The Royal Family’s Dirty Little Secret
The youngest child of King George V, Prince John, was quite literally lost to history. His strict family kept the boy hidden from view all his life. Then, starting in 1919, everyone began saying that King George only had five children, not six. Decades later, researchers made a stunning discovery in a royal photo album, and Prince John’s heartbreaking mystery was finally revealed to the world. After he passed from a secret illness, hidden from the public’s view, the mysteries of his life ignited years of speculation and suspicion. So, what was the truth about the lost prince, and who’s to blame for his dark fate?
As the fifth son and last-born child of George and Mary, Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince John arrived sixth in line to the British throne on July 12th, 1905. Being a prince and all, one would assume that young John would enjoy a life that most others could only dream of living. Sadly, his brief existence seemed doomed from the start. Prince John’s early years were happy. His parents were loving and referred to him affectionately as Johnny. As the youngest of six children, he spent his childhood at his family’s country home in Sandringham Parish, playing with his older siblings: Prince Edward, Prince Albert, Princess Mary, Prince Henry, and Prince George. As is common in royal households, the nanny handled most of the child-rearing. Charlotte “Lala” Bill lovingly cared for Prince John from the time of his birth until the time of his tragic death, and the two of them formed an unshakable bond.
It’s easy to see why, because Prince John seemed like a fun kid. He once crudely dressed himself as a Native American with the help of his sister Mary’s paint box before dashing into his parents’ fancy dinner party. He liked to glue doorknobs and place inverted drawing pins on sofa cushions. Now, to be fair, every child goes through a pranking phase. However, in Prince John’s case, there seemed to be something more going on. The family let him run riot for a heartbreaking reason. Despite being a tough disciplinarian, Prince John’s father, George V, once admitted to US President Teddy Roosevelt that all his children were obedient except John because he couldn’t bear to punish him. By the time Prince John turned four, the kid was so painfully slow that his family grew concerned about his development. It turns out that a lot of Prince John’s conduct was probably autism-related.
Of course, nowadays, many autistic children go on to live perfectly happy lives, and Prince John should have too. Unfortunately, the poor tyke faced far more dire health complications as a result of his other diagnosis. Prince John experienced his first convulsion when he was only four years old, and as he grew older, his epileptic fits grew more and more frequent. The royal family chose to keep information about John’s condition as secret as possible, lest someone question the purity of their blue blood. Some critics claimed that Prince John disappeared from view because his family feared he would embarrass them. Apparently, no official portraits of John exist after 1913. His family even excluded him from family photographs, including the one taken for his parents’ silver wedding anniversary in 1918. But photographs aside, he also disappeared in person.
When the severity of his epilepsy increased in 1916, John’s family made a devastating choice. They sent him away to live at Wood Farm, a farmhouse on the family’s Sandringham estate, two miles away from his parents’ home. As his health deteriorated, Prince John’s nanny, Lala, became his primary caregiver. Undoubtedly, living apart from the rest of his family must have been rough on him, so it’s somewhat reassuring to know that he still had the support of at least one caretaker whom he’d known all his life. He rarely left the Sandringham estate after the summer of 1916. Instead, he allegedly became a satellite with his own little household, with just his nanny and house staff to keep him company. After he arrived at Wood Farm, his parents sacked his tutors, and he no longer received a formal education. Why, despite the fact that he could still express himself coherently? The somewhat shady excuse provided was that he had stopped progressing academically. So, naturally, the way to fix that is to stop educating him completely, okay.
Naturally, the prince grew very lonely with no friends and no education to keep him occupied. His grandmother, Queen Alexandra, suggested that her grandson take up gardening. Not too many 11-year-old boys are into flowers, but it interested John. Amazingly, gardening quickly became one of the great pleasures of his life. From that day forward, Prince John visited his grandmother, who lived all by herself at the grand house on the estate, every week to tend to the flowers in a garden she set aside specially for him. Not only that, but in a sweet move that would melt hearts everywhere, he’d often press his treasured flowers and include them in his letters to his mother and father. As much as he adored his grandmother and his garden, young Johnny still yearned for playmates his own age. At long last, Prince John’s mother finally addressed the issue of his perpetual loneliness. In an unusual gesture most likely motivated by guilt, Queen Mary violated royal protocol and agreed to find some local youngsters for her son to befriend.
Winifred Thomas quickly became his closest friend. She was a young girl he’d actually known from years before and who now, serendipitously, also resided at Sandringham. With Winifred by his side, Prince John finally appeared to enjoy his life at Wood Farm. They would go on nature hikes and tended to Queen Alexandra’s garden together like two peas in a pod. Surrounded by playmates who understood and supported him, Prince John quickly reverted to his old ways, including his mischief-making. In an unexpected twist to the common narrative about his life, Prince John’s friends absolutely refuted the gossip that he was an unhappy kid who never saw his parents, calling the rumors untrue. Indeed, they claimed that John was actually quite a happy child whose parents regularly came to Sandringham to see him. So what triggered the rumor about the young prince’s abandonment? Well, it was mostly because of the trifling matter of World War I.
