If Netflix is looking to follow up The Crown with another series about the Royal Family, it might be smart to devise a show told from the perspective of those who work for the Royal Family. The palace servants arguably lead even more taxing, trying, and highly pressurized lives than their aristocratic employers as, by all accounts, the Royals don’t get many “World’s Best Boss” mugs for Christmas.
In a new book from author Tom Quinn, titled Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants, various former Royal staffers come clean about the kind of eyebrow-raising treatment they had to endure as they served the sovereign and their family. Few of the family come out of the book well, with King Charles and Prince William said to be known to throw “tantrums” if their baths aren’t ready on time and Prince Andrew alleged to have fired someone just because they had a mole on their face (why are we not surprised?).
Prince Harry doesn’t seem to be quite that level of awful, but one illuminating passage admits that Royal staffers used to have an unflattering nickname for the Duke of Sussex — because of how “muddled” he could be.
“Muddled” Prince Harry compared to infamously idiotic Royal by palace staff
According to an extract from Quinn’s book, which has been released ahead of its publication later this month, Harry could get angry with his staff for the smallest of hiccups, like his brother and father, and was known to blow things “out of proportion” from time to time. That probably didn’t help his ego-splintering nickname from spreading around the lower levels of the palace.
“I remember once in his private apartments I’d muddled something – some of his papers on his desk or something,” recalls one anonymous staffer in Quinn’s book (via Express). “He was immediately angry and it was out of proportion to the problem, or at least I thought it was.”
The staffer went on to admit that Harry had a reputation among the palace employees for being the most “muddled” of the younger royals, which led him to often be compared to a notoriously dim-witted prince from British pop culture.
“We thought it was a bit rich complaining about me being muddled given that Harry was probably the most muddled of all the royals of his generation,” the staffer continued. “The joke used to be that Harry was very much like the Prince Regent in the Blackadder television series. People used to say that without a servant, Harry would take two weeks to put his own trousers on.”
For those not familiar with Blackadder, the third season of the 1980s historical comedy series featured Hugh Laurie (long before he was better known as the lead in the ever-memeable House) as Prince George, a hapless royal who was often the butt of the joke for needing his long-suffering butler, Edmund Blackadder (Mr. Bean‘s Rowan Atkinson), to do the most basic of tasks for him.
From what we’ve gleaned from this new book so far, its ultimate message seems to be that when you’re waited on hand and foot your whole life then you end up being prone to childish behavior like throwing tantrums and lacking basic adult skills. Who’d have thunk!
Published: Feb 13, 2025 12:06 pm