Dead Secretaries Society

Two case studies: Compare and Contrast

Subject One: Congressman Gary Condit (D, CA)

Personal Background:
Democratic Congressman from California, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee

Dead Secretary:
Chandra Levy, suspected Mossad Asset inside the Federal Bureau of Prisons

Date of Death / Disappearance:

May 1st, 2001
(Last day of Beltane)
(4 months prior to 9/11)
(4 months subsequent to First Innaugural of the Unelected,
Court-appointed President George W. Bush)


Background to Death:

"In Sex, Power & Murder, every detail of Chandra Levy's tempestuous affair with Congressman Gary Condit will be exposed. A young and beautiful intern is obsessed with an older married man, hoping to marry him and have his children. Little did she know of the long, sordid history that Condit brought with him into their relationship, a history he would never want revealed. This is a story of life in the political capital as never seen before."

Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, in a supposedly exclusive story, claimed Gary Condit had an alibi for the early afternoon of May 1, 2001. Condit was supposedly in the office of Vice President Richard Cheney.

And that Cheney supposedly was trying to win Condit over to the GOP position as to the electric mess in California. 
[Newsweek website 7/20/01.] 

Going back to the time Isikoff was with the sister publication, the Washington Post, he seemed to always be a reputed front for foreign intelligence and the American CIA, poo-pooing any real information as merely the ravings of "conspiracy theorists".

Knowing a lot about him and the Washington Post as a front for the American CIA, we call him Michael ISAFRAUD. 

[Visit our website story, "The Late Grand Dragon of The Washington Post".]

Chandra somehow became a sexmate of Congressman Gary Condit (D., Ca.], Representing her home District. Was it a mere concidence that he sat on several committees in respect to espionage agencies, including as overseer of the American CIA, namely, on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence??

In that capacity, Condit had top security clearance to be privy to closed door sessions dealing with covert operations of the spy community. As earlier stated by us, Chandra was repeatedly pumping Condit, in return for sexual favors, on details on McVeigh and other hot items. 

She used her position, as we have earlier stated, to find out why and how co-founder of the Colombia Medellin Drug Cartel, Carlos Lehder, somehow disappeared from U.S. Federal Prison. WIth her computer and other expertise, in a key office of the prison system, Chandra was in a perfect position to find out key details. Such matters were good for blackmail purposes against Lehder's business partners, the Bush Crime Family.

According to the secret reports of highly-skilled private and government investigators, Chandra was compiling data, for The Mossad jointly with the French CIA,on wealthy Arab businessmen, such as in the beltway. The foreign spy agencies were interested to find out, apparently for blackmail purposes, the business links to the Bush Family and others of that circle. 

The foreign intelligence agencies contended that the Arab makers and shakers in the District of Columbia area, used a group of beltway bedmates, some of whom, separate from Chandra, were also snuffed out.

Chandra's task was plainly dangerous and she was clever and bright enough to know it.

Through Chandra's knowledge of kinky sex tricks required reportedly by Condit, with or through as well the Arab hotshots, many of whom were Saudis, was Condit compromised? 

For example, Chandra had the task of finding out details of members of the bin Laden Family residing in the U.S., some of whom reportedly had national security contracts with the U.S. Government. 

AND, OSAMA bin LADEN, contrary to fake stories in the monopoly press, was not on the outs with his family that secretly funded him. Right after Black Tuesday, while all civilian aircraft were grounded, the FBI arranged by plane to whisk some 24 bin Laden Family members out of the U.S. Chandra was exploring the clandestine business arrangements of the Bush Crime Family with the bin Laden Family, as residents in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Subject Two: Congressman Joe Sacrborough (R, FA)

Personal Background:
Recently Lame Duck Republican Congressman from Florida, following 2000 Election Coup D'etat

Dead Secretary:
Lori Klausits, Congressional Office Intern

Date of Death:

July 20th, 2001

(8 weeks prior to 9/11)
(6 months subsequent to First Innaugural of the Unelected,
Court-appointed President George W. Bush)

Cause of Death:

She fell.

