments. In the absence of available information, people have used their imaginations to fill some gaps.
There is a little more information available about this nurse/nanny, who may have been called Mary Peters. Her husband had deserted her and she had no children of her own. She was taken on in 1894 when Prince Edward was born; she came to the royal family in with good references from the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle.

She may have tried to appropriate Prince Edward and resented the arrival of Prince Albert in 1895.

She got away with cruelty and neglect for years. Such people often operate behind a smokescreen, so no one notices anything untoward. It was the expression of concerns by a new under-nurse - who was brought in to care for the new baby Princess Mary - about the way the head nurse was treating the two little princes that eventually led to her dismissal in 1897, and it may have been the dismissal that caused her breakdown.

Princes Edward and Albert as infants, with their newborn sister Mary:

Edward VII’s nurse killed her six children

I came across this case when investigating Esher and Claremont House in connection with some modern-day murders and posted about it in March 2016, long before I knew anything about some of the other royal nurse/nanny horror stories.

Esher was the scene of a dreadful crime in 1854, when Mary Ann Brough killed her six children by cutting their throats. She then cut her own throat, but survived. She was a celebrity of the time, and the subject of much ‘mad or bad’, depraved or diseased, discussion.

Both she and her husband had been in royal service. She was nurse to the new baby who became King Edward VII:

“…the murderess had indeed served as the wet nurse to Albert Edward, Prince of Wales after his birth on November 9th, 1841…
In all likelihood, Mary Ann obtained her position in the royal household through her husband: George Brough had been in the service of Prince Leopold, the widower of Princess Charlotte of Wales, and uncle to Queen Victoria, during Leopold’s years at Claremont House. By 1854, George Brough worked as keeper of the ponds and park at Claremont, situated about a mile away from Esher, the scene of the tragedy.

Although Mary Ann served as wet nurse for the Prince of Wales from his birth, she ultimately lost her position. The reasons for this are unclear. In a report on the trial, the Tasmanian newspaper, The Courier claimed that:

“…she was discharged for disobeying orders, first in receiving visits from her husband, and next for being caught in the act of drinking ardent spirits.”

However, in her excellent biography, Queen Victoria, Born to Succeed, Elizabeth Longford explains, “…Mary Ann Brough…had become morose and ‘stupid’… Mary Ann Brough was acquitted of murder and consigned to the insane asylum at Bethlehem, commonly known as Bedlam. There she was detained at her majesty’s pleasure. Just seven years later in March of 1861, Mary Ann Brough died, still resident at Bedlam.

Brough’s familicide was a tragedy for her family, a scandal for Queen Victoria and the royal court, but a career making case for Forbes Winslow and his fellow alienists.”

Much more here:

www.ultimatehistoryproject.com/mary-ann-brough.html

Mary Ann had lost some babies over the years, may have been badly affected by being dismissed from royal service, was not well and was thought to have been distraught because her husband had recently left her and was going to apply for custody of the children.

Edward VII as a baby:

More about the Marion Crawford case

There are many accounts, some differing in the details, of Marion Crawford and her association with the royal family. It is the subsequent 40 or so years of depression and an empty life that has most relevance here, but the background story to her banishment shows how devious the Queen Mother was:

“Now held by Crawford's solicitor, the private papers show that the Queen Mother was secretly involved in a government plan to sell anecdotes about her daughters' childhood to an American magazine - a publicity stunt for which the nanny was pilloried for the rest of her life...

Crawford, or 'Crawfie' as the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret both knew her, was an intimate companion of the royal family for 17 years, but was ostracised for supposedly selling her story to the press without the permission of her former employers. In fact, the deal was brokered with the Palace by the Foreign Office, who believed the magazine articles would be good for Anglo-American relations.

Childless and separated in later life from the famous sisters she had cared for, Crawfie attempted to commit suicide twice, nearly succeeding in the late Eighties. She eventually succumbed to cancer and died alone in a nursing home - but not before passing on a number of key documents to her solicitor, Bruce Russell, with instructions that they should be released once they could no longer hurt those involved.”

www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/25/monarchy.vanessathorpe

Of course Crawfie may well have become very attached to her charges and fond of the Queen Mother too, but her reaction to the cutting off of all contact seems extreme. It looks like separation anxiety or withdrawal symptoms.
She behaved like someone who waits forlornly outside the locked gates of the paradise from which they have been expelled: she bought a house very close to Balmoral and watched as the royal family drove past, never once stopping to visit her.

One of her suicide notes said: "The world has passed me by and I can't bear those I love to pass me by on the road.“

Another picture of Crawfie (on the right) and the young princesses:

Sarah Duchess of York’s dresser murdered her boyfriend

Extreme social climber Jane Andrews was dresser, aide and confidante to Sarah Ferguson for 9 years.

She was made redundant in 1997, officially as part of a cost-cutting exercise. It is said that this affected her very deeply; she lost her status, identity and reason for existing. Any other jobs seemed like a big come-down.

Her boyfriend, a wealthy businessman, refused to marry her; in 2001, she killed him in his sleep by stabbing him with a kitchen knife.

She served 14 years in prison, and has now been released, much to the outrage of the murdered man’s family.

Jane Andrews with Fergie in Washington in 1994. Her smile looks artificial to me:

Shattered lives and the royal family

The examples of people, some of them killers, who were devastated by being dismissed make me wonder whether some of them were borderline personalities who were pushed over the edge by perceived rejection and banishment to the outer darkness.

There is also the question of what effect working for the royal family has on people. Are their servants badly affected by the lifestyle and atmosphere in the royal residences? Do they get addicted to living in reflected glory? When dismissed, are they unable to adapt to their relatively humble and obscure people and places of origin after experiencing life with the royals? Do they feel that they have lost everything that made their lives worth living?

I also wonder whether the royal family attracts unbalanced people.

Jane Andrews got her position with Fergie after responding to an anonymous advertisement in The Lady. Why wasn’t there a better screening process? She may at first seem like yet another victim of the royal family, but her problems started long before she got involved with them:

“Throughout her teenage years, Andrews struggled with various psychological problems, including depression, panic attacks and an eating disorder. At the age of 15, she attempted suicide by overdose after her mother discovered her truancy. Two years later at age 17, she became pregnant and had an abortion, which she stated was a traumatising experience” – from WiKi

Maybe she saw her position with Fergie as some kind of compensation for what she had been through. Maybe she saw marriage with a rich man as part compensation for what she had lost.

Jane Andrews with the man she murdered. Again, her smile looks completely false:

A damning portrait of the future King Edward VIII

Much of the Prince of Wales’ popularity with the people was based on a glamorous, romantic façade and public image. The real man was very different, not so much a Prince Charming as a Prince Charmless as the DM put it.

Aide Sir Alan Lascelles started by having great admiration and affection for the Prince of Wales when he first came to work for him in 1920; by 1927 he was disillusioned and despairing.

He said to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin:

'You know, sometimes when I am waiting to get the result of some point-to point in which he is riding, I can't help thinking that the best thing that could happen to him, and to the country, would be for him to break his neck.'

'God forgive me,' said SB. 'I have often thought the same.'

Sir Alan felt that he had wasted some of the best years of his life in service to a vulgar and selfish man who had:

“...no comprehension of the ordinary axioms of rational, or ethical, behaviour; fundamental ideas of duty, dignity and self-sacrifice had no meaning for him.”

He gives a long list of the Prince of Wales’ deficiencies, as have other people who knew him. Their words cannot be discounted; they were not republicans or spiteful and envious people who could not get into the right circles.

“...so isolated was he in the world of his own desires that I do not think he ever felt affection - absolute, objective affection - for any living being, not excluding the members of his own family.”

Sir Alan alleges that the future Edward VIII suffered from arrested development and never made it past the psychological age of 17 or so. After reading about his behaviour, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-417388/Prince-Charmless-A-****ing-portrait-Edward-VIII.html#ixzz4y6TPQjnL

Edward VIII aka David the darling of the dominions

The DM gets it right: it was all a façade. Some of the details of the misery and desperation below the surface remind me of Princess Diana and her apparent happiness that concealed despair.

“He was the first Royal sex symbol of the modern age. The wistful features of the Prince of Wales adorned the bedside tables and dormitory walls of thousands of schoolgirls and young women across Britain and the Empire. He may have sent his austere father, King George V, into despair but Prince Edward – David to his family – was the undisputed darling of the dominions.

However, they were worshipping a false god. It was all a monstrous charade played out before an innocent public. The immovable reality was that the prince did not believe either in himself or in his future position as sovereign. In moments of melancholy and self-doubt, which were frequent, he felt he was living a lie, trying to match an image that bore no relation to the real man.

He baulked at the very thought of becoming King and hated a daily existence of what he derisively called ‘princing’…
At the heart of his darkness the gloomy Prince considered suicide. Returning from his wildly successful tour of North America in 1919, he said to his private secretary: ‘I loathe my job now... I feel I am through with it and long, and long to die.’

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2984287/How-dippy-duke-death-wish-snared-Mrs-Simpson-sexual-hypnotist-Royal-biographer-reveals-Edward-hated-Princing-loved-perk-men-s-wives.html#ixzz4yCSn249c

Modern and informal: you never saw George V like this!