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garden’. As a mark of her appreciation, Queen Mary had filled the house with Victorian
furniture and flower prints. On 1 January 1949 she had received a letter from the Queen
expressing her gratitude for her ‘devotion and love’ for Lilibet and Margaret.
By March, however, the Queen had got wind of a suggestion that Crawfie was to write
a book about the Princesses and wrote to tell her how worried she was at the idea.
Worry became reality when in October the Queen’s friend Nancy, Lady Astor, sent her a
copy of the manuscript of Crawfie’s book, which was to be published in the American
Ladies’ Home Journal, and which she had obtained through her friends, the magazine’s
editors, Bruce and Beatrice Gould. On 19 October the Queen replied with a six-page
letter to Lady Astor telling her that the whole thing had been ‘a great shock for us’ and
that she thought ‘our late and completely trusted governess’ had ‘gone off her head’
because she had promised in writing that she would not publish any story about their
daughters. 12 Her Private Secretary, Major Thomas Harvey, followed this up with a
further letter to Nancy Astor enclosing the Queen’s comments on Crawfie’s manuscript
and asking for ‘specific passages which cause particular offence’ to be removed from the
American publication. The Queen, Harvey wrote, was ‘shocked and distressed’ that a
person who had held a position of trust in her house should break a time-honoured
tradition by writing and publishing personal reminiscences. ‘Such a thing is utterly alien
to the spirit and custom of Their Majesties’ households and staff and great regret is felt
by all those who care for the sanctity of their family life at this unhappy breach of
decency and good taste…’ 13 The list of the cuts requested by the Queen seems to have
been lost. The American edition did, however, contain an account of Wallis Simpson’s
visit to the Yorks at the Royal Lodge, which was later omitted from the British edition.
The Goulds were taken aback by the royal reaction, unable to see why the Queen
should object so much to such a sympathetic portrayal of her family. ‘I realize,’ Bruce
Gould wrote to Nancy Astor, ‘that the whole idea of royalty is a kind of conspiratorial
ballet which depends upon everyone’s unquestioning acceptance of the agreed-upon
steps.’ Even though Crawfie had broken with tradition, he argued, The Little Princesses
represented a propaganda bonus for the family. The Queen, however, had learned her
lessons from Queen Mary. Later she was even to cover up for the Duke of Windsor in an
effort to keep the family myth intact. No light, however roseate, was to be cast upon the
magic. Crawfie represented a dangerous example which could be followed. Nancy Astor
went to see the Queen and found her ‘deeply distressed’ by Crawfie’s behaviour. ‘She
thinks she must have gone queer,’ Lady Astor told the Goulds, ‘for it was not too long
ago that they [the family] saw her, and they felt she was not quite her old self.’ Nancy
saw the Queen’s point: ‘Imagine if your Confidential Secretary did a thing like this! It’s
small wonder they are shocked, but I believe it’s more the hurt – someone they loved
and trusted and who gave her written word!’ 14 ‘Doing a Crawfie’ entered the royal
language. It meant betrayal by ‘telling’ or ‘sneaking’ just as ‘doing an Uncle Dickie’
meant pulling a sharp stroke, like loaning the family a trusted servant while
Mountbatten was abroad and thus getting them to pay the wages.
Crawfie’s story is a tragic one. For sixteen years she had devoted herself to Elizabeth