Background to Death:

An old friend and former law partner partner of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Scarborough might fairly be described as being on the liberal wing of the Grand Old Party from the pre-Watergate, pre-Globalist era, if such a thing were to actually exist any more

Sweeping back into office without the aid of George W. Bush's cost tails in the November 2000 election.

Following the slow motion gutter war of the Florida recount, and the concession of President-Elect Albert Gore Jr. amid the shenanigans of Governor Job Bush and then-Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, the Venice Flying Circus and Huffman Aviation, Scarborough resigned his safe congressional seat after 4 months, having swept 100% of the vote in his district, running unopposed.

8 weeks later, he was found with a dead girl in his office.

"You're very fortunate, Senator - my brother Fredo owns this place."

Florida's 1st congressional district: Results 1994–2000

Year	Democrat	Votes	Pct	Republican	Votes	Pct
1994	Vince Whibbs	70,416	38%	Joe Scarborough	112,974	62%	*
1996	Kevin Beck	66,495	27%	Joe Scarborough	175,946	73%	*
1998	Tom Wells (Write In)	663	0%	Joe Scarborough	140,525	100%	*
2000	Unopposed	N/A	0%	Joe Scarborough	226,473	100%	*

I quote The Enemy:

Scarborough announced his intent to resign to spend more time with his children five months into his fourth term in Congress. 

"The realization has come home to me that they're at a critical stage of their lives and I would rather be judged at the end of my life as a father than as a congressman," Scarborough said.

A special election was held to replace him.

Controversy

On July 20, 2001, one of Scarborough's aides died after hitting her head on a desk when she fainted while in Scarborough's Fort Walton Beach, Florida, office.

According to Scarborough, soon after the death, allegations "spread all over the Internet" that he had been involved,. [sic] [my emphasis]

There was no evidence of foul play. 

In 2003, he joked about the incident with Don Imus on Imus's radio program.

In 2004, it was the subject of a public spat between Scarborough and filmmaker Michael Moore.

Just one more for the road:

The Kennedy School of Grown-up Politics from Spike1138 on Vimeo.

Rosie

She was born into an Irish American family at her parents' home in Brookline, Massachusetts, and named Rose Marie Kennedy after her mother, but was commonly called Rosemary. 

To her family, she was known as 

Rosie.

The Kennedy Family at Hyannis Port, 4th September 1931. 

L-R: Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy, Jean Kennedy (on lap of) Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (behind) Patricia Kennedy, Kathleen Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (behind) Rosemary Kennedy. 

Edward Kennedy was not born yet. 

Dog in foreground is "Buddy".

Rose sent Rosemary to the Sacred Heart Convent in Elmhurst, Providence, Rhode Island, at age 15, where she was educated separately from the other students. Two nuns and a special teacher, Miss Newton, worked with her all day in a separate classroom. 

The Kennedys gave the school a new tennis court for their efforts. 

Rosemary "read, wrote, spelled and counted" like a fourth-grader. 

She studied hard but felt she disappointed her parents, whom she wanted to please.

 During this period, her mother arranged for her brother Jack to accompany her to a tea-dance where, thanks to him, she appeared "not different at all".

By Massachusetts state law, the Binet intelligence test was given to her before first grade, as she twice failed to advance from kindergarten on schedule. 

According to Henry H. Goddard, she had personally suffered intellectual disabilities. 

Rosemary was deemed to have an IQ between 60 and 70 (equivalent to a mental age between eight and twelve). 

Her sister Eunice thought that Rosemary's problems arose because a nurse had delayed her birth awaiting the doctor who arrived late, depriving her of oxygen. 

Her mother's cousin thought the marriage of second cousins by her parents Josie and John F. Fitzgerald caused it. 

At the time, a low IQ was interpreted as a moral deficiency.

A biographer wrote that Rose did not confide in her friends and that she pretended Rosie was normal, with relatives beyond the immediate family knowing nothing of Rosemary's condition.

Younger sister Eunice surmised from various doctors' visits to their home that Rosemary was both "mentally ill" and epileptic.

