The Queen's Cousins

Fell down a bit of a rabbit hole last night and find myself needing to put in my tuppence-worth, quelle surprise.

I remember watching The Queen's Secret Cousins (2011) and it annoyed me as misrepresentation at the time. I was reminded of that irritation during the recent coverage of the death of HM Queen Elizabeth II where the tale got wheeled out again.

So last night, set off by a vague reference, I found myself looking to see if there was any further information and I found this rather lovely review from The Guardian (source: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/nov/17/tv-review-the-queens-hidden-cousins) which all the quotes in bold are from.

"The voiceover whispered of "dark secrets". Only none were forthcoming in The Queen's Hidden Cousins (Channel 4); unless by secrets you include a story that was all over the tabloids in 1987." 

There's almost a quarter of a century between 1987 and 2011; it's not unreasonable to think that a lot of viewers in 2011 had never seen or heard of the scandal. I was 9 years old in 1987 and disinclined to read tabloids. Nowadays a lot of the tabloid reading adults in the UK weren't even born in '87! Certainly it's been no secret for many, many years but it's still getting trotted out intermittently as a 'shameful scandal' against the Royal Family although none of the people involved are in any way Royal - the late Queen Mother (1900-2002) was Royal by marriage, not by birth, and this is her family.

I would like to take a look at the idea that The Queen Mother was in any way culpable for her nieces treatment. Sure, she was a patron of Mencap (a charity for people with learning disabilities) but at a familial level was it really anything to do with her?

Let's start with the Bowes-Lyon family tree (source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngRK08NpoNo): Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later The Queen Mother, was the ninth of ten children; from them she had 23 nieces and nephews. The eldest of that generation was only 10 years her junior.

The cousins in question were Nerissa Bowes-Lyon (1919-1986) and her sister Katherine (1926-2014), the children of her brother John (1886-1930). Not only was this brother fourteen years her senior but there were four other siblings between John and Elizabeth. 

Obviously all families have different dynamics but from everything I've seen over the years siblings usually have closer relationships to same sex siblings who are also close in age. It's not particularly remarkable that Elizabeth may not have been especially close to John. Siblings don't always stay in close contact anyway. 

My mother has a brother and sister - she had a fairly good relationship with her sister but no contact with her brother for years now. My father has three brothers - all close in age - and he has nothing to do with any of them.

There were certainly a large number of other family members who could have but did not interest themselves in Nerissa and Katherine but no one's mentioning them, I assume because they're not Royalty.

"Maybe the Royal Family's apathy towards Katherine and Nerissa was catching"

If anything it would have been the other way about - if the Bowes-Lyon clan had interested themselves more maybe the Royals would have also. Families can be estranged for any number of reasons and <<<UNPOPULAR OPINION>>> perhaps it's more toxic to expect people to be close just because they're related.

Aside: So much has been made of the Duchess of Sussex cutting her attention seeking toxic father Thomas Markle out of her life but people (and MSM) choose to ignore that Thomas has never met Ashleigh and Chris Hale, his grandchildren by Meghan's half-sister Samantha (Ashleigh is approximately 37 while Chris is about 35) and estranged from her other daughter, Noelle Rasmussen. But the narrative is all poor Thomas, cut out of Archie & Lilibet's life. I'm certainly not disputing the poor Nerissa, poor Katherine narrative but they had Bowes-Lyon and Trefusis relatives before the House of Windsor and there might well have been other factors at play. Just using this as an example that interpersonal relationships are frequently complicated and the media doesn't always present a balanced perspective.

This is WITHOUT factoring in that the Queen Mother was a wife with young children herself (the late Queen Elizabeth II and her cousin Katherine were the same age), her husband's family and her Royal duties. To my way of thinking the idea she should have known Nerissa and Katherine's fates is a bit of a stretch, especially as families often tried to hide how disabled their children were.

