Prince Harry’s nanny formed a striking first impression of the young royal when he was born, according to a former royal courtier.
In an interview with former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown in 2023, Lady Anne Glenconner, who served as a lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret for over three decades, revealed that a royal nanny told her she believed Harry was “born angry.”
Glenconner was close friends with Barbara Barnes, who had worked looking after her own children for 12 years before she left to join the royal household of the then-Prince and Princess of Wales (Prince Charles and Princess Diana).
In recently published video footage from an interview with Brown promoting a second edition of her memoirs, Whatever Next? Lessons from an Unexpected Life, Glenconner was asked about Barnes’ impression of Harry considering she worked for Charles and Diana from William’s birth in 1982 to 1987, when he and Harry were three and one years old respectively.
“Barbara adored Prince William,” she told the magazine editor. “Harry, I think, was a bit more difficult when he was small.”
Glenconner remains close with members of the royal family and in 2023 she was a guest at the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla in London.
In the same year, Glenconner told Newsweek that she had not read Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, stating that though he was a second-born royal much like her friend Princess Margaret, the princess wouldn’t have published a book like his.
“I haven’t read Prince Harry’s book and I’m not going to read it. I think it would upset me; it’s all too sad,” she said. “Princess Margaret would never have written a book like that. She was loyal.”
Barbara Barnes maintained a low profile during her years as a royal nanny and thereafter.
An insight into her working life with William, Harry, Charles and Diana was provided by royal biographer Robert Lacey in his 2020 book Battle of Brothers.
“I treat all my children as individuals,” he quotes her as having told the press in a rare on the record comment. “I’m here to help the princess, not take over.”
Lacey credits Barnes with having “picked up and strengthened the family ethos of brotherliness,” between William and Harry but also noted that her closeness to her two charges could have contributed to a breakdown in her relationship with Princess Diana.
Barnes left royal service in January 1986 and afterward maintained her relationship with Glenconner, rejoining her family for a brief period to assist in the recovery of her teenage son, Christopher, who had entered a coma after a motorcycle accident while traveling abroad.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek‘s royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.
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