Diaries written by her in the late 1930s, and published in the 1980s, reveal a young woman whose life was filled with outings to the opera, tea dances, dress fittings, and other social interests:

"Went to luncheon in the ballroom in the White House. James Roosevelt took us in to see his father, President Roosevelt. He said, 'It's about time you came. How can I put my arm around all of you? Which is the oldest? You are all so big."

"Have a fitting at 10:15 Elizabeth Arden. Appointment dress fitting again. Home for lunch. Royal tournament in the afternoon."

"Up too late for breakfast. Had it on deck. Played Ping-Pong with Ralph's sister, also with another man. Had lunch at 1:15. Walked with Peggy. also went to horse races with her, and bet and won a dollar and a half. Went to the English Movie at five. Had dinner at 8:45. Went to the lounge with Miss Cahill and Eunice and retired early."

She read few books but could read Winnie-the-Pooh

Appearance at court

Rosemary was presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during her father's service as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Her father presented his daughters instead of, more customarily, choosing about thirty young American debutantes, a decision which earned him favor in the press. 

Rosemary's "slowness" was also unconventional and daring for a debut (two of the queen's nieces remained in a mental hospital because they were mentally ill). 

Young women would practice the rather complicated royal curtsey, sometimes learning the performance at the Vacani School of Dancing near Harrods. 

Rosemary practiced for hours and hours. She wore a gown made of white tulle with a net train and carried a bouquet of lilies of the valley. 

Her sister Kathleen "was stunning, but she was only a shadow of Rosemary's beauty".

Just as Rosemary was about to "glide off" by stepping to the right, she tripped and nearly fell. Rose never discussed the incident and treated the debut as a triumph. The crowd made no sign, the King and the Queen smiled as if nothing had happened, and nobody knows if Rosemary was aware of her stumble.

One Kennedy family biographer called her "absolutely beautiful" with "a gorgeous smile". At twenty, she was "a picturesque young woman, a snow princess with flush cheeks, gleaming smile, plump figure, and a sweetly ingratiating manner to almost everyone she met". She enjoyed dancing such as at her sister Kathleen's coming-out party.

Montessori teacher

Her parents told Woman's Day that Rosemary was "studying to be a kindergarten teacher", and Parents was told that while she had "an interest in social welfare work, she is said to harbor a secret longing to go on the stage". 

The Boston Globe wrote requesting an interview which was declined, but her father's assistant Eddie Moore prepared a response, which Rosemary copied out laboriously, letter by letter:

"I have always had serious tastes and understand life is not given us just for enjoyment. 

For some time past, I have been studying the well known psychological method of Dr. Maria Montessori and I got my degree in teaching last year."

Lobotomy

Placid and easygoing as a child and teenager, the maturing Kennedy became increasingly assertive in her personality. She was reportedly subject to violent mood swings. Some observers have since attributed this behavior to her difficulties in keeping up with siblings who were expected to perform to high standards, as well as the hormonal surges associated with puberty. In any case, the family had difficulty dealing with the often-stormy Rosemary, who had begun to sneak out at night from the convent where she was educated and cared for.

In 1941, when Rosemary was 23, doctors told her father that a new neurosurgical procedure, lobotomy, would help calm her mood swings and sometimes-violent outbursts.

Joseph P. Kennedy decided that Rosemary should have the lobotomy performed, but did not inform Rose until afterwards. At the time, relatively few lobotomies had been performed; James W. Watts, who carried out the procedure with Walter Freeman, described what happened:

"We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. 

She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. 

It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." 

The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. 

"We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. 

For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... 

"We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... 

When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.

Aftermath

Rosemary lived for several years at Craig House, a private psychiatric hospital an hour north of New York City.

In 1949, she moved to a house in Jefferson, Wisconsin, where she lived for the rest of her life on the grounds of the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children (formerly known as "St. Coletta Institute for Backward Youth").

Archbishop Cushing had told her father about St. Coletta's, an institution for more than three hundred people with disabilities, and her father traveled to and built a private house for her about a mile outside St. Coletta's main campus near Alverno House which was designed for adults who needed lifelong care.

The nuns called the house "the Kennedy cottage". 

