Palace Staff Tells All! Butlers, Cooks and Valets Reveal Royal Family’s ‘Secrets’ in Bombshell Book

There’s a reason they’re called The Firm: More than blue bloods, Britain’s royal family is a business operation. And thanks to thousands of staffers, the monarchy operates like a well-oiled machine. Their private army of servants know how to “feed and clothe the royals, organize their days, polish their shoes, carry the deer and pheasants they shoot and even put the toothpaste on their toothbrushes,” reads a synopsis for Tom Quinn’s new book, Yes Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants.

The servants know everything. That includes which royals are angels and who’s “a private devil,” the February 25 release teases. Though the monarchy’s current senior royals — King Charles III, 76, Queen Camilla, 77, Prince William, 42, and Princess Kate, 43 — might prefer certain details stay behind palace walls, author Tom tells Life & Style he was able to gather many of his fascinating, funny and sometimes scandalous anecdotes before some palace employees signed nondisclosure agreements. “Royal staff are certainly privy to secrets,” he hints of the book’s contents, and “their stories were so interesting.”

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The stories he’s collected are both historical and modern. One of his “favorite anecdotes” was shared by a woman who worked at Buckingham Palace in the 1950s when the late Prince Philip’s mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was a resident. The royal, who died in 1969 at 89, “used to smoke so many cigarettes that on several occasions she set her bedroom on fire,” Tom shares. “But of course back then, no one could stop her smoking.”

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No one could get William or Prince Harry, 40, to clean up, either. The brothers deserve the title of “messiest royals,” says Tom, who’s authored a number of other books on the royal family, including a history of Kensington Palace and a biography of William Talon, better known as Backstairs Billy, a favorite servant of the late Queen Mother. “One servant joked to me that she thought William and Harry as children believed fairies came into their room at night and tidied everything up.”

Servants also know the truth behind scandal. Tom tells Life & Style he was “astonished” to hear from multiple palace staffers that “one of the things the royals found difficult about Meghan Markle was that she was a bit too relaxed for [such] a very formal family,” which caused friction. “She was constantly hugging and embracing” not only royal relatives but senior staffers, which the family struggled “to deal with.” Despite all the negative press she gets, several people who worked for Meghan, 43, “said she was actually rather nice,” he added.

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Palace Staff Have Revealed Juicy Royal Family Secrets Over the Years

This isn’t the first time palace staff have spoken out. Servants including Paul Burrell — Princess Diana’s butler — have written tell-all books. In his 2003 memoir A Royal Duty, he detailed the late Princess of Wales’ mental health struggles and feelings of deep betrayal over husband Charles’ affair with Camilla. Other staffers’ books were less salacious. In 2019’s The Other Side of the Coin: The Queen, the Dresser and the Wardrobe by Queen Elizabeth II’s longtime dresser and assistant, Angela Kelly, the monarch’s confidant revealed that “a ‘flunky’ wears Her Majesty’s shoes to ensure they are comfortable … I am that ‘flunky.’”

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Meanwhile, former Buckingham Palace maid Charlotte Briggs “had a day’s training,” she told The Sun in 2022, in managing a collection of 72 teddy bears that belonged to Prince Andrew, 64. It took her 30 minutes to place them atop his four-poster bed each morning. “At bedtime,” she added, “I had to take all the teddies off and arrange them around the room.” Former royal protection officer Paul Page said in an ITV documentary that “if those bears weren’t put back in the right order by the maids,” the Duke of York “would shout and scream.”

For his part, Darren McGrady, a palace chef of 15 years, has described Diana as a terrible cook — but a wonderful mother. When she and her sons had dinner at 6:30 p.m. each night, “she wasn’t strict at all,” Darren told HELLO! “[Their] nanny would say, ‘They’re having cabbage.’ And the princess would say, ‘No, if they’re with me and they want loaded potato skins and fried chicken, then they can have that.’”

When Diana, who died at 36 in 1997, was on her own, there were no airs or graces. She’d often eat from “a tray in front of the TV,” Darren further shared, adding that the royal regularly joined him in the kitchen to “vent about things” and sometimes “just burst into tears.” Other times, he fondly recalled, she’d tell “a dirty, risque joke and you’d think, ‘I can’t believe Princess Diana just said that!’”