Tiggy Legge-Bourke: The nanny who raised William and Harry now grieves for her own stepson

Whether accompanying them on stalking trips or safari holidays abroad, Tiggy Legge-Bourke was an ever-present mother figure to Princes William and Harry.

She proved a loyal and reassuring presence throughout the latter years of their parents’ rocky marriage and was there for them during their darkest times following the death of their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.

Described by the Duke of Sussex as their “favourite nanny”, it was Tiggy – real name Alexandra – who was at his side for each of the key moments in his life, a discreet sounding board who was always at the end of the phone.

Ms Legge-Bourke was hired by the Royal household in 1993 as an assistant to Richard Aylard, the private secretary to the then Prince of Wales. But her real role was to help look after the young brothers when it became clear that Charles and Diana would eventually divorce.

So successful was that mission, and so warm the relationship that she developed with the two boys, that Diana saw her as a rival and was convinced she was being “groomed as her future replacement”.

Of the brothers, Ms Legge-Bourke was closer to Prince Harry, who described his deep affection for her in his memoir, Spare, in which he wrote of the “heart-racing joy” he felt as a young boy just to have her alongside him telling him to buckle up his seatbelt in the car.

He would later ask her to be godmