Queen Mother pleaded for Charles not to be schooled in Scotland - Telegraph
The Royal Family
Queen Mother pleaded for Charles not to be schooled in Scotland
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother warned against sending the Prince of Wales    to boarding school in Scotland because she thought he would be miserable,    according to a collection of her previously unpublished letters.
 
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Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother wanted Prince Charles to attend Eton, not Gordonstoun Photo: IAN JONES
 
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She petitioned the Queen not to send Prince Charles to Gordonstoun in Moray as he would feel “terribly cut off and lonely in the far north” and suggested that he instead attend the “staunchly protestant” Eton.
Despite the Queen Mother’s pleas, the Duke of Edinburgh ruled that his eldest son would attend his alma mater, located in rugged countryside near Elgin.
But her concerns proved accurate after the prince described the inter-denominational school as “Colditz in kilts”.
Dated May 23, 1961, the Queen Mother addressed her daughter as “My Darling Lillibet” before stating that she has been “thinking such as lot about Charles” and his schooling.
“I suppose he will be taking his entrance exam for Eton soon. I do hope he passes because it might be the ideal school for one of his character and temperament,” she wrote.
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“However good Gordonstoun is, it is miles and miles away and he might be as well at school abroad.”
The Queen Mother, who was particularly fond of Charles, added: “All your friends’ sons are at Eton and it is so important to be able to grow up with people you will be with later in life.
“And so nice and so important when boys are growing up that you and Philip can see him during school days and keep in touch with what is happening. He would be terribly cut off and lonely in the far north.”
The grandmother, then aged 60, also questioned the inter-denominational ethos of Gordonstoun, which was founded by Kurt Hahn, an experimental German-Jewish educator.
She argued that admission to Eton “would solve many difficulties, one being religion”, before adding: “It’s always a tricky one with the heir to the throne and one would not be involved in any controversies in a staunchly Protestant place like Eton Chapel.”
The Queen Mother concluded by stating she hoped her eldest daughter did not mind her intervention but it was prompted by her concerns for Charles “all (probably without cause).”
The correspondence is included in Counting One’s Blessings, a recently published selection of the late Queen Mother’s letters compiled by William Shawcross, her official biographer.
Mr Shawcross said the Duke of Edinburgh won the debate after arguing Eton was too close to Windsor and London and Charles would be “harassed by the media” if he was schooled there.
He thought Charles would thrive at Gordonstoun because his eldest son loved Scotland, the author said.
But, unlike his father, the young prince did not enjoy the Spartan regime, which included cold showers, physical punishment and morning runs all year round.
In a letter home in 1963, he wrote: “The people in my dormitory are foul. Goodness, they are horrid. I don’t know how anybody could be so foul.”
One contemporary at the school recalled that Charles was bullied “maliciously, cruelly and without respite.”