The Royal Family proper (i.e. the lines directly related to the monarchy) are not insubstantial in themselves. The Queen Mother had in-laws, and the late Queen Elizabeth II had another seven cousins on her father's side (source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6F5JC9Ut3I). There are also more distant cousins such as those via Edward VII or Queen Victoria who may well have taken precedence over their Bowes-Lyon relations with the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose.

All things considered I don't find it at all remarkable that The Queen Mum (allegedly) didn't know what became of two relatives out of so many. She had plenty else going on in her life.

"Surely someone must have noticed that the women had disappeared"

WHY?! Neither Nerissa or Katherine would have lived at all publicly. They would not have gone to school, or have been debutantes, or simply attend family events. Who exactly would have missed two young women who had probably not been seen since early childhood?!

John's widow Fenella (nee Trefusis - this is relevant later) is described as having been 'a leading guest' at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth & Philip Mountbatten in1947 (17 years after John's death; source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bowes-Lyon) but it does not necessarily follow that the family were close. A lot of people include close relations in their wedding parties... and never speak to them for decades. 

As an aside to my own familial experiences I have far less cousins but even in these days of social media I have little idea where they are, what they're up to, if they've put any kids in institutions... How much do YOU know about YOUR extended family?

"Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, then aged 15 and 22 respectively, had been secretly placed at Earlswood mental hospital in 1941 by their parents"

Well, that's blatantly untrue, isn't it?! Their father John had been dead for 11 years, all that time Fenella was raising her four surviving children alone; she never remarried. Also, define 'secretly'? They didn't make it public, it was later reported (quietly) that they had died... but there's a subtle difference between secrecy and privacy. Secrecy makes it sound underhanded, and perhaps it was. But it could just have been a private family matter no one felt like sharing.

"If the family had stayed together for that long, what was the breaking point? It must have been something quite dramatic."

Also nonsense in my humble opinion. Any parent of a severely special needs child (let alone a lone parent, let alone two special needs children, let alone trying to balance the needs of their other kids) can reach breaking point over nothing at all. Eventually an awful lot of carers burn out.

It is also worth noting that in 1941 Nerissa and Katherine's sister Anne, then 24, was recently married and had her first child that year (Lady Elizabeth Shakerley 1941-2020). Is it possible that the sisters were hospitalised so that Fenella could be an active grandmother, or perhaps their disabilities made them a risk to the new baby. Just because someone is mentally disabled it does not follow that they are passive or inactive, physically incapable of doing harm; indeed, some mentally disabled people can be dreadfully violent.

Fenella Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis was 52 in 1941. She was likely getting to old to physically care for them any more. She may well have felt that they would be happier and more settled in an institution. Perhaps she had health issues of her own (as many carers do) and was concerned that her daughters ought to transition to a hospital before her own death.

Second guessing the strains which Fenella was under is vague at best but remember that the 1940s were not only a different age culturally speaking but also technologically - there were no communication devices for the non-verbal, wheelchairs and other aids were primitive at best, even basic care needs like laundry would have been quite burdensome without modern appliances. Certainly Fenella was better placed than most but that does not infer that she had it at all easy.

"None of this would have mattered so much if there had been any attempt to discover why the two women were placed in care in 1941, as this was the one part of the story that was genuinely still a mystery"

They were placed in care because they were non-verbal and estimated to have a 'mental age' of six years - isn't that enough of a reason? I assume the author, John Crace, means what medical condition(s) led to this unhappy situation... But between their medical records being justifiably private and the lack of genetic diagnostics when they were young it's very unlikely a definitive answer could ever be provided.

A different Anne, Anne Tennant, Baroness Glenconner had her engagement (to the future father of Diana, Princess of Wales) broken off after "his father objected to the match on the grounds of "mad blood", as one of her grandmothers was a Trefusis" (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerissa_and_Katherine_Bowes-Lyon)

This is no mere paranoia about heredity, but based in fact. I mentioned earlier that Nerissa & Katherine's mother was a Trefusis, I have shown an example of another Trefusis descendant having her engagement called off due to the family's reputation... Fenella had five children - two disabled, two healthy, one who died in infancy. Her only sister's story followed the same pattern: Harriet Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis (1887-1958) married, in 1910, Major Henry Nevile Fane and had seven children (source: http://www.thepeerage.com/p1246.htm#i12451): three disabled, three healthy, one who died in infancy. There was quite plainly something wrong in that family and potential suitors were understandably alarmed.

