The Little Princesses by Marion Crawford

The governess shared details of the teenage princesses’ bedroom furnishings: pink and fawn for Elizabeth, with flowered chintz and plain white furniture salmon-pink and clutter for Margaret. Both children had a bad habit of biting their nails Margaret had a bad habit of biting her sister. The nursery secrets that Crawfie revealed were hardly earth-shattering.

If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. Mrs Knight and the MacDonald girls had charge of the children’s health, their baths, their clothes, while the governess looked after them from nine until six and had charge of their education, with occasional help from a French teacher.įor your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. “Bobo,” as Elizabeth called Margaret MacDonald, became the queen’s dresser and one of her closest confidantes, serving her for 67 years. She was helped by two sisters, Margaret and Ruby MacDonald, who were her undernurse and nursemaid. When Crawford joined as governess the Duke and Duchess of York’s household at the Royal Lodge, Windsor, there was already a nanny, Clara Knight, known as “Alah,” who had been nanny to the duchess. The Little Princesses is gossipy but quite innocuous by today’s standards. Later that year the articles were turned into an equally popular book, The Little Princesses: The Intimate Story of HRH Princess Elizabeth and HRH Princess Margaret by Their Governess. The articles, which went into enormous and mawkish detail about her years bringing up Elizabeth and Margaret, appeared in America under her name at the beginning of 1950 and, after Woman’s Own bought the serialization rights for £30,000, in the United Kingdom as well. publishers of the Ladies’ Home Journal that Crawfie “has gone off her head.” That didn’t stop them from publishing.

But the contract which Crawfie signed contained a surprisingly vague clause which allowed for publication “without Her Majesty’s consent (possibly with only the consent of Princess Elizabeth, or no consent), and under your own name.” During the summer of 1949 the ex-governess collaborated with a ghostwriter on her “affectionate memoir.” It was shown to Queen Elizabeth, who was appalled and told the U.S.

The Little Princesses by Marion Crawford