The Queen Mother Hid A Dark Secret For 46 Years HT

 

 

 

In April 1987, a reporter from the Sun newspaper walked into a mental institution in Surrey, England. He had posed as a family member to gain access. Inside, he found an elderly woman sitting in a common room. She was frail, confused, staring  blankly at nothing in particular. He raised his camera and took her photograph.

 Her  name was Catherine Bose Lion. She was 61 years old. According to official records, she had been dead since 1961, but here she was very much alive, locked inside the Royal Ellsworth Hospital for the mentally disabled. She had been there for 46 years. Catherine Bose Lion was a first  cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.

 They shared the same grandparents. While the family had waved from  palace balconies and posed for official portraits, Catherine had been hidden away in a Victorian asylum. And she wasn’t alone. Catherine’s older sister, Nerissa, had been locked in the same institution. Three more cousins had suffered the same  fate.

 For nearly half a century, the royal family had kept this secret while their relatives sat on the throne of England. This is the story of how they disappeared. Glam’s Castle sits in the Scottish lands, a fortress of towers and turrets that has belonged to the same family since 1372. Shakespeare set McBth here.

 Locals whisper about ghosts  in its corridors. And for centuries, dark legends have clung to its walls. The  most famous is the monster of Glams. According to the story, a hideously deformed child was born to the family in 1821. He was the heir to the eldom,  the firstborn son.

 But his appearance was so horrifying  that his parents faked his death on the day he was born and hid him away in a secret room deep within the castle.  He allegedly lived there for decades, fed by servants, his existence known only to the Earl, his heir, and  the estate manager. When he finally died, the chamber was bricked up, sealed forever.

 Guests at Glamis  became obsessed with finding the hidden room. One party supposedly hung towels from every window they could access, then went outside to count. Several windows had no towels. The secret room they believed was real. Whether the monster actually existed, no one knows for certain. The family  has always denied it.

 But Claude Bose’s Lion, the 13th Earl of Strathmore, once told a visitor, “If you could even guess the nature of this castle’s secret, you would get down on your knees and thank  God it was not yours.” True or not, the legend revealed something about the Bose lions. The family name came first, always. In 1900, the 14th Earl of Strathmore and his wife Cecilia welcomed their ninth child, a daughter named Elizabeth Angela Margarite Bose Lion.

 She grew up splitting time between Glam’s Castle and the family’s English estate at St. Paul’s Waldenberry in Hertfordshire. A lively spirited girl, she was particularly close to her younger brother David. The family called them the two Benjamins. When the First World War broke out on Elizabeth’s 14th birthday, Glams was converted into a convolescent hospital for wounded soldiers.

 Young Elizabeth threw herself into the work, rolling bandages, writing letters for injured men, lifting spirits with her charm. Her brother Fergus was killed at the Battle of Lu in 1915. Another brother, Michael, was captured and spent years as a prisoner of war. Elizabeth’s older brother, John, had married just weeks after war was declared.

 His bride was Finella Hepin Stewart Forbus, daughter of the 21st Baron  Clinton. Together they would have five children, two daughters named Diana and Anne who developed normally, a son who died in infancy, and two more daughters, Nerissa, born in February 1919, and Catherine, born in July 1926. In April 1923, Elizabeth Bose Lion married Prince Albert, Duke of York, the second son of King George V.

 The wedding took place at Westminster Abbey. She was now her royal highness, the Duchess of York, a member of the royal family. The Bose lions had gone from Scottish aristocrats to relatives of the crown. But there was a problem growing within the family. John and Finella’s youngest daughters were not developing like other children.

 Neither girl learned to speak, not a word, not ever. In the medical terminology of the era, they were classified as imbecile, a clinical term meaning an IQ between 25 and 50, a mental age of 3 to 7 years old. They would never read, never write, never hold a conversation. They would remain in the language of the time, permanent children.

 The exact cause of their condition has never been confirmed. Some researchers have suggested a genetic disorder in the Tfosys family’s side of the bloodline. David Danks, director of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, later theorized that a recessive gene in the Hetburn Stewart Forbes trafus line may have caused the disabilities.

Male children carrying the gene reportedly died in infancy. Female children survived but were profoundly affected. Lady Colin Campbell, whose mother knew a doctor who treated the sisters, claimed they suffered from Huntington’s disease. Others have speculated about Rhett syndrome or similar neurological conditions.

 The truth is that no definitive diagnosis was ever made public. What is certain is that Narissa and Catherine were not alone. Finanella’s sister, Harriet, had married Major Henry Feain. Together, they had seven children. Three of their daughters, Ida, Rosemary, and Ethel Drader, had the same condition as their cousins, all from the same maternal bloodline, all profoundly  disabled.

