Governess to Royal family
Marion Crawford
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Born
| (
1909-06-05
)
5 June 1909
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Died
| 11 February 1988
(1988-02-11)
(aged 78)
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Known for
| Governess to
Princess Margaret
and Princess Elizabeth, the future
Queen Elizabeth II
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Spouse
|
George Buthlay
(
m.
1947)
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Marion Crawford
,
CVO
(5 June 1909 ? 11 February 1988) was a Scottish educator and
governess
to
Princess Margaret
and Princess Elizabeth (the future
Queen Elizabeth II
), who called her
Crawfie
. Crawford was the named author of the book
The Little Princesses
, which told the story of her time with the royal family.
[1]
After the book was published in 1950,
[2]
Crawford was socially ostracised and left
Nottingham Cottage
, her
grace and favour
house, which had been granted to her for life. Neither the Queen nor any other member of the Royal Family spoke to her again.
[3]
Early life and royal governess
[
edit
]
Crawford was born, the daughter of a mechanical engineer's clerk, at
Gatehead, East Ayrshire
, on 5 June 1909.
[4]
[5]
She was raised in
Dunfermline
,
Fife
, and taught at Edinburgh's
Moray House Institute
.
[6]
While studying to become a child psychologist, she took a summer job as the governess for
Lord Elgin's
children. This led her to take a role in the household of the Duke and Duchess of York (later
King George VI
and
Queen Elizabeth
), as the Duchess was a distant relative of Lord Elgin. After one year the arrangement was made permanent.
Crawford became one of the governesses of
Princess Elizabeth
and
Princess Margaret
. Following the abdication of
King Edward VIII
in 1936, the Duke of York ascended the throne as King George VI, and Elizabeth became the
heir presumptive
. Crawford remained in service to the King and Queen, and did not retire until Princess Elizabeth's marriage in 1947, Crawford herself had married two months earlier. Crawford had already delayed her own marriage for 16 years so as not to, as she saw it, abandon the King and Queen.
[7]
Retirement and authorship
[
edit
]
Upon her retirement in 1948, Crawford was given
Nottingham Cottage
in the grounds of
Kensington Palace
, as a
grace and favour
home.
Queen Mary
, the princesses' grandmother, also provided it with antique furniture and flower prints as a mark of her appreciation.
[8]
After their wedding, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh conducted an overseas tour, visiting Canada and the United States of America. Shortly afterwards,
Bruce and Beatrice Gould
, editors of the large circulation American magazine
Ladies' Home Journal
, contacted
Buckingham Palace
and the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
to seek stories for publication across the Atlantic. Although the approach was refused by the Palace, the British government proved keen on the idea and suggested Marion Crawford, as the recently retired governess of the princesses.
[9]
In April 1949, having heard of the offer, Queen Elizabeth wrote to Crawford, saying:
I do feel, most definitely, that you should not write and sign articles about the children, as people in positions of confidence with us must be utterly oyster. If you, the moment you finished teaching Margaret, started writing about her and Lilibet, well, we should never feel confidence in anyone again.
However, the Queen did give a carefully qualified approval for her to anonymously provide some assistance, writing:
Mr [Dermot] Morrah
(the man chosen to write the articles), who I saw the other day, seemed to think that you could help him with his articles and get paid from America. This would be quite all right as long as your name did not come into it. Nevertheless, I do feel most strongly that you must resist the allure of American money and persistent editors and say No No No to offers of dollars for articles about something as private and as precious as our family.
[5]
However, the contract with the Goulds stipulated: "You will further consider publication of the articles without Her Majesty's consent (possibly with only the consent of Princess Elizabeth, or no consent) and under your own name, on terms to be arranged."
[5]
In October 1949,
Lady Astor
sent a copy of the manuscript from the Goulds to Queen Elizabeth for her approval. The Queen was deeply distressed, finding it shockingly frank, especially Crawford's revelations of the King's moods and the Queen's chilly relationship with
Wallis Simpson
. She replied to Lady Astor saying: "The governess has gone off her head", and had her private secretary send a further letter to Lady Astor. This contained the Queen's annotations on the manuscript with the request that passages of particular concern be removed. The Goulds were taken aback as they considered the account sympathetic, but they kept the response from Crawford.
[8]
The first intimation Crawford had that something was wrong was when she did not receive a Christmas card that year from the Palace.
[5]
Crawford's unauthorised work was published in
Woman's Own
in the UK and in the
Ladies' Home Journal
in the United States, becoming a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. A book,
The Little Princesses
, also sold exceptionally well. Later she wrote stories about
Queen Mary
, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. She also put her name to
Woman's Own
'
s "Crawfie's Column", a social diary written by journalists several weeks in advance.
As the first servant to cash in on the private lives of the royals, Crawford was ostracised by the royal family,
[10]
[9]
and they never spoke to her again.
[5]
Later life and death
[
edit
]
Courtiers believed that Crawford was deeply under the influence of her husband George Buthlay, whom she married after her retirement, and that he pressured her to capitalise on her royal connections, as he himself did. Buthlay boasted of it in his business transactions, and had her ask the royal family to change their bank account to
Drummonds
, the bank for which he worked.
[8]
Crawford's writing career came to a crashing halt in 1955 when the column to which her name was attached was exposed as a fraud. It carried details of a
Trooping the Colour
ceremony and the
Ascot
races, when in fact they had been cancelled that year because of a national railway strike. As the stories were written in advance, it was too late to stop their publication.
Crawford retired to
Aberdeen
, buying a house 200 yards (180 m) from the road to Balmoral. Although the royal family regularly drove past her front door on their way to
Balmoral Castle
, they never visited. When her husband died in 1977, she descended into depression and attempted suicide, leaving a note saying: "The world has passed me by and I can't bear those I love to pass me by on the road."
[5]
Crawford died at Hawkhill House (a nursing home in Aberdeen) on 11 February 1988. Neither the Queen, the Queen Mother nor Princess Margaret sent a wreath to her funeral.
[5]
Her story was featured in a 2000
Channel 4
documentary
The Nanny Who Wouldn't Keep Mum
.
[9]
Notes and references
[
edit
]
- ^
Crawford, Marion (3 July 2003).
The Little Princesses: The Story Of The Queen's Childhood By Her Nanny Crawfie
. Orion.
ASIN
0752849743
.
- ^
Originally published in the UK by Cassell & Co Ltd and in the US by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Current US edition:
The Little Princesses: The Story of the Queen's Childhood by her Nanny
[sic],
Marion Crawford
. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2003.
ISBN
0-312-31215-6
. The current US title is erroneous; Crawford is quite clear that she was never the "nanny" for the princesses (a position held by a woman named Clara Knight, called "Alla"), but was instead their
governess
, responsible for their education outside the nursery.
- ^
Bond, Jennie.
"The Little Princesses"
. Macmillan Publishers. Archived from
the original
on 27 February 2014
. Retrieved
8 June
2013
.
- ^
"Princess diaries"
.
www.scotsman.com
. Retrieved
3 December
2017
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
Spavin, Vicky (24 June 2000).
"Was Crawfie victim of royal conspiracy?"
.
Daily Record
. Retrieved
8 June
2013
.
- ^
Ewan, Elizabeth; Pipes, Rose; Rendall, Jane; Reynolds, Sian (2018).
The new biographical dictionary of Scottish women
. pp. 99?100.
ISBN
978-1-4744-3628-1
.
- ^
Loyd, Ian (30 July 2011).
"The forgotten royal nanny"
. Retrieved
3 December
2017
.
- ^
a
b
c
Sarah Bradford
(28 February 2002).
Elizabeth: A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen
.
Penguin Books
. p. 192.
ISBN
978-0-141-93333-7
.
- ^
a
b
c
Vanessa Thorpe (25 June 2000).
"Queen Mother was 'ruthless' to royal nanny"
.
The Guardian
. Retrieved
8 June
2013
.
- ^
Loyd, Ian.
"The forgotten royal nanny"
.
Daily Express
. Retrieved
8 June
2013
.
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