Two Catholic nuns, Sister Margaret Ann and Sister Leona, provided her care along with a student and a woman who worked on ceramics with Rosemary three nights a week. Alan Borsari supervised the team and was able to call in specialists.

Rosemary had a dog and a car that could be used to take her for rides.

Because of her condition, Rosemary became largely detached from her family, but was visited regularly by her mother and by her sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., did not visit Rosemary at the institution.

Occasionally, following the death of her father, Rosemary was taken to visit relatives in Florida and Washington, D.C., and to her childhood home on Cape Cod.

Publicly, Rosemary was declared to be mentally handicapped. 

Perhaps because of the episode, Eunice later founded the Special Olympics, and Joe founded and endowed philanthropies for people with developmental disabilities.

In 1983, the Kennedy family gave $1 million to renovate Alverno House. The gift added a therapeutic pool and enlarged the chapel.

Death

Rosemary died from natural causes on January 7, 2005, at the Fort Atkinson Memorial Hospital in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, at the age of 86, with her sisters Jean, Eunice, and Patricia, and her brother, U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, by her side.

She was buried beside her parents in Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Forty-three years ago this month in Brookline, Massachusetts, my mother and father were looking forward with great anticipation and joy to the birth of their third child. My oldest brother, Joe, was four years old, bright, strong, aggressive, with dark eyes, a fine smile. Jack, quick, slender, independent – even at three he was interested in everything and adored by everyone. My father was 30 and my mother was 28. They loved children and would be happy to have all that God would send them.

Rosemary was born September 13 at home – a normal delivery. She was a beautiful child, resembling my mother in physical appearance. But early in life Rosemary was different. She was slower to crawl, slower to walk and speak than her two bright brothers. My mother was told she would catch up later, but she never did.

Rosemary was mentally retarded.

For a long time my family believed that all of us working together could provide my sister with a happy life in our midst. My parents, strong believers in family loyalty, rejected suggestions that Rosemary be sent away to an institution. "What can they do for her that her family can't do better?" my father would say. "We will keep her at home." And we did. For years these efforts seemed to work. My parents and the other eight children tried to include Rose in everything we did. In Hyannis Port I would take her as a crew in our boat races, and I remember that she usually could do what she was told. She was especially helpful with the jib and she loved to be in the winning boat. Winning at anything always brought a marvellous smile to her face.

She loved music, and my mother used to play the piano and sing to her. At the dining table Rose was unable to cut her meat, so it was served to her already cut.

Later on, in her teens, it was more difficult for her. In social competition she couldn't keep up. She learned to dance well enough for my brothers to take her along to parties, but it wasn't easy when Rose would say: "Why don't other boys ask me to dance?"

Yes, keeping a retarded child at home is difficult. Mother always said that the greatest problem was to get other children to play with Rose and to find time to give her all the attention she needed and deserved. Like many retarded persons, Rose loved small children and wanted to be helpful with them. Often I heard her offer her assistance to Mother with a question like, "Can I take the young children rowing, Mother?"

She loved compliments. Every time I would say "Rose, you have the best teeth and smile in the family," she would smile for hours. She liked to dress up, wear pretty clothes, have her hair fixed and her fingernails polished. When she was asked out by a friend of the family, she would be thrilled. When my father became ambassador to England, Rose came to London with us and was presented to the king and queen at Buckingham Place with mother, dad and my sister Kathleen.

Mother was worried about Rosemary in London. Would she accidentally do something dangerous when mother was occupied with some unavoidable official function? Would she get confused taking a bus and get lost among London's intricate streets? Would someone attack her? No one could watch out for Rose all the time, and she was now a grown-up girl.

In 1941, when we returned to the US, Rosemary was not making progress but seemed instead to be going backward. At 22, she was becoming increasingly irritable and difficult. Her memory and concentration and her judgment were declining. My mother took Rosemary to psychologists and dozens of doctors. All of them said her condition would not get better and that she would be far happier in an institution, where competition was far less and where our numerous activities would not endanger her health. It fills me with sadness to think this change might not have been necessary if we had known then what we know today – that 75 to 85% of the retarded are capable of becoming useful citizens with the help of special education and rehabilitation. Another 10 to 20% can learn to make small contributions, not involving book learning, such as mowing a lawn or washing dishes. Only 5% – the most severely retarded cases – must remain completely dependent all their lives.

