Queen Elizabeth Gave Staff One “Precise” Demand That’s Very Andrew-Coded
Scotland was a place that remained close to Queen Elizabeth’s heart her entire life, and now her private rooms at the Palace of Holyroodhouse are open to the public for the first time. The Royal Collection Trust announced on May 21 that the late Queen’s personal apartments at the Edinburgh palace will be open for 100 days to celebrate what would’ve been her 100th birthday—and one detail gives a small insight into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s personality.
The former Duke of York has a fondness for stuffed animals, especially teddy bears, and former staff members have shared his very specific requests for how they’re arranged on his bed. It turns out the late Queen had her own teddy rules, as the Palace of Holyroodhouse’s curator, Emma Stead, told Hello!
Visitors to the palace will see a small bear wearing a tartan scarf and hat on the sofa in Queen Elizabeth’s private apartments, and the outlet shared that the late monarch named him Haddington after the town of the same name in Scotland.
Queen Elizabeth’s teddy, Haddington, sits on a sofa in her private apartments.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The late Queen’s private apartments at Holyroodhouse are open to visitors for the first time ever.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“The Queen was given him as a gift and after that she asked that whenever she arrived here, he be placed in that particular position on the sofa awaiting her arrival,” Stead said. “She had a few personal objects that she liked to be placed quite precisely.”
Another curator, Richard Williams, said that staff members would reference photos of the rooms so they knew everything was put back where the late Queen wanted it.
“All we can say is the Queen was very particular and that [the bear] always would have gone there,” Williams said, adding, “I know from staff colleagues in Windsor that if they were going to redecorate her private rooms, they would take photos of everything so that they could put things back in the exact spot.”
The Royal Family’s official residence in Scotland, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, is located in Edinburgh.
(Image credit: Peter Smith/Royal Collection Trust)
Visitors can see Queen Elizabeth’s desk at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The photo trick was something Andrew used for his own teddies, as former royal police officer Paul Page revealed in the ITV documentary Ghislaine, Prince Andrew And The Paedophile (via The Sun).
Page said that Andrew’s bed “had about 50 or 60 stuffed toys positioned and there was a card in a drawer. It was a picture of these bears all in situ. The reason for the laminated picture was that if those bears weren’t put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream.”
Former Buckingham Palace maid Charlotte Briggs also discussed Andrew’s teddy specifications during an interview with the Sun in 2022. “As soon as I got the job, I was told about the teddies and it was drilled into me how he wanted them,” she said. “I even had a day’s training. Everything had to be just right. It was so peculiar.”
“The teddies had to be in a particular order on his four-poster bed, from the biggest at the back, down to the smallest at the front,” Briggs revealed. “All 72 of them.”
Fortunately, Queen Elizabeth only had one bear, and shouting and screaming wasn’t quite her style.
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