Royal Betrayal: : Politics, Press, the Palace and the Real Story of Crawfie Versus the House of Windsor
Claire Prentice

In the 1950s Marion Crawford became one of the most notorious women in Britain, a royal servant who betrayed her young charges – the future Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret Rose – by selling her recollections of the Royal Household to the American press, earning the lifelong enmity of the Royal Family, sections of the British media and the public. But Crawfie’s story is considerably more interesting -- and more political – than the version put out by the Palace. Crawford became a pawn in a publicity scheme dreamed up by American publishing power couple Bruce and Beatrice Gould, working in cahoots with Palace officials and the Foreign Office to bolster the reputation of the Royals in America, and to improve Anglo-American relations. Ultimately Crawford became caught up in a situation she could not control, pressured by unscrupulous journalists on one side, an avaricious husband on the other, and a manipulative and increasingly antagonistic Royal Household. The tale of “Crawfie’s” estrangement from the Royal Family, who punished her with exclusion and icy disapproval, with its pre-echoes of the treatment of Prince Harry and Meghan (who coincidentally lived in the same grace and favour house Crawford was thrown out of), has a greater resonance today than at any point in the last three-quarters-of-a-century. Ironically, the Royal Family enjoyed a huge boost in public popularity on both sides of the Atlantic as a result of Crawfie’s articles while the former governess was viciously mischaracterised as a traitor. On the 75^th anniversary of the publication of her innocent but explosive book, it is time to tell the true, complete story of Crawfie and the Royal betrayal which drove her to attempt suicide.