The Secret Life of Royal Nannies: Who Raised Prince Harry, Charles III, Elizabeth II and other Starlords

Marion Crawford became governess to Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in 1932, when the royal girls were 6 and 2 years old.

“Crawphy”, as she was called, remained their close friend for the next 16 years, assisting the sisters in the abdication of their uncle Edward VIII, the coronation of their father George VI. in 1937 and the horrors of World War II. However, the close relationship ended when, in 1950, Marion published a memoir about her life at the palace called Little Princesses. When Elizabeth learned that American publishers were offering Crawford a book of revelations, she wrote her a letter.

“You must resist the lure of American money … and say no, no, no, to the dollars offered for articles about something as personal and as precious as our family,” it read.

But the book was published anyway. Marion was said to have been persuaded to write by her husband, George Bootley, whom she married in 1947, after she left her position as royal nanny.

Crawford was never forgiven and the Queen and Princess Margaret never spoke to her again. “Crawfie” died in 1988. The royal family reportedly did not send flowers to her grave.

When Queen Elizabeth II. becoming a mother herself, she enlisted the help of Mabel Anderson, the daughter of a nurse and a police officer, to care for her young children. Mabel was the same age as Elizabeth and began working as a royal nanny when the Queen’s first child, Prince Charles, was born, before leaving to look after Her Majesty’s youngest children, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, as Charles and Princess Anne grew up. .

Mabel remained a close friend of Elizabeth II until her death. Insiders said that the Queen sometimes called a friend, invited her to visit and watched TV together.

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Olga Powell joined the royal family when Prince William was 6 months old. She subsequently became close friends with both Prince William and Prince Harry – they maintained a relationship until the nanny’s death in 2012 aged 82.

“Their parents wanted them to have as normal a childhood as possible. When the boys saw a mud puddle, they wanted to jump in it, and if there was something to climb on, they wanted to climb it,” Powell recalled.

The fact that she shared this belief kept her in office. After all, little William had one more nanny from birth – Barbara Barnes. But she believed that royal children should be raised differently than ordinary children, which eventually led to conflicts with Diana, who famously wanted her sons to have a normal childhood. Barnes was fired in 1987.

But Powell was much more than a nanny: she was the one who later helped the brothers through Charles and Diana’s divorce and comforted them after their mother’s death in 1997.

On the day of Powell’s funeral, William canceled four events to attend a memorial service (Harry was serving in Afghanistan at the time).

By becoming Alexandra’s royal nanny, Pettyfer (known as Tiggy Legge-Bourke before taking her husband’s surname) effectively carried on the family tradition of palace service – her mother was a lady-in-waiting to Princess Anne.

In 1993, Tiggy became Prince William and Prince Harry’s nanny, Prince Charles invited her to this position. She approached the job with enthusiasm, encouraging the princes to enjoy the traditional royal activities of hunting, fishing and shooting, and regularly joining them on holiday.

Like Olga Powell, Tiggy later played a key role in the brothers’ lives after their mother’s death and has since remained close and maintained relationships with the heirs. Both princes attended her wedding to security adviser Charles Pettifer in 1999, and she herself was a guest at Harry’s wedding to Meghan Markle in 2018.

However, her presence in the palace was not without media scandals. She was once photographed smoking while driving a Land Rover while Harry leaned out the window and shot rabbits. Rumor has it Diana disliked her after Tiggy once called Gary and William “my children”. Additionally, it was reported that Diana suspected that Tiggy and Charles were having an affair. Things came to a head at a Christmas party in 1995 for Charles and Diana’s staff at the Lanesborough Hotel. Citing false rumors that Tiggy had miscarried while pregnant by Charles, Diana reportedly walked up to her and loudly said: “I’m so sorry to hear about the baby.” Tiggy reportedly left the party in tears.

The Spanish-born nanny joined Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2014 when their first child, Prince George, was 8 months old, and stayed at Kensington Palace to help raise the couple’s other children.

“Marie likes children very much. She can be firm and strict, but she is also very loving and gentle with them,” one insider said of her.

The nanny had previously worked for other high-profile families, which is how Kate and William found out about her.

Turrion Borrallo studied at the prestigious Norland College in England, where nannies are trained in everything from how to develop a baby’s brain, how to cook food, how to give first aid. Maria even completed a course on safe driving in extreme situations!

Insiders say Turrion Borrallo has the key skill of a modern royal nanny: the ability to always be there when needed, but never overstep or interfere with the royal parents’ decision-making process.

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