The very special power of the royal courtier

From Henry VIII’s groom of the stool to Elizabeth II’s ladies in waiting, the Crown’s inner circle occupy a unique position.

Queen Consort Camilla speaks with guests near Ngozi Fulani, back left, chief executive of the London-based Sistah Space group, during a reception to raise awareness of violence against women and girls at Buckingham Palace early in the week. Picture: Pool / AFP

“But where are you really from?” Lady Susan Hussey repeatedly demanded of the charity boss Ngozi Fulani, apparently unable to comprehend that a woman with black skin might really come from Hackney.

Hussey herself seems to come from the Jurassic period of royal history (it’s hard to be certain without carbon dating), when courtiers with arcane confected titles still roamed the palaces, meeting only other nobles, rendered powerful by proximity to the royal personage and unencumbered by contact with the modern world.

Before her abrupt departure from Buckingham Palace, Lady Susan Hussey of North Bradley had been a woman of the bedchamber to Elizabeth II, a lady of the household to King Charles, Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, recipient of the Royal Household Long and Faithful Service Medal and (for as yet mysterious services to Mexico) the Order of the Aztec Eagle. The Aztec Empire ended in 1521. She was the longest serving lady-in-waiting. She joined the royal household in 1960 and has been waiting in a ladylike way ever since.

This is what Hussey was; what she did was answer letters, attend memorial services, arrange the acquisition of personal items for royal use, make small talk, inquire after the health of royal acquaintances who were unwell and generally tell the monarch exactly what she (and latterly he) expected to hear.

Lady Susan Hussey, Baroness Hussey of North Bradley and lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II, seen last March. Picture: Indigo/Getty Images

This does not necessarily equip one with a nuanced understanding of 21st-century racial sensitivities, which is why, when this 83-year-old from an Ancien Regime was wheeled into a situation involving people of different colours, it all went horribly wrong.

Not since the great “Bedchamber crisis” of 1839 has one of these obscure denizens of the royal bedroom crashed on to the front pages.

On that occasion the Conservative leader Robert Peel asked the young Queen Victoria to replace some of her 25 ladies of the bedchamber, many of whom were wives or relatives of leading Whig politicians, with Tory companions. She refused; Peel declined to form a government. Prince Albert, ever the diplomat, defused the tense situation by persuading some of the queen’s ladies to resign voluntarily.

That crisis reflected an age when courtiers were still politicians of real influence, as they have been through most of British history.

Under the Tudors, the queen’s senior royal attendant was known as the chief gentlewoman of the privy chamber. Kings were attended by the groom of the stool, an aristocratic lavatory attendant whose job was almost as nasty as its sounds.

Named after a portable loo known as a “close stool”, the role was created under Henry VIII to assist with royal bowel movements and generally attend to his ablutions. (Even more unpleasant was the job of the king’s gong scourer, appointed to clean out, by hand, the underground, non-flushing sewers of all royal palaces within 32km of London.)

The title of groom of the stool – not to be confused with “esquires of the body”, who tidied the bedroom and changed the king’s pants – inevitably attracted some spectacular toadies, but it was a position of real influence, with direct access to the king and control over the key to his bedroom. Over time, grooms of the stool in effect became personal secretaries and even ministers of the royal treasury. The groom of the stool was, in every sense, the power behind the throne.

Jenna Coleman in the ITV drama Victoria. In the series, the young Queen Victoria is asked to replace some of her many ladies of the bedchamber — and refuses. Picture: ITV/The Times

The fastidious Victorians tried to pretend the groom of the stool was really the “groom of the stole”, a wardrobe manager in charge of draping furs around the royal neck rather than lavatorial duties. The job was finally abolished in 1901, when Edward VII became king.

Grooms of the stool served only kings, so with the accession of Elizabeth I the position was replaced with the first lady of the bedchamber, forerunner of the role occupied by Hussey. Women of the bedchamber were also required to taste Her Majesty’s food, in case it was poisoned. In 1728, Abigail Hill described her duties thus: “The bedchamber woman pulled on the queen’s gloves, when she could not do it herself.”

The royal retinue, like the royal family, is much more diverse than it was, even if its upper ranks are still dominated by white aristocratic males, the “men in grey” as Princess Diana referred to them. But among the pursuivants and the extra women of the bedchamber, the equerries, clerks and grooms, lurk antediluvian attitudes. Hussey has emerged as the clear frontrunner in the 2022 Duke of Edinburgh Awards for Extreme Insensitivity in the Royal Household, but she is not the only contender.

It matters not if monarchs do not cook, dress themselves, put on their gloves themselves or make their own beds, and get angry with underlings when the pens leak. Who cares if the king’s toothpaste is squeezed for him from a crested silver dispenser? But the royal entourage is no longer simply a cocoon around the Crown. These are also public figures: what they think and say moulds perceptions of Britain.

The Russian and French revolutions occurred, in part, because the monarchy was perceived to be surrounded by courtiers out of touch and out of sympathy with the general populace. Medieval barons frequently justified rebellion on the grounds that the ruler was being badly advised by unworldly or wicked counsellors.

Elizabeth II achieved the magical trick of appearing close to her subjects while remaining impossibly and unbridgeably distant from them, encircled by people who never questioned her view of the world. Whenever a royal dinosaur utters something grimly inappropriate and absurdly anachronistic, that gap widens, and the species totters closer to extinction.

Kings require companionship, confidants who speak and think as they do. But in an increasingly accessible and relevant monarchy, royalty also needs attendants who think, sound and look different to them, advisers and consorts able to bring the rest of the real world closer. People, in short, like Fulani, who come from a Britain that ordinary people live in.

The Times