The three disabled children of Harriet were also, eventually, life patients at Earlswood - Idonea (1912-2002), Rosemary (1914-1972) and Etheldreda (1922-1996) (source: https://www.tatler.com/article/real-story-nerissa-and-katherine-bowes-lyon-the-queens-cousins-the-crown-season-4). It is perfectly possible that Harriet and Fenella having between them five daughters with similar, if not identical disabilities, may have chosen to send the young women to Earlswood together. While apparently cutting off all contact with the five girls it was likely a hard decision; very few parents get up one morning and decide to write their kids off completely. It's also worth noting that popular thought at the time was to make a clean break of it - that it would be distressing for the disabled person to see family members and not be taken home with them, it would likewise be extremely painful for the family members leaving them behind.

It seems improbable that a birth-injury disability such as cerebral palsy would (a) not be recognised as such and (b) affect at least five of twelve cousins (after all, we don't know whether the two who died in infancy would have been similarly affected or not). Much more likely is some genetic illness although what motivation would there have been for seeking a diagnosis at such a late stage when their siblings children, and indeed THEIR children, all appear to have been unaffected. Sure, there's curiosity but realistically only Katherine could have been genetically screened, the others having died before such testing was widely available. Even if she had been screened that does NOT guarantee any answers. 

"If the 85-year old Katherine had made her first ever public appearance on the Buckingham Palace balcony: that would have been abusive"

Obviously this was a scenario that was never going to happen - as a Bowes-Lyon she would not have got a balcony spot in a month of Sundays. But even if it had been an option I agree with Crace; it would have been abusive. While hiding people with disabilities away is, thankfully, largely done away with there is nothing admirable about putting them on display to be gawked at like in old freak shows. Like I said earlier - there's a big difference between secrecy and shame, and privacy and protection.

Maybe their family did them dirty but it was in line with societal norms of the era and judging them by the standards of several generations later is pointless. Also, no one has ever really addressed whether Earlswood was a good, bad, or indifferent place to be. I also think this sort of story is immensely unhelpful to struggling carers who may need to consider residential homes

Perhaps we need to consider empathy before judgement, especially in a historical context where little can ever be certain. 

In Defence of Peter Quint (The Haunting of Bly Manor)

I dunno, maybe this defence / rant isn't necessary on any level but having just finished watching 'The Haunting of Bly Manor' (the non-sequel to 'The Haunting of Hill House') on Netflix with my elder beastie I feel like viewers will probably see the character Peter Quint as a villain... and imho that's a tad unfair. 

WARNING: THIS WILL NOT BE A SPOILER FREE ZONE 

First up is the inevitable context argument. In 1980s Britain domestic violence was barely acknowledged. A man could LEGALLY rape his wife (that was true until Regina v. R (1991)) and date rape wasn't taken seriously either. Workplace sexism and sexual harassment was normalised. Sure, Peter Quint is a bit of a problematic git by modern standards but he's hardly even a blip for his era.
I'm still not even 100% sure if he'd stolen all the money he was accused of - Henry Wingrave was so far out of his gourd who's to say he didn't lose the funds or give Quint the necessary permissions?!