My mother found an excellent Catholic institution that specialised in the care of retarded children and adults. Rosemary is there now. She has found peace in a new home where there is not need for "keeping up", or for brooding over why she can't join in activities as others do. This, coupled with the understanding of the sisters in charge, makes life agreeable for her.

This is an extract from Hope for Retarded Children by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, which was first published in The Saturday Evening Post, 22 September, 1962.

Nerissa and Katherine

John Herbert Bowes-Lyon death notice from the Times, 11 Feb. 1930, page 17. The text reads:

"MR. JOHN BOWES-LYON. The Duke and Duchess of York were present at the funeral at St. Paul's, Walden, yesterday, of the Hon. John Herbert Bowes-Lyon. The service, which was conducted by the Rev. H. S. C. Whitehouse (the vicar), was of the simplest character.

"The chief mourners word the Hon. Mrs. John. Bowes-Lyon (widow), the Earl and Countess of Strathmore (parents), Lord and Lady Glamis (brother and sister-in-law), the Duke and Duchess of York (brother-in-law and sister), the Hon. David and the Hon. Michael Bowes-Lyon (brothers), the Hon. Patrick and the Hon. Malcolm Bowes-Lyon (uncles), Lady Elphinstone and Lady Rose Levesori-Gower (sisters), Captain and Mrs. Geoffrey Bowes-Lyon, and Mr. P. K. Hodgson, private secretary to the Duke of York. 

Others present Included:—

"Lady Evelyn McDonnell, Lady Nina Balfour, the Dowager Countess of Leven and Melville, Major-General Sir Torquhil Matheson, Viscount and Viscountess Hampden, Mrs. Martin Smith, Mr. Ronald Nall-Cain, Colonel H.J. Sowerby, Colonel Tom Sowerby, Colonel Richard Oakley, Mr. Hugh Pitman. Mr. John Carton (representing the National Farmers' Union), Mrs. Guy Kindersley. Mr. Grenfell White. Mr. A. W. Bailey Hawkins. Mr. J. B. Bailey Hawkins, Major A. G. Bailey Hawkins, Miss Lowther. Miss de Beaumont.

"A memorial service for the Hon. John Bowes-Lyon will he held at St. Michael's, Cornhill, at 12.30 p.m., to-day."

John Herbert "Jock" Bowes-Lyon (1 April 1886 – 7 February 1930), was the second son of the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and the Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, the favourite brother of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (the future Queen Elizabeth and later the Queen Mother). 

He was an uncle to Queen Elizabeth II, although he died when she was a small child.

Jock Bowes-Lyon was educated at Oxford University where he played first-class cricket for the university side in three matches in 1906 and 1907, playing as a fast-medium bowler.

On 29 September 1914, John married The Honourable Fenella Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis (19 August 1889 – 19 July 1966), the younger daughter of Charles Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton. 

They had five children, all girls:

• Patricia Bowes-Lyon (6 July 1916 – 18 June 1917), died in infancy
• Anne Ferelith Fenella Bowes-Lyon (4 December 1917 – 26 September 1980)
• Nerissa Jane Irene Bowes-Lyon (18 February 1919 – 22 January 1986)
• Diana Cinderella Mildred Bowes-Lyon (14 December 1923 – 1986) m. Peter Gordon Colin Somervell. Their daughter Katherine (b. 1961) is a god-daughter of Queen Elizabeth II.
• Katherine Bowes-Lyon (born 4 July 1926)

Before the outbreak of World War I, John worked as a stockbroker in the City of London for the firm Rowe and Pitman.

In 1915, he was posted with the Black Watch and just prior to the Battle of Aubers Ridge that year, he accidentally shot himself in his left forefinger. 

It was amputated the following day and while receiving treatment in the UK, he admitting having experienced a nervous breakdown in 1912 and also suffered from neurasthenia.