Prince John did experience periods where he didn’t see his parents much, but it had nothing to do with them abandoning him. When World War I broke out in 1914, John was only nine years old, and his parents had already ascended the throne as king and queen. It was their job to keep the kingdom’s morale up. So while his parents were off traversing the nation on official business, John, whose health wasn’t great, stayed safe at home in the countryside with his nanny. As for why he lived separately from them in the first place, sending a small child away to live apart from the rest of the family may sound cruel, but it appears to have been a tremendous mercy in Prince John’s case. Back in those days, people actually considered epilepsy a mental illness, and anyone diagnosed with it wound up confined to epileptic camps and psychiatric facilities. So Prince John essentially got a much better deal given the alternative.
Between his mischievous sense of humor and his knack for evading his strict father’s punishments, it might not surprise you to learn that Prince John received preferential treatment from his parents compared to his siblings. A thorough examination of the royal archives indicates that he was in reality Queen Mary’s favorite child. He was the baby of the family, after all. Thanks to his parents’ favor and the fact that he had his own private house in comparison to his siblings, the prince lived like a king. Prince John’s father, George V, earned a serious reputation as an incredibly strict disciplinarian, particularly when it came to the boys in the family. As a royal, the man set ridiculously high standards for his children, often getting upset when his kids didn’t conform. And children rarely conform as such. Although Prince John’s siblings got the privilege of living with the king and queen, they had highly regulated and strict childhoods, whereas Johnny enjoyed a far more relaxed, peaceful upbringing in the country. That is, until disaster struck.
Despite the hope that Prince John’s epilepsy would ease over time, his convulsions surged in their frequency and severity once more. In response, his doctors made a terrifying prediction. They ominously claimed that the poor boy would never reach maturity. Sadly, even though everyone was hoping for the best, they soon began preparing for the worst. Although Prince John enjoyed playing with his siblings when his family visited, as his epilepsy worsened, his siblings’ visits ceased. According to his nanny, Lala, John’s parents made a difficult choice. They decided to isolate him from his siblings because it hurt them to see him suffer. She wrote, “We dared not let him be with his brothers and sister because it upsets them so much with the attacks getting so bad and coming so often.” It’s difficult to say whether there were any more visits in between, but Prince John got his parents’ blessing to see his family for Christmas Day in 1918, spending the whole day in the main home before heading back to Wood Farm that same evening. Little could anyone predict it would be the last time they’d ever see Johnny.
Tragically, on January 18th, 1919, Prince John died in his sleep at Wood Farm following a severe seizure. He was only 13 years old. He may have left this world far too early, but at the very least, his suffering was over. But for those left behind, their suffering was just beginning. Sweet Prince John affected many lives during his short time on Earth, most notably that of his devoted nanny, Lala. She was heartbroken by Johnny’s passing, to say the least, and for the remainder of her life, she kept a photograph of Prince John above her fireplace mantle, along with a note from him that read, “Nanny, I love you.” Although Prince John’s parents felt a deep sadness at the news of their youngest son’s sudden passing, they both considered it a blessing in disguise. His mother, Queen Mary, characterized his passing as a great shock, though for the poor little boy’s restless soul, death came as a great relief, while King George regarded it as the greatest mercy possible.
One of Prince John’s older brothers, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care very much at all. Prince Edward was 11 years older than Prince John, and admittedly, he never really knew his youngest brother. As a result, his reaction to his brother’s death was cold. He saw Johnny’s passing to be little more than a regrettable nuisance, and he even callously referred to him in a letter as more of a burden than a blessing. Unfortunately, those words endured for a long time. Many critics have since pointed toward Edward’s flippant and disrespectful remarks about Johnny as proof of the family’s harshness. It certainly didn’t help that Prince John’s family kept his illness a secret from the public. The royal family did a really good job keeping the public in the dark about Johnny’s condition—perhaps even a little too good of a job. It was only after the Daily Mirror broke the news of Prince John’s passing two days later that the world learned of his epilepsy. That protective secret ended up backfiring spectacularly in the end. It really only served to fan the flames of controversy once the public learned the truth.
Foregoing royal protocol, Prince John’s burial was attended by all the Sandringham house personnel—his surrogate family—as further testament to how much everyone adored the ill-fated young prince. Every single resident on the estate gathered outside the gates to pay their respects, and they completely covered his grave with flowers. But then something curious happened. After the news of Prince John’s passing circulated, the media never publicly mentioned him again. Instead, all subsequent press stories referred to the king and queen as having only five children instead of six. Even more strangely, all subsequent family trees thereafter depicted King George V as fathering five children. It was only in 1998, following the shocking discovery that his brother Edward’s old photo albums contained pictures of Prince John, that his life came to mainstream public consciousness once again. After that, the circumstances of his tragically short life and hidden existence inspired a 2003 British television biographical drama about him, aptly titled “The Lost Prince.”
Prince John’s seclusion was supposedly demonstrative of the Windsor family’s heartlessness, but it turns out that many of the reports of his mistreatment were somewhat overexaggerated. In truth, so few details of Prince John’s life and struggles ever reached the public’s ears that gossip and rumor mired a lot of the facts over time. Thankfully, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that, contrary to popular belief, there were many people, both family and friends, who adored the little prince. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a like and subscribe for more videos.
