remind you of the teenage girl locked in the wooden house in "Red Dead Redemption 2"
Netflix's " The Crown" tells the story of two sick cousins of Queen - Nelissa and Catherine . This plot is based on true events.
Queen Elizabeth II's uncle John Bowth Lyons had two sick daughters: Nelissa in 1919 and Catherine in 1926. Both of them have severe intellectual disabilities. At that time, it would be considered a family shame to have a sick child in a noble family. In addition, exposure to the sick girl reduces the likelihood of a successful marriage for the other two healthy daughters. John had five children, all girls except the eldest, who died in infancy. Both sisters lived long, but only two were healthy.
John Bowes-Lyons and a healthy eldest daughter, 1923
So the two girls were hidden behind a high wall to avoid the curious gazes of others. Strangers were not allowed to visit them, except for teachers who came to teach. So they have almost no chance to contact the outside world. Elizabeth II's special cousin didn't even learn to speak.
Catherine and Nelissa
In 1941, the Elizabeth II cousins were sent to a closed mental hospital. At that time, the royal family feared that Britain would be occupied by Germany, where the idea of eugenics was very common. Not long after, Nerissa and Katherine were pronounced dead.
Anna (sister of Nelissa and Catherine) with her husband Prince George of Denmark , in 1965
Thanks to the success of the aristocratic marriage, Anna even received the title of Princess of Denmark. But Nelissa and Katherine remain a burden to the parents, with John and his wife Fennell caring for the unfortunate girls but unable to call in medical specialists to treat their daughter. Otherwise, the "humiliation of the highest noble family" will be made public, which is unacceptable to the Windsor family. The situation was further complicated when John died in 1930, and all responsibility for the sisters fell on the fragile shoulders of his widow.
Meanwhile, the political situation became volatile World War II began. Not only are men sent to the front, for women there is a lot to do in the rear as well. Nelissa and Catherine's mother lost nearly all of her domestic servants and realized she couldn't handle it anymore. Then the sisters' maternal grandfather, Baron Clinton, decided to do it himself, and offered Fennell a relatively reasonable way out: place the girls in Earlswood Hospital and pay for the work of the medical staff who cared for them. Fernell agreed because she didn't see an alternative solution. In her later years, she realized she couldn't handle her "special" daughter alone.
So Nelissa and Catherine ended up living in a Surrey Asylum. Judging by the entries left on the hospital guest book, the sisters were often visited by their mother and grandfather until the mid-1960s. They provided financial support to the hospital and also brought clean new clothes and gifts for the girls. After the death of their mother and grandfather, Baron Clinton, the sisters were forgotten and wore the same hospital gowns as other patients, according to medical workers.
The Earlswood Mental Health Clinic at , Surrey, also known as the Idiot Sanctuary
On July 29, 1981, a major event occurred in the British royal family, which was of strategic importance to the royal family. Charles married Diana Spencer. Those invited to the wedding included British aristocrats and numerous relatives of the Windsor family. Of course, the Queen herself was there. All the reporters rushed towards her as her carriage drove towards St Paul's Cathedral. Queen Elizabeth II, as always, turned to reporters with a majestic and unchanging smile, waving to the footage of the TV cameras.
Meanwhile, at the Royal Hospital for Mental Disorders in Surrey, a small2019), two middle-aged women in loose green dresses clutched at the TV screen. When Queen Elizabeth II's smiling face appeared on the TV screen, the two were so excited that they could not say anything clearly, but they whimpered loudly. and go out of their way to express their joy at the image on the TV screen.
Of course, Nelissa and Katherine don't know what a family relationship is, but they have developed a special bond from birth. Obviously, they feel that they can only rely on each other in this world. When Nelissa died suddenly in 1986, her sister Katherine was frozen for days. She didn't understand what was going on, she couldn't understand the concepts of "life" and "death". But on an intuitive level, Catherine no doubt felt that her only family was gone forever.
As Ornella Braithwaite, a nurse at the mental hospital, recalls, it was a very sad sight and it was heart-crunching. "I remember how my colleagues and I faced the fact that if everything had been different, they would have been one of the invited guests," she said.
In 1987, a reporter was walking past a local cemetery when he noticed a new headstone bearing a surname familiar to every British resident: Bowes Lyons. The tombstone shows the death of sister Nelissa in 1986. Her death immediately became a clue for the media, who managed to conduct an independent investigation and make the story public.
Then, a wave of public grievances began to boil. The staff at the mental hospital hid this long and unpleasant secret, but when it came to light, they started giving interviews. According to the medical staff, the sisters were attached to each other, showed no aggression towards others, and their IQs stopped at the level of children aged 3-5. Employees of the mental hospital said the sisters were kept in very rudimentary rooms without even their own clothes, and relatives stopped visiting them in the 1960s. In the face of the influx of reporters, the royal family had to defend: "This is a matter of the Bowes Lyons family."
But the fact is that neither the Queen Mother nor Queen Elizabeth II came out to correct this misunderstanding. Although they know that the unfortunate sisters are "captured". In 1982, the Queen Mother gave generously on her own behalf to the mental hospital where Nelisa and Catherine were "imprisoned".
Kathryn lived nearly 30 years longer than Nelissa and died in 2014.
The story of Queen Elizabeth II's "missing" sisters hasn't gone unnoticed by conspiracy theorists. Their theory seems crazy: they think the heiress to George VI is not on the throne at all, but the real Elizabeth is the one who has spent her life in the hospital. Recall that Catherine and Elizabeth were both born in 1926 (10 weeks apart). Conspiracy theorists believe the girls were replaced at birth. The Queen Mother and King George VI are said to have realised their daughter was born "mentally retarded", so they asked for a replacement to avoid a major family scandal. The choice fell on the Bowes Lyons' newly born daughter. Of course, the conspirators have no evidence, just guesswork.
Anyway, it's unlikely we'll know the full truth about the "missing" sisters. Because they have all left this world.