See also: https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a34348004/haunting-of-bly-manor-oliver-jackson-cohen-interview/

Instead I would argue that Viola Willoughby is the absolute villain of the piece. Not to deny she had a rough go of it but she was a damned nasty piece of work well before she morphed into the monster of the piece:

• Viola sweeps Arthur, the man her sister Perdita is interested in, off his feet; Perdita is then dependent on her brother-in-law and has no other marriage prospects.
• Viola has a child, Isabel, who supplants Perdita in her affections.
• Viola gets sick with (presumably) tuberculosis. She does not respect the enforced separation from her daughter - she's so selfish that she literally doesn't care if Isabel catches her disease.
• Perdita nurses her faithfully but Viola lashes out viciously - fuelled by anger, jealousy, and resentment. Perdita begs Viola to accept her fate, even if only so Isabel may have better memories of her mother. Viola doesn't care.
• Perdita, having borne all these things with good grace, eventually suffocates Viola - she tries to think of it as a mercy but (according to the narrator) she has 'had enough'. Like that isn't valid. Enough of Viola's suffering (having now far outlived all expectations) and enough of her cruelty. Everyone has a limit and that was Perdita's.

By the time Viola finally dies and Arthur marries Perdita it is seemingly too late for Perdita to have children of her own. Isabel resents her for usurping her mother, Arthur has lost the family wealth and treats his wife as something of a consolation prize, so Perdita still has nothing.

This article posits that Viola isn't a real villain but just as trapped as the other spirits:
https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a34225149/haunting-of-bly-manor-lady-in-the-lake/
I disagree. She may not have trapped herself intentionally and she couldn't have foreseen the consequences her refusal to accept her fate would have but there's no denying she caused the whole damn mess through sheer bloody-mindedness! If she had been a kinder person, if she had put her daughter's needs first, if she had considered her sister AT ALL, none of it would have happened.

But this is supposed to be a rant in defence of Peter Quint, right? So let's bring it back to him.

The really unconscionable thing Quint does is kill his lover, Rebecca 'Bex' Jessel. But being me I have a counterpoint to that too.

Okay, I lied about being back to Quint. ANOTHER tangent: when Hannah Grose is coming to terms with the fact she's dead she's working through her emotions by projecting the object of her affections - Owen Sharma - so when he asks her to warn him of the danger it's her own mind telling her to save the man she loves.
So we judge Peter Quint for taking the life of his lover instead of saving her. But Hannah and Peter being very different people doesn't make Quint an  inherently bad guy, just not as good as Hannah. People are varied, not just good and bad. As it is, when the danger is pressing upon them Hannah tells Owen only "they need you at the lake" sending him straight into harm's way with no warning of what lay ahead!

The fact Peter reveals himself as a ghost to Bex should warn her - but somehow it doesn't. Her own reaction is, in my humble opinion, 'off': she should surely want to discover Quint's body and have his name cleared when everyone believes him an absconding thief? Instead she falls in with his plans to find a way for them to stay together forever... for a wannabe barrister she's exceptionally slow on the uptake of what that must inevitably entail. Nor does she seem to be over-burdened with guilt for the 'help' they demand of Miles and Flora, the children she was responsible for.
Yeah, Peter's not a 'good' guy but then Bex wasn't so sweet and innocent... she was totally using the kids as a way to get to Henry Wingrave, using the kids to see Peter - even AFTER he killed her. And lets not forget that she STILL didn't tell him 'no' when she pretended to go along with possessing Flora permanently: Bex was complicit in Peter's attempt to eradicate Miles even as she tried to 'save' Flora.

