A few years ago, the BBC recorded a documentary “Prince John the Windsors Tragic Secret” which was translated into Chinese “Prince John the Unspeakable Secret of the Windsor Family”. It was later made into a DVD and named “The Lost Prince”, showing the short life of this tragic little prince to the world. This secret that was deliberately hidden by the British royal family for many years has finally become known to the public.
In 1998, tabloid reporters found an old photo album in Paris that belonged to the Duke of Windsor. Among the photos are the Duke’s family members. Among the many familiar faces, a young boy caught the reporter’s attention. The little boy is clearly a member of the royal family, but it has been difficult to find relevant information. At that time, once the photo was published, it aroused great public concern.
Tabloid reporters broke through the casserole and found a magnifying glass, not letting go of any clues. It completely wiped out the fact that the Windsor family concealed the little prince who was seriously ill. The media found another old letter, which made the British royal family lose face at that time. When Edward, Prince of Wales, learned of the death of his younger brother, he wrote to his girlfriend: “That poor brother is nothing more than a man’s skin.
His temperament has become more and more like an animal.” This poorboy had become more of an animal then anything else and was only a brother in the flesh and nothing else” He also said that in the last two years of Prince John’s life, his blood relatives had abandoned him and he himself hadn’t seen the little brother for a long time This kind of speech is really shocking, and people have accused the royal family of being cold-blooded, selfish and ruthless to their relatives.
This is especially true of the royal family, whose every move is under the attention of the public. For similar reasons, and the concept of the royal family at the time, Prince John was also protected by the Windsor family. As the first British family at that time, the little prince was seriously ill, which was obviously not conducive to the image of the family. Of course, there is also the factor of “family ugliness should not be publicized”. When John passed away, his blood relatives pretended that the child did not exist and no longer mentioned him. Slowly, John’s family, the public, also forgot the existence of this child.
On July 12, 1905, Mary, Princess of Wales, gave birth to a lovely little prince named John Charles Francis Windsor/ John Charles Francis Windsor at York Cottage in Sandringham Manor. Of course, the little prince’s surname was Saxe-Coburg and Gotha at the time, and the Windsor surname was changed later during World War I. The little prince’s grandfather, Edward VII, was King of England at the time. He had four older brothers and one older sister. As the youngest child in the family, he was the jewel in the palm of his parents and the darling of his brothers and sisters from birth.
John spent a carefree childhood under the love of his parents, brothers and sisters, he was mischievous and lawless. The happy and prosperous life came to an abrupt end when he was four years old, and the little prince had a sudden epilepsy. The doctor diagnosed that his symptoms would become more and more serious, and it would be difficult to grow into an adult. Parents, of course, were unwilling to face such a tragic fate. They thought that little John might grow up like his great-uncle Prince Leopoldo, marry and have children (Queen Victoria’s youngest son, suffering from hemophilia, lived to 30 years old). Or what if his illness is not as serious as the doctor said, and he recovers by himself. Poor parents all over the world, who is willing to believe that their children are precarious and will die soon.
John’s parents, George V and Queen Mary, were a royal marriage in the old days, couples who needed to communicate by letters delivered by servants. The queen’s character is cautious and cautious, and she obeys her husband in everything. She spent an hour a day seeing the children, leaving them in the care of a nanny, as most aristocratic families of the era did. The king exercises military management in his own home and has supreme authority. He once said: “I was afraid of my father when I was a child, and my children must also be afraid of me.” His eldest son Edward was cowardly and abandoned the throne. The second son is George VI in history. He was obviously left-handed when he was a child, but he was forced to come over. What’s more, he is shy and introverted, and also has a stuttering problem. In the feudal era, Chinese Confucian scholar-bureaucrats also popularized “holding grandchildren but not sons”. “It’s the father’s fault if the son doesn’t teach” and so on. From the Hanover family until the Windsor era, the British royal family seems to have a tradition of often falling out of harmony between father and son. Even the current Queen and Prince Philip are not close to their eldest son Charles. Of course the king and his wife love their youngest son, but they don’t know how to care for this seriously ill child.