In February 1930, tragedy struck the family. John Bose’s lion, Nerissa, and Catherine’s father died of pneumonia. He was only 43 years old. Finella was now a widow with four children, two of whom required constant supervision and care. For a time, she managed. The girls were reportedly looked after at home, then placed in small private facilities designed for aristocratic families with disabled children. Vanilla visited.

 The family coped quietly out of public view. But everything was about to change. On January 20th, 1936, King George V died. His eldest son, Edward, ascended to the throne as King Edward VII. He was charming, modern, popular with the public. He was also desperately in love with an American divorce named Wallace Simpson.

 The relationship was a constitutional crisis waiting to happen. Simpson was still married to her second husband when she and Edward began their affair. By the time she divorced, Edward was king. He wanted to marry her. The government, the Church of England, and the leaders of the Commonwealth said no. A twice divorced American could not be queen.

Edward was given a choice. Give up Wallace or give up the crown. On December 11th, 1936, Edward VII  addressed the nation by radio. I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king  as I would wish to do, he said, without the help and support of the woman I love.

 His younger brother, Albert, the shy Duke of York with the debilitating stammer, never wanted to be king, but now he had no choice. He was crowned George V 6th on May 12th, 1937 at Westminster Abbey. His wife, Elizabeth Bose Lion, the Scottish aristocrat who had married a second son, was suddenly Queen of England. The coronation was magnificent.

 Elizabeth wore a crown set with the Coey Diamond. She became the first Britishborn queen consort since TUDA times. The nation embraced her, but the abdication had shaken the monarchy to its core. The idea that a king could simply walk away, that the succession could be disrupted by scandal and personal weakness had damaged public faith in the institution.

The crown could not afford another embarrassment. The Bows Lion family understood this  better than anyone. They had gone from minor Scottish aristocrats to having a direct bloodline to the throne. Elizabeth’s nieces, Nerissa and Catherine, were now first cousins to Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, first cousins to the future Queen of England.

 If anyone looked closely at the family tree, they would find two women who could not speak, who would never marry or have children or contribute to the dynasty. In an era obsessed with bloodlines and hereditary fitness, their existence posed a question the family did not want asked. There was precedent for what came next.

 Prince John, the youngest son of George V and Queen Mary, had suffered from epilepsy and likely autism. In 1916, as his seizures worsened, he was sent to Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate. He lived there with his governness, largely hidden from public view. When he died in 1919 at age 13, most of Britain had no idea he existed. His brother Edward, the future king who would later abdicate, described John’s death as little more than a regrettable nuisance.

 In a letter, he called his youngest brother more of an animal than anything else. This was what the crown did with its imperfect members. It hid them away and hoped the public never noticed. Narissa and Catherine Bose’s lion were about to suffer the same fate. But unlike Prince John, they would not die young.

 They would live for decades, locked inside an institution while the family pretended they were already dead. In June 1941, while Nazi bombs were still falling on London, five women were driven to a Victorian asylum in Surrey. They arrived together on the same day and they would never leave. Narissa Bose Lion was 22 years old.

 Her sister Catherine was 15.  Their cousins Ida Fain was 29, Rosemary Feain was 27  and Ethel Dradane was 19. All five came from the same two sisters, Finanella and Harriet. The Royal Earswood Institution for Mental Defects sat on a hill in Red Hill Surrey. It had opened in 1855 as the first institution in Britain specifically designed for people with developmental disabilities.

 Prince Albert himself had laid the foundation stone. Queen Victoria had granted its royal charter. In its early years, it was considered progressive, even hopeful. Patients learned crafts. They tended gardens. There was talk of improvement, of education, of moral uplift. By 1941, that optimism had long since faded.

 The institution had become a warehouse for people society wanted to forget.  Wards held up to 40 patients at a time, supervised by just two nurses. The routine was rigid and joyless. Wake up, eat, sit, sleep, repeat. Former staff would later describe it as regimented and devoid of fun. One nurse recalled the daily reality.

 You gave them a bath, cut their nails,  fed them if they needed help. That was care. That was life. Nissa and Catherine were assigned patient numbers. They were classified as imbeciles, a legal category under the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 that meant they could be detained indefinitely. There was no expectation of discharge, no plan for rehabilitation.

 They were patients for life. Why 1941? Why that particular moment? The timing has never been fully explained. Some historians suggest practical reasons. The war had created a shortage of private nurses and domestic staff. Caring for severely disabled adults at home had become impossible. The Feain and Bose Lion families may have simply run out of options.

