The Death Of The Hidden Away Prince

welcome to her remarkable history remember to support our Channel please subscribe throughout history there have been a number of members of the royal family who have brought disgrace upon it but there have been dark days in the British Monarchy when people have turned to the kings and queens for support and Leadership yet they have been lacking there is a story of a couple of Royal cousins who were the cousins of the monarchy who because of their disabilities were hidden away and were actually left to rot inside what was at the time an asylum the royal family turned their backs on them and there was one tragic son of King George V and his wife Queen Mary who was also treated in this similar way but at the age of 13 Prince John would die inside of wood Farm in Sandringham but he had a life which was incredibly tragic and was sheltered due to the fact he suffered from a condition but today thousands of people across Britain suffer from but for the royal family Prince John was treated like the runt of the family and he was outcasted but what is the story of The Forgotten Prince hidden away in shame Prince John was born at York Cottage on the Sandringham estate on the 12th of July 1905 and he was the youngest child and fifth son of George the Prince of Wales and Mary Princess of Wales they would go on to be King George V and Queen Mary and he was named John despite the fact Royal members with the name John haven't always had the most success he was at the time of his birth sixth in line to the succession behind his father and four older brothers and he was christened on the 3rd of August 1905 at Sandringham in the church there and his godparents were Portuguese King and his uncle Prince Carl of Denmark and the first Duke of Fife Prince John spent much of his early life at Sandringham with his siblings and he would be cared for by Nani Shard at Lala Bill his father was strict but he did show affection to his children and John's mother was close to her children The Dowager Empress of Russia would later write that George's children are very nice the little ones George and Johnny are both very charming and amusing but John was described as a very quaint boy and one evening when George returned from hunting and he bent over Aunt May and kissed her and they heard Johnny she kissed Papa ugly old man George V would later tell the U.S president that all his children were behaved except John he was rather slow and he was not advancing at the same speed as his siblings but when he was four he had his first epileptic seizure and he would also be showing signs of being Autistic or having some form of learning disability after his father became the King John did not attend the coronation as he was considered a health risk and his family worried that if Jon had a fit or a seizure that the reputation of the family would be damaged which was shocking because of this John was said to have been unpresentable to the outside world and despite the king loving his youngest son Prince John was shunned and was left in the background he was left for long periods of time at Sandringham and would regularly misbehave for his nannies and it was said he simply did not understand that he needed to behave however the Royals did hope that his seizures would get better over time his closest sibling was Prince George who began at school but then it was said that John would not attend the same school and that the king and queen had not decided what to do with Prince John when the first world war broke out he would rarely if ever see his parents and his father would go to the front line a lot and his siblings were also at boarding school or in the military this left Prince John being alone inside of the royal residences for long periods of time and it was very sad he would disappear from the view of the public and following 1913 very few photographs or images were taken of him he was not taken out of the line of succession but he was clearly not a very well child in 1916 John's seizures got worse and happened more often and he was then sent to live at wood farm with Lala bill she was in charge of his care and he did not really progress education wise and his formal education did come to an end the doctors told the king and queen that it was unlikely that Prince John would reach adulthood and that he would die but on wood Farm which was one of the Sandringham estate he had his own little household visitors said that he was a tall and well-built boy but he was always rather distant and would look in from the woods almost as a ghostly figure but a garden was maintained for him and Prince John loved spending time in this his grandmother Queen Alexandra maintained this for him following the summer of 1916 John was not seen outside of Sandringham and he would just be looked after by his nanny it was said that John is proud of his house but is longing for a companion and he was absconded by his mother father and siblings but Playmates from the local area were brought in for him one of his friends was a girl named Winifred Thomas he would take walks with Jon and would play and work in the garden during one visit when his elder brother Edward VII came to visit he took Prince John for a run in a cart and they went far into the woods but as the doctors predicted the death of Prince John would come his seizures got worse and more intense and it was said by his Nanny that we dared not let him be with his brothers and sisters because it upsets them so much with the attacks getting so bad and coming so often other time there was not the knowledge we have today regarding epilepsy and there were many bizarre beliefs around the condition and there certainly was very little treatment regarding it the isolation and strange life that John lived was shocking for his siblings and he was a friendly and outgoing boy but his isolation was heartbreaking he would spend part of Christmas day in 1918 with his family at Sandringham but then that evening he was taken back to Wood Farm but within around three weeks Prince John would have won final severe seizure and at around 5 30 pm at wood farm he was pronounced dead as he never woke up or regained Consciousness Queen Mary wrote in her diary of the news of her son that it was a great shock though for poor little boys Restless Soul death came as a great relief she broke the news to George and they motored down to Wood farm found poor Lala very resigned but heartbroken Little Johnny looked very peaceful lying there she would also later state that for John it is a great relief as his malady was becoming worse as he grew older and he has thus been spared much suffering I cannot say how grateful we feel for God for having taken him in such a peaceful way he just slept quietly into his Heavenly home no pain no struggle just peace for the poor little troubled Spirit which had been a great anxiety to us for many years ever since he was four years old it was a shocking loss and Mary continued the first break in the Family Circle is hard to Bear but people have been so kind and sympathetic and this has helped us much but King George V regarded his son as the greatest Mercy possible and he believed that his death brought him less suffering newspapers reported on the death of The Prince and his funeral would take place very quickly inside Saint Mary's Magdalene Parish church and it was said that the service that Cannon Dalton and Dr brownhill John's physician conducted the service which was awfully sad and touching many of our own people and the villagers were present we thanked all Johnny's servants who have been so good and faithful to him despite this being a Royal Funeral it was attended on by villagers and Sandringham house staff and it was said every single person on the estate went and stood around the gates and his grave was absolutely covered in flowers but following the death of Prince John there was a shocking Outburst by his brother Prince Edward he was not sympathetic and he saw his brother's death as an inconvenience and he wrote to a mistress the poor boy had become more of an animal than anything else he continued to speak poorly about John and he had then to write an apology to his mother about this saying I feel such a cold-hearted and unsympathetic Swine for writing all that I did no one can realize more than you how poor little Johnny meant to me who hardly knew him I feel so much for you darling mama who was his mother but the real tragedy with the death of Prince John is what happened to him at the time and his treatment by the royal family he was shunned and isolated and the British epileptic Association would comment on his treatment stating there was nothing unusual in what the king and queen did at the time people with epilepsy were put apart from the rest of the community they were often put in epilepsy colonies or mental institutions it was thought to be a form of mental illness he lived a very tragic life and at the age of just 13 Prince John would die thank you for watching and to support please subscribe to her remarkable history thank you

Channel: Her Remarkable History

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Id: dixv5Q3EWL0

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2023