Prince John

^Prince John and his brother Prince George.

John was the youngest son of George V and Mary of Teck. He had epilepsy and possibly autism, too. It's hard to know as the details of his condition were kept very quiet.

He was close to his brother Prince George, but the younger two children were kept fairly separately from the older ones and as such John didn't really have that much of a relationship with the rest of his siblings. He would've gotten to know them better if he'd lived longer. John was tutored privately, and was kept away from people outside his immediate family in his early years. Except for nannies, of course. The people who did know him commented that he would often play pranks and mess around in the palace. He got away with a lot more than the rest of the children could. He would make very unusual comments to people they'd remember years later.

When John was eleven he was sent to live separately from the rest of the family on a farm. That was around the same age his older brothers had been sent to military school. In the farm house John had his own staff and was allowed more fresh air and freedom than he had in the palace. His grandmother, mother, and brother George often visited him. He had some friends and played in the gardens. He certainly missed his family, but it wasn't like they kept him locked up in the attic.

I do not like Queen Mary; I think she was a pretty horrible mother to all of her children and a not particularly nice person all around. But she really doesn't deserve the flack she gets for Prince John.

Honestly, from what I've read, she loved him and spent more time with him than she did some of her "normal" children. She sent him away, but she sent all of her other sons away at around the same age to boarding schools and she visited John more than she probably ever visited her other sons. Also, it wasn't entirely her decision what happened to John. I don't think she liked having her children around either way. In his memoir her oldest son Edward said that usually the only time he ever saw his mother as a child would be for an hour in the evenings when she was dressing for dinner. She would have her children sent up to her room and talk to them and teach them crafts and things, and then they would be taken away by the nanny and she wouldn't see them until the next day.

People during that time period were embarrassed of disabled children, particularly the upper classes. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, had an older brother who had two mentally challenged daughters he sent to an institution as teenagers. After that they were forgotten and the family told people they were dead.

John died at age thirteen in early 1919. His death was reported in the papers, but it was not a big story. The really bizarre thing is how after that he was basically forgotten. As a child, he had been mentioned as a member of the family; there were pictures of him sometimes with his siblings. But after he died, he was written out. All of a sudden the family only had five children. Official family trees were published for the coronation of George VI and the weddings of Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. John was not included. His mother didn't talk about him much after he died. His grandmother Queen Alexandra did sometimes, but she died six years later. Prince George was the only relative who made significant efforts to keep his memory alive.

That's the really weird thing about this story. It shows one of the nastier elements of The Firm. Before he died, John was removed from the public eye. After his death, John as forgotten. No monuments and a very small funeral. I don't believe his name was mentioned in the obituaries for his parents; if it was it was only a fleeting reference. His name was considered bad luck so none of his relatives named children for him.

People completely forgot he'd ever existed until nearly eighty years after he died. In 1998 there was a big auction of the possession of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Some of the items included a large box of royal family photographs. There were pictures of John included. When the press were covering the auction, someone saw those and began to wonder "who was this kid?" and it led to an article and the publication of the photos in the British press. Of course the article was rather sensationalist; about how John had been locked away. Which wasn't exactly the case, but it made sense because most royal watchers had never heard of him at all. He wasn't included in many books documenting the family and when he was there was only a brief mention of his name and that he was sick. Certainly no one would have recognized him from the photos.

That press attention led to "The Lost Prince" miniseries which led to John's story getting more attention.

***This is actually something I posted on Jezebel and other places a few weeks ago but forgot to add here so I guess if you follow the blog you might not have seen it***