 Others see something darker. By 1941, George V 6th had been king for 5 years. The family was secure on the throne. The initial crisis of the abdication had passed. Perhaps this was the moment when the decision was made to solve the problem permanently, to move the embarrassing relative somewhere they would never be seen, somewhere they could be forgotten.

 Whatever the reason, the  result was total erasure. Vanilla Bose’s lions stopped mentioning her daughters in conversation. Family visits, if they happened at all, became increasingly rare. Within a few years, the cousins had vanished from aristocratic society entirely. No photographs, no mentions in the press, no acknowledgement that  they had ever existed.

 Meanwhile, their aunt Elizabeth was winning the adoration of the British public. During the blitz, she refused to leave London. “The children won’t go without me,” she famously said. “I won’t leave the king, and the king will never leave.” She visited bombed neighborhoods, shook hands with grieving families, smiled through the devastation.

 The papers called her the most dangerous woman in Europe because of the morale she inspired. She was everywhere. Her nieces were nowhere. And within two decades, the  family would take the final step. They would declare Nerissa and Catherine dead. Burke’s periage is the definitive guide to British aristocracy. First published in 1826,  it records the births, marriages, and deaths of every noble family in the kingdom.

 Families submit updates each year. The editors compile them into thick volumes  that sit on the shelves of libraries and estate offices across the country. If you want to know who belongs to the British upper class, you consult Burke. In 1963, the new edition of Burke’s Parage  contained two entries that would later cause a scandal.

 Narissa Bose’s Lion was listed  as having died in 1940. Catherine Bose Lion was listed as having died in 1961. Both women were still alive. Both were living at Royal Ellsworth Hospital, less than 30 miles from London. Narissa was  44 years old. Catherine was 37. They had been patients  there for over two decades.

 Someone had reported them dead and that someone had provided specific dates. The family would later blame Finella,  the girl’s mother. Relatives described her as a vague person who often did not fill out forms  completely. Lord Clinton dismissed suggestions of a cover up. It was simply a clerical error, he insisted, an elderly woman who got confused with the paperwork.

 But the entries weren’t  blank. They weren’t marked unknown. They included specific years of death.  1940 for Nerissa, 1961 for Catherine. Harold Brooks Baker, an editor at Burks Parage, was stunned when the truth emerged years later. If this is what the Bow’s lion family told us, then we would have included it in the book.

 He said, it is not normal to doubt the word of members of the royal family. For 24 years, no one questioned the entries. Narissa and Catherine were officially dead, erased from the aristocratic record. Their cousins, Idana, Rosemary, and Ethel, Drafane, weren’t listed at all. They had simply ceased to exist. Inside Royal Earleswood, life continued.

Staff remembered Narissa and Catherine  as gentle, quiet women. They couldn’t speak, but they understood more than people assumed. They recognized faces. They responded  to kindness. They had personalities, preferences, small joys. A former caregiver named Onell Braithweight recalled watching them during the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer  in July 1981 when the ceremony was broadcast on television.

 Narissa and Catherine rose to their feet. They waved at the screen.  They curtsied. They were watching their family. Their cousin’s son getting married, the biggest celebration in Britain that year. I remember pondering with my colleague, Braithweight later said, how if things had been different, they would surely have been guests at the wedding.

Instead, they watched from a hospital common room. Patients,  not relatives, forgotten, not celebrated, officially dead for 20 years at that point, though their hearts were still beating. In 1982, something changed. The League of Friends, a volunteer group at Royal Ellsworth, wrote to the Queen Mother to inform her that her nieces were still alive.

 She sent a check, money for sweets and toys, but she never visited. She never corrected Burke’s periage, and she never explained why she had let the world believe they were dead. On January 22nd, 1986, Nissa Bose  Lion died at Royal Earwood Hospital. She was 66 years old.

 She had spent 45 years inside the institution, longer than most people spend in any single place in their entire lives. No family members attended her funeral. No relatives sent flowers. No one from Glamis Castle or Buckingham Palace or any of the grand houses where the Bose lions gathered made the short drive to Surrey to say goodbye.

 Only hospital staff stood at her graveside. She was buried at Redstone Cemetery in Red Hill, a modest plot just minutes from the institution where she had lived. Her grave was marked with a plastic tag, a serial number, her surname, just the bare minimum required to identify a body. According to Burke’s parage, she had already been dead for 46 years.