As he grew older, John’s condition became more and more serious. His grandfather died when he was five, and his father became George V. And the little prince would embarrass his parents by behaving strangely at banquets with important guests. He also stole his sister’s crayons and scribbled and put glue on doorknobs. Every time he had a seizure, everyone was scared to death, his intelligence seemed to be stuck in childhood, his siblings didn’t like to play with him more and more, and his brothers were sent to boarding school Reading, only the little prince was locked in a luxurious palace to avoid contact with the outside world. By the age of 11, his parents had accepted the youngest son’s mental retardation and dismissed his governess. In fact, Prince John not only suffers from severe epilepsy, but is also an autistic child. At that time, medical concepts were very backward, and little was known about autistic children. Regarding the various abnormal behaviors of their son, the king and his wife could only try their best to protect the child and conceal his illness from the outside world.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, King George V and Queen Mary were so busy with state affairs that they had no time to care about their sick young son. Two years later, the couple decided to send young John to a country house called “Wood farm” (Wood farm) on the Sandringham estate. People’s question is, in order to maintain the image of the Windsor family, was he ruthlessly abandoned? However, according to the BBC’s verification, this is not the case. Charlotte, John’s favorite nanny, stayed with him until his death in 1918.
The children were brought up by this nanny, and Little John affectionately called her “Lala”. The king, especially the queen, would visit little John occasionally, and kept correspondence with the little prince. John’s older sister, Princess Mary, oversaw the refurbishment of the villa, making sure the little brother could see his beloved steam engine from his bedroom window. His grandmother, the Queen Mother Alexandra, lives at Sandringham. The old lady ordered someone to build a small farm for her grandson, and John liked to grow flowers here very much. Lala, the nanny, helped Little John put flowers in the letter and sent it to the king and his wife. Some letterheads and dried flowers were even preserved. Queen Mary even made a bold decision. She asked the children living near the farm (usually the children of royal servants) would they like to be friends with Little John? Of course, realistic considerations are that the prince’s illness will not become the talk of the upper class. The playmate of the year (a little girl in her teens) is now an old man who is about to turn 100 years old, and still has the photo and letterhead of the little prince, “I heard that you broke your leg, are you better? When are you going to church?” . etc.
In other words, John did not live like an animal in the last two years as described by his elder brother Edward. It was just that it was during the First World War, the whole of Europe was changing, dozens of crowns fell, and the British royal family was also in a precarious state. among. George V had to change his family’s surname to “Windsor”, and he had to reject the asylum application of his relatives against his will, so that all seven members of the Tsar’s family were killed. John’s cousin, the Russian crown prince Alexei, suffers from hemophilia. Even if you didn’t die in the Great Revolution, it’s hard to grow up. Compared with John’s cousins, he spent his life relatively peacefully. Although he was not accompanied by his family in his final years, he was well taken care of after all. In 1918, Prince John died of a seizure. His mother, Queen Mary, wrote in her diary that day: “I miss my child very much”. Lala, the prince’s nanny, kept a picture of John by her bedside all her life. And his closest fourth brother, Prince George, said in front of his younger brother’s tombstone: “Maybe you are the one in our family who has always been yourself.”
A few years later, John’s second brother Bertie (the future King George VI) married Elizabeth of Scotland’s Bowes-Lyons family. This family with the title of earl practiced intermarriage among nobles, and their blood was noble and pure, but unfortunately some children inherited mental illness. Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon, the two daughters of the Queen’s uncle’s family, are mentally handicapped children. They were sent to a mental hospital with their three cousins at a very young age. And some of their sisters married the Danish prince, and some married the viscount. Even if their cousin is the Queen of England, they have never been visited and taken care of by their relatives. What’s more, as early as 1963, the sisters had been registered as “dead” by their family members. In fact, however, Catherine did not die until 2014. Pretend they don’t exist, completely abandon them, even make up lies about their death. It seems that the honor of the family can be preserved so as not to be laughed at. However, the recent royal series “The Crown” picked up this history again.
