Tiggy Legge-Bourke

Tiggy Legge-Bourke's paternal grandfather, Sir Harry Legge-Bourke (1914–1973), was a member of parliament for the Isle of Ely from 1945 until 1973 and was chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers.

Legge-Bourke is the daughter of William Legge-Bourke (1939–2009), son of Harry Legge-Bourke, and who served in the Royal Horse Guards.

Legge-Bourke's mother, Dame Shân Legge-Bourke (born 1943), was the only child of Wilfred Bailey, 3rd Baron Glanusk (1891–1948), a soldier who became a colonel in the Grenadier Guards and also served as Lord Lieutenant of Brecknockshire.

When Shân Bailey's father died in 1948, she and her mother inherited his estate at Glanusk Park, near Crickhowell in Powys, while his peerage went to a cousin.

Alexandra Shân "Tiggy" Pettifer (née Legge-Bourke; born 1 April 1965) is a British former nanny and companion to Prince William and Prince Harry.

In 1966, Legge-Bourke's grandmother Margaret Glenusk, widowed in 1948, married secondly William Sidney, 1st Viscount De L'Isle VC KG, who had been Governor-General of Australia from 1961 until 1965.

Legge-Bourke's brother Harry, born in 1972, was a Page of Honour to Queen Elizabeth II between 1985 and 1987 and became an officer in the Welsh Guards.

His death in 1973 led to a by-election won by the Liberal Clement Freud.

She is a cousin of the public relations executive and television personality Eleanor Legge-Bourke.

In 1985 Zara (b. 1966) married Captain Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, known as Richard Drax.

Shân Legge-Bourke was appointed a lady-in-waiting to the Princess Royal in 1987, was High Sheriff of Powys in 1991, and was the Lord Lieutenant of Powys until 2018.

He thus became step-grandfather to the Legge-Bourke children until his death in 1991.

After leaving school, Legge-Bourke took a nursery teacher training course at the St Nicholas Montessori Centre in London.

She then taught for a year in Balham before leaving to set up her own nursery school in Battersea, called Mrs Tiggywinkle's.

On 9 December 1992, prime minister John Major announced in the House of Commons that Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales, were to separate but had no plans to divorce.

At the time, Diana was convinced that Charles loved only Camilla Parker Bowles.

She was a personal assistant to Charles III (then Prince of Wales) from 1993 to 1999.

In 1993, shortly after Charles, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Diana, Princess of Wales had separated, Charles hired Legge-Bourke as nanny to their two sons.

As the royal nanny, she soon began to make headlines.

Early controversy came when she said scornfully of the Princess of Wales's attitude towards her sons: "I give them what they need at this stage, fresh air, a rifle and a horse. She gives them a tennis racket and a bucket of popcorn at the movies".

It was also considered to be a gaffe when Legge-Bourke referred to William and Harry as "my babies".

She often went with the princes on holidays.

A heavy smoker, she was said to be able to smoke even while skiing, and was criticized by Diana for smoking near her sons.

As early as October 1993, Diana was writing to Paul Burrell that she believed her husband was now in love with Legge-Bourke and wanted to marry her.

Legge-Bourke later admitted having had a "schoolgirl crush" on Charles, who had been a frequent visitor to her family's estate.

Diana's biographer, Lady Colin Campbell, commented that "Charles is only interested in her as an uncle is interested in a younger niece."

Legge-Bourke was reported in 1994 to be fond of fly fishing and long walks in the country.

Brought up at Glanusk Park, a 6000 acre estate in Wales, Tiggy Legge-Bourke was educated at Heathfield School, Ascot, which she left with four O-levels, and the Institut Alpin Videmanette at Rougemont in Switzerland, a finishing school also attended by Diana, Princess of Wales.

She has a sister and a brother, Zara and Harry.

In 1996, at the age of thirteen, Prince William, avoiding a difficult choice, asked both of his parents not to attend Eton's Fourth of June celebrations, the high point of the school's year.

However, they were both reported to be taken aback when he invited Legge-Bourke to attend in their place.

After taking a degree at Magdalene College, Cambridge, her father then became a merchant banker at Kleinwort Benson and was deputy lieutenant of Powys from 1997 until his death.

Early in 1997, she resigned, but she returned to the royal household only a few months later.

On 18 July 1997, while out of Charles's service, she attended the fiftieth-birthday party he threw for Camilla Parker Bowles in Gloucestershire.

She helped to comfort the princes after their mother's death in a road accident in Paris on 31 August 1997.

There was anger in 1998 when Legge-Bourke allowed the young princes to abseil down the fifty-metre dam of Grwyne Fawr Reservoir in Wales without safety lines or helmets.

Staff at St James's Palace mounted an inquiry, and Legge-Bourke was reported to have been saved only by the princes' adoration of her.

The press predicted time and again that Legge-Bourke was about to be sacked, but this never happened.

She has used her married name since her marriage to Charles Pettifer in 1999.

She finally retired from the Prince of Wales's service when she married in October 1999.