 One year later, in April 1987, a reporter from the Sun decided to investigate a rumor. He had heard whispers that the queen had relatives hidden in a mental hospital. Relatives who had been declared dead, but were actually alive. He drove to Royal Earwood. He posed as a family member of Catherine Bose’s lion. The staff let him in. Inside, he found her.

 Catherine was 61 years old now, frail and elderly, unable to understand who this stranger was or why he was pointing a camera at her face. He photographed her anyway. Then he left. The story ran on the front page of the son. The headline screamed, “Queen’s cousin locked in mad house.” The photograph showed Catherine staring vacantly, confused, a forgotten woman suddenly thrust into the spotlight.

 she could never comprehend. Beside it, the paper detailed the scandal. Two cousins of the queen hidden for decades, declared dead while still alive, abandoned in an institution, never visited. Britain was outraged. It wasn’t just that the cousins existed. The public could perhaps have forgiven the family for making difficult decisions in a different era when attitudes toward disability were harsher.

 And then there was the  irony that cut deepest of all. In 1986, the same year Narissa died alone and  was buried with a plastic tag, the Queen Mother became a patron of MENAP, the UK’s leading charity for people with learning disabilities. She lent her name and her prestige to an organization dedicated to helping the very people her own family had hidden away.

 Buckingham Palace responded to the scandal with silence. “We have no comment about it at all.” A spokesperson  said, “It is a matter for the Bose Lion family.” The Queen was reportedly briefed. She said nothing publicly. Lady Elizabeth Anson, the sister’s niece, defended the family. Her grandmother, Finella, had been vague with paperwork.

She explained, “The death notices were mistakes,  not deliberate deception. Many relatives had visited over the years. The documentary claims of abandonment were exaggerated, but a hospital administrator contradicted her.” Both sisters had regular visits from their families  up until the early 1960s.

When one of their closest relatives died, he told the press, “Since then, they’ve had few visitors.” A former ward sister named Do Penfold was Blunter. The impression I had, she said, was that they’d been forgotten. After the scandal broke, someone finally did something about Nerissa’s grave.  Her nieces and nephew, the children of her sister Anne, arranged for a proper headstone to be placed at Redstone Cemetery.

 The plastic tag was removed. A stone marker went up in its place. It bore her name, her dates, and nothing more. No mention of her royal connections. Far from the family estates where her relatives were buried in style. Catherine remained at Royal Elland had made her briefly famous, but fame meant nothing to a woman who could not understand what was happening around her.

 Staff described her as an elderly, frail old lady. One who finds it very difficult perhaps to understand this sort of thing. What’s going on in the world around? She was, they said, really little more than a child. Inside the institution, Catherine had found something like family. Her cousin Idana Feain,  who had arrived on the same day back in 1941, had become her constant companion.

 The two women spent decades together,  side by side, the only family either of them had. Staff gave them nicknames. Catherine was Lady. Idana was baby. They were inseparable. Rosemary Feain, another of the cousins,  had died in 1972. Ethel Dradera lived until 1996, but Catherine and Idana endured growing old together in the institution  that had become their entire world.

 In 1997, Royal Earleswood Hospital closed its doors for good. The facility had faced years of criticism over conditions, overcrowding, and allegations of abuse. The Grand Victorian building that had once been hailed as progressive was now seen as a relic of a cruer age. The remaining patients were transferred to smaller care homes.

  Catherine and Idana were moved to Ketwin House, a care facility in Surrey. They stayed together.  They still had each other. Then in 2001, Ketwin House  closed as well. And this time, the cousins were separated. Catherine was sent to one facility. Idana was sent to another. After 60 years together, they were torn apart.

 4 months later, Idana Fain died. She was 89 years old. The official cause of death was recorded as old age and severe learning difficulties. Those who knew her believed she died of something else. She had lost the will to live after the separation. One source said without Catherine, without the only family she had ever known, Idana simply gave up.

She was buried at Redstone  Cemetery near her sister Ethel Drada and her cousin Narissa. Another  quiet grave. Another forgotten woman. Catherine was now alone. The last of the five cousins. the last survivor of that day in 1941 when  five young women had been driven to an asylum and erased from history.

 In 2011,  Channel 4 aired a documentary called The Queen’s Hidden Cousins. It revisited the scandal, interviewed former nurses and caregivers, showed footage of the institution where the women had spent their lives. The Queen was reportedly hugely distressed by the program. Lady Elizabeth Shakily, the  sister’s niece, called it cruel and intrusive.

But the documentary changed nothing for Catherine. She remained in care, watched over by staff, occasionally visited by journalists who wanted to see the forgotten cousin for themselves. On February 23rd, 2014, Catherine Bose’s lion died. She was 87 years