Edward the new Duke of Edinburgh

[SnottyLottie]

www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/03/10/king-charles-prince-edward-royal-family-title-duke-edinburgh/

In order to honour Edward’s 59th birthday

How was the Queen supposed to know that the two sister being listed as having died in the 1940s was a lie?

I mean, the woman must have had her family tree done by more people than anyone else in the country. By all sort of professionals and experts.

So if she had that and Burke’s peerage telling her that was her tree and those cousins were dead, and no-one else in her family telling her any different how exactly was she supposed to know different?

I mean, me finding people I didn’t know about is no surprise because the only person that has done my tree is me.

If your tree is in countless books how on earth are you supposed to find out that actually, those deaths didn’t happen?

See my post above yours. If the british public knew about them, I am sure the royal family could've known.

If they wanted to
Which they didn't.

Apparently the Royal Family can not be expected to read newspapers or watch the news that said in 1987 these two women were in an institution.
Only the public knew, not the Royal Family...apparently.

Well I can’t argue with there having been no hint of a visit… which as I say, there wouldn’t have been if it was private.

I do not buy that they did not know these two women were in an institution

Yes, and that’s your clear bias showing.

@YetMoreNewBeginnings and since 1987? Remember the last sister died in 2014.

Or use google!

@Serenster so the public knew but the family did not? Bloody hell they must be a very ignorant family if they do not know facts reported in the news about their own family.

I do not buy that they did not know these two women were in an institution. They did know and did not care. They were as good as dead to them.

And there is no evidence that was the case. Perhaps the QM knew, perhaps she had been asked by her sister not to disclose their existence, perhaps they were embarrassed and ashamed. We just don't know. And why is the Queen getting all the stick anyway - these two women must have had dozens of cousins if their mum was one of 10 but it's just the Queen who should have been visiting?

You are being unfair now. The Queen had 4 children and a job. How could she ever have had the time to google anything?

Since they had “very few” visitors (not none) according to the carer - we have no idea what was organised then or who visited.

I find it highly unlikely that they’d suddenly have publicly known visits.

you’re entitled to your opinion, to assume the worst, I imagine that the family will have done what they think is best in conjunction with the place the sisters lived.

And why is the Queen getting all the stick anyway - these two women must have had dozens of cousins if their mum was one of 10 but it's just the Queen who should have been visiting?

Exactly, KnittingNeedles. It’s the professionally offended.

Don't you think that if there had been visits that someone, just someone from the RF would've attended the funerals?
They didn't.

You can rely on the 'secret visit' all you like, but it is highly unlikely anyone visited them, given no one attended their funerals, and only a public outcry enabled a headstone.

That doesn't make me think anyone visited.

Or use google!

This is fascinating.

what was she supposed to Google exactly?

“do I have any missing cousins?”

Why would she Google her family tree when she had it in books and on scrolls all available to her?

Doesn't anyone here ask about their family, their cousins, who lives where, what they do etc?

The ones who I know are alive, yes. If I’d been told they were dead, I wouldn’t question that - who would? The answers to “Where do they live and what do they do?” would be “In the ground and very little”.

One of my first cousins “died” in 1989. I’ve put that in quotation marks because apparently the word of his mother and my grandmother isn’t good enough - I ought to double-check.

I imagine that the family will have done what they think is best in conjunction with the place the sisters lived.

Is doing their best only having hospital staff attend their funerals?

Pretty poor show in my book

She could have googled the daily news about her own family. It was all over the papers and TV in 1987. The public knew, but the incredibly ignorant according to posters Royal Family did not.

I mean you either take the line that the Queen and others knew. Or you take the line that they are incredibly thick and ignorant so do not know what was all over the news. I wonder if anyone has told the rest of the Royal family about Andrews visit to Woking Pizza Express yet?

Yeah they did not give a shit about the sisters.

According to a 2011 television documentary about the sisters, The Queen's Hidden Cousins, broadcast by Channel 4, "throughout their time at the hospital, there is no known record that the sisters were ever visited by any member of the Bowes-Lyon or royal families, despite their aunt, the Queen Mother, being a Patron of Mencap" (a charity for people with learning disabilities). Nurses interviewed on the documentary said that, to their knowledge, the family never sent the sisters a birthday or Christmas gift or card. When Nerissa died in 1986, none of her family attended the funeral. She was buried at the nearby Redstone Cemetery, Earlswood.[7] Her grave was marked with plastic tags and a serial number until her existence was revealed in the media, after which the family added a gravestone.

All the speculation.

So someone reveals in 1987 that two cousins who the Queen had either never heard of or, who she had been told had died years before, are alive. So she gets on the phone to Margaret or her mother and asks what the hell is going on.

And the QM says it's all terribly upsetting, and her brother/sister-in-law never wanted to talk about it so she didn't push, and she had no idea about them being in an institution, she's as surprised as anyone, and she can't even ask her brother or sister in law as they're both dead.

People want to see this as black and white. Royal family = bad and neglectful. They must have known. Evil and uncaring. Back in the real world, there are many shades of grey.

For what it’s worth, I think you’re probably right. I don’t care enough to “rely” on a secret visit - I doubt there was one.

My point was, I don’t believe anyone would care about the average man or woman in the street not visiting previously unknown cousins - which is why I said a public visit would look like a PR exercise. It was you who said they could have visited privately - yet you wanted a special kind of private visit; the kind we all know about.

I wonder if anyone has told the rest of the Royal family about Andrews visit to Woking Pizza Express yet?

Stop it hahaha

@KnittingNeedles And since 1987?

So they had no/few visitors, and that's the Queen's responsibility somehow. Even though they had closer family members. I have cousins I've not seen for forty years. I wouldn't recognise them if I fell over them. They may be visitorless in an institution for all I know. Am I somehow responsible for them? Nope.

It's just another stick to beat the RF with, and tbh it's more a thin and twiggy twig.

Glad I made you laugh.

But really in trying to defend the Royal Family their supporters just make them out to be incredibly thick and ignorant.