So let's address THAT. Peter loves Bex. Hannah loves Owen. Hannah wants Owen SAVED. Peter wants Bex dead? Is it really so simple or cruel? I'm not so sure. Peter wanted to be WITH Bex and the only way he could see that happening was if she died too. It's almost the exact same thing as Viola trying to fetch Isabel every night in her madness... and I wonder if that's where he got it from? He's not so far gone as Viola but her loss, her madness infects all the spirits she traps at Bly. The other ghosts aren't hell-bent on dragging their loved ones off to a watery grave because (so it seems) none of them was possessed by that destructive, possessive kind of love in life. Or at least not with the object of that 'affection' within the boundaries.
Perhaps if Perdita's ghost had risen at her death (rather than waiting for Viola's chest to rot down in the lake) she'd have harmed Arthur or Isabel... but I think not. Life had not been kind to Perdita but she was fundamentally an unselfish person: she had stood back to allow Arthur to be happy with Viola; even before her post-death insanity Viola wouldn't step back even for the sake of Isabel's life.
As Viola kept selfishly trying to bring Isabel to her so too did Peter try to keep Bex with him. Perhaps Viola is excused because she was too far gone to realise what she was doing? But I'm still of the mind that he thought Bex realised what the goal was - he didn't tell her the plan and tucked her away in a memory to cause her less fear and suffering, not as a deliberate deception.
But my theory is that, given time, Hannah might have tried to induce Owen - by whatever means she could - to stay at Bly with her. Whether that would be from a normal human fear of loneliness or the warped influence of Viola who could tell? Maybe Hannah loved Owen enough to let him go... but as it turned out he didn't let her go - he took her memory with him. If he'd had the chance I fear he'd have jumped at the chance to stay with her at Bly forever.

As you may know I have been alone just this side of forever. I refer to finding my fictional future spouse as finding a willing victim. Y'all think I'd let a little thing like death get in my way if I finally met the right someone?! "Till death us do part" is kinda short term... So yeah, I'm not gonna condemn Peter Quint for 'keeping' Bex, especially if he thought she was willing.
He was afraid. Lonely, afraid, and desperate. The memory he kept slipping back to, unlike Bex and Hannah's happy moments, was being manipulated by his abusive mother. A damaged man, human enough to make some terrible mistakes, and yet still capable of love.

Did Peter Quint redeem himself? It's a tough one. I believed his apology to Miles was heartfelt but it is it enough to say "I'm sorry I tried to kill you kid"? I'm not sure. But hey, Miles lived and completely forgot his childhood trauma. What kind of 'peace' Quint went to when Viola's spell was broken is, like everything about the hereafter, unknowable.
Did Rebecca Jessel redeem herself? Also kind of tough. She was willing to sacrifice Miles to save Flora. She was willing to suffer Flora's drowning so the child didn't have to. It's not because she's a woman that I find her more problematic than Quint - Quint made a decision to permanently possess the children, a terrible thing to do indeed... but an open and 'honest' decision. Bex, for a grown and supposedly highly educated woman, shows herself to be horribly suggestible at best. It's like she's supposed to be the victim of a manipulative boyfriend and sure, even smart women do stupid shit for men but I'm not buying it.
If she'd CHOSEN to hurt those kids for her own ends I'd understand it more than this... stupidity. I've often said that if I kill someone I want it to be because I MEANT TO. Killing someone by accident or ignorance or neglect or stupidity is, to me somehow worse than deliberate murder because you just didn't care if someone got hurt. If someone kills me I want it to be because they wanted me dead, not because I was convenient, or there.

Viola definitely didn't redeem herself and I'm still baffled by the conclusion... why did she bide her time within Dani? Why did she re-assert herself after such a long time? Is it supposed to be a metaphor for things like HIV that once contracted will get you in the end???
Although Perdita killed Viola she's the one I feel for. She bore her misfortunes with grace and suffered a great deal, getting a raw deal from Arthur, Isabel and Viola. I also felt her ghost was of little significance in the haunting. Rather a sad afterlife.

The Great Loo Debate

I have seen an awful lot on social media lately about transgender people's right to use the bathroom of choice and I want to put in my tuppence worth on the topic.

1a. Gendered bathrooms are a thing we are taught to expect from early childhood, a lot of people are going to be pissy (no pun intended) if expected to do something they are distinctly uncomfortable about. Given that estimates put non gender conforming people at around 1% of the population that leaves a huge majority of people who could be left feeling potentially unable to use public restrooms.

1b. Being uncomfortable about using public bathrooms leads to shy bladder / shy bowel syndrome which leads to issues like urinary tract infections, constipation and even incontinence. I understand that a lot of trans people may well suffer from this but dispensing with segregated bathrooms is likely to exacerbate the issue and become a health risk for a lot more people.

1c. Who have you shared a bathroom with of the opposite biological gender? For a lot of us only EVER family members and people we were otherwise intimately acquainted with. Maybe YOU have a background where you've shared facilities with a range of people but a lot of us haven't and would never willingly to do so.  Also I should imagine that for women of very conservative religious backgrounds particularly this is could be a deeply problematic thing. I'm no expert on religious issues but given that strictly religious women of several failths have to be separate from men in many day-to-day activities anyway this is bound to be a deeply divisive issue which could lead to cases of religious discrimination if segregated facilities were not upheld.

2. We're being told that 'bathroom predators' are a myth but tell that to the numerous men, women and children who've been assaulted in that way. Yes, most people are raped / abused by people they know but assaults by strangers can and do happen; yes, we know same-sex assaults happen but statistically women are more likely to be assaulted by men than other scenarios - and public restrooms have always been considered a high risk place. Girls go to the loo in packs for REASONS, and those do not generally include fear of basilisks.

3a. No one is specifically equating being trans with being a 'bathroom predator' BUT...being trans doesn't make you a good person. Sorry but your identity does not equate to your morality.

3b. How are we planning to ascertain whether someone is trans? Disabled people have to carry ID / radar keys to access locked facilities which they have to have medical proof of their NEED for such a thing (which, lets face it, is an utter disgrace. Adults, especially those with incontinence issues, should not be having to ask to use the bathroom in the 21st century!) - you see someone using the disabled bathroom you can challenge them on their right to do so. What people are REALLY concerned about here is predators PRETENDING to be trans; a system so bogged down by political correctness that a man entering a women's bathroom (for example) is not challenged.

4. Not an issue that is usually raised but...if genderless bathrooms become commonplace / people are not challenged on entering a bathroom contrary to their apparent birth sex it may well also lead to an increase in *ahem* bathroom assignations / public indecency issues and I don't suppose anyone wants that.

Question: if a man in a gender-free bathroom comes out of a cubicle with his fly unzipped / if a woman comes out with her skirt tucked in her knickers will they risk being done for exposing themselves??? These things happen a lot and are usually rectified before leaving the restroom thanks to mirrors / friendly fellow occupants. Mixed bathrooms could seriously complicate that.

I personally think trans people who are undergoing treatment - psychological, hormone or surgical - should be able to use the facilities of choice and being issued with a medical ID (like the disabled version) to prove their case if challenged. Simply saying 'I identify as a man' or 'I identify as a woman' is too easy for paedophiles and other sexual predators to do.
There are few statistics on either but there are likely to be more gender non-conforming people than sexual predators in the UK but this is not about numbers this is about perceived risk. Sexual predators pose a risk and changing how public bathrooms operate will certainly increase that risk as well as perception of it.
It would be a good idea if all new public buildings were required to provide a gender-free FOURTH bathroom type (after male, female, accessible - previously disabled) - being for trans and others such as parents who need to supervise opposite gender children (which can be a major headache, especially if you have an older child with special needs who is not 'disabled' as such). A similar requirement could be put in place that all refurbishments should provide this fourth category of restroom wherever possible. By being a fourth type it would give people the choice, and choice is important - for ALL of us.

EDIT (2019)
I identify as agender and I am biologically female so I have always used female loos. I have cleaned bathrooms for a living and have no desire whatsoever to share facilities with males of the species - even at home! When my stepdad visits I make him use one particular loo cos he pees on the floor!
I was assaulted by a teenage lad the other day for being agender... and that was out on a busy main road - heaven knows how much danger people could be at in an enclosed, private space like a bathroom. Sexual assault, gender assault, religious persecution, an innocent lad getting mistaken for a paedophile because he took his little sister into the bathroom?! The possibilities are endless and while not all are limited to shared public loos they'd certainly make it easier to attack someone.