 Late that year, he was posted to the Ministry of Munitions and then in the Territorial Army in 1916. After the war, he was twice threatened with courts-martial after having failed to show on parade for demobilisation and later returned to his job in the City.

Jock died at the family home of Glamis Castle just after midnight on the morning of 7 February 1930 of pneumonia, aged 44, leaving his widow to care for their four young children alone. 

(Two of them, Nerissa and Katherine, were severely mentally disabled.) 

Three days later he was buried at St Paul's Walden Bury.

His widow was a leading guest at the 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. 

Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon

Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon are two of the daughters of John Herbert Bowes-Lyon and his wife Fenella (née Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis). 

As John was the brother of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon the Queen Mother, the two daughters are first cousins of Queen Elizabeth II, sharing one pair of grandparents, Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and Nina Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne.

In 1987, it was revealed that Nerissa and Katherine had been placed in Earlswood Hospital for the mentally disabled in 1941.

Although Nerissa died in 1986, and Katherine is still alive (as of 2012), both had been listed in Burke's Peerage as being dead since the 1963 edition.

Suggestions of a royal cover-up were rejected in the press by Lord Clinton, who thought that his aunt Fenella 

(the mother of the two daughters) 

had completed the form for Burke's Peerage incorrectly due to 'vagueness'; 

however, Burke's Peerage included specific dates of death for both sisters.

According to a 2011 television documentary about the sisters, "throughout their time at the hospital, there is no known record that the sisters were ever visited by any member of the Bowes-Lyon or royal families, despite their aunt, the Queen Mother, being a Patron of MENCAP" (the charity for people with a learning disability). 

Nurses interviewed on the documentary said that, to their knowledge, the family never even sent the sisters a birthday or Christmas gift or card. 

When Nerissa died in 1986, none of her family attended the funeral. She was buried at Redhill Cemetery.

Her grave was only marked with plastic tags and a serial number until her existence was revealed in the media, after which the family added a proper gravestone.

Three other mentally disabled cousins also lived in Earlswood Hospital. Harriet Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis (1887–1958), sister of Nerissa and Katherine's mother Fenella, married Major Henry Nevile Fane, and 3 of their 7 children lived in Earlswood Hospital: Idonea Elizabeth Fane (1912–2002), Rosemary Jean Fane (1914-1972), and Ethelreda Flavia Fane (1922–1996).

Prof. David Danks, then director of the Murdoch Institute, thought that a genetic disease may have killed male members of the family in early childhood.

In 1996 the surviving cousins were moved to Ketwin House care home in Surrey; when it closed in 2001, they were moved to another care home in Surrey.

 Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey

In a rare insight into the Queen’s personal feelings, Lady Elizabeth Anson, her cousin, has told Mandrake that the monarch feels “hurt” by the documentary that Channel 4 screened this month about Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, the nieces of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

“I thought it was such an unfair thing to do to the Queen, and I know she was very hurt about it,” Lady Elizabeth tells me at the launch of Perceptions, a book about her brother, the celebrated photographer Patrick Lichfield, at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Knightsbridge.

Lady Elizabeth adds that she doesn’t think that the monarch has watched the programme, emotively entitled The Queen’s Hidden Cousins, but she has found viewing it herself distressing. “I watched it and I was horrified. I was dreading it as soon as I found out they were making the programme,” she says.

The documentary, which suggests that the Royal family behaved callously towards Nerissa and Katherine, the mentally handicapped children of John and Fenella Bowes-Lyon, the older brother and sister-in-law of Queen Elizabeth, seems to Lady Elizabeth to be “an intrusion of privacy”.

She accuses Channel 4 of “capitalising on the royal connection and ignoring the facts, as the sisters have always been looked after by that family”.

Of Katherine, the Queen’s surviving cousin, who is now aged 85, Lady Elizabeth says that, contrary to the programme’s claims, she is well looked after in a care home suited to her needs. “She has regular visits, too,” she adds.

The programme asserted that John Bowes-Lyon never visited his daughters as they grew up, but failed to mention that he had died in 1930.