Marion Crawford
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ėFor the American author, F. Marion Crawford, see Francis Marion Crawford and for the fictional character, Marion Crawford (EastEnders)
Marion Crawford, CVO (June 5, 1909 – February 11, 1988) was an employee of the British Royal Family, the nanny of the children of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) and Princess Margaret who gave her the nickname "Crawfie". Marion was the named author of the book The Little Princesses: The Story of the Queen's Childhood by her Nanny, which told the story of her time with the Royals. After the book was published in 1950[1], she was banished from court and neither the Queen nor any other Royal Family member ever spoke to her again.
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[edit] Royal governess
Marion Crawford was raised in Dunfermline, Fife and taught at the Edinburgh Moray House Institute. 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 HRH Prince Albert, Duke of York, whose wife, the Duchess of York, was a distant relative of Lord Elgin. After one year the arrangement was made permanent.
Crawford became the governess of Their Royal Highnesses Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret of York. Following the abdication of their uncle, King Edward VIII, in 1936, the Princesses' father became King, and Elizabeth was now the heiress presumptive. Crawford remained in service to the King and Queen, and did not retire until 1948 when the Princess Elizabeth, now aged 21, married HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, Crawford herself having married two months earlier.
[edit] Retirement
After the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, they conducted an overseas tour, visiting Canada and the United States of America. Shortly afterwards, the publishing house of Bruce and Beatrice Gould contacted Buckingham Palace and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to seek stories for publication across the Atlantic. Although refused by the Palace, the British government proved keen on the idea and suggested Marion Crawford, as the recently retired governess of the Princesses.
When the Goulds approached Crawford she first sought permission from Queen Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother), who refused. However, the Goulds persisted and offered Crawford $85,000 for her story. Although Crawford accepted, she asked the contract state that Palace approval would be sought for any stories published. However, the contract allowed the Goulds to publish even if the Palace refused.
[edit] The Little Princesses
Crawford's unauthorised work was published in the Ladies' Home Journal in the United States, and Woman's Own in the UK. A book, The Little Princesses sold exceptionally well. Later she would write stories about George V's widow Queen Mary, the new 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.
[edit] Royal reaction
Queen Elizabeth was predictably furious and was quoted as saying: "We can only think that our late and completely trusted governess has gone off her head, because she promised in writing that she would not publish". The first note of displeasure for Crawford came when she failed to receive a christmas card from the Royal Family in the year of publication.
As the first servant to cash in on the private lives of the Royals, Crawford was treated severely by the Royal Family, and they never spoke to her again. Despite this, the King and Queen received the Goulds, who published the stories, at Buckingham Palace.
[edit] Later life
Crawford's writing career came to a crashing halt 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 due to a strike. As the stories were written in advance, it was too late to stop their publication.
Crawford retired to Scotland, living in a small village in Aberdeenshire. The Royal Family regularly drove past her front door on their way to nearby Balmoral Castle. However, they never stopped to see the Queen's former governess. When she died at Hawkhill House, a nursing home in Aberdeen in 1988, neither the Queen, the Queen Mother nor Princess Margaret sent a wreath.
[edit] References
- ^ 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, Marion Crawford. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2003. ISBN 0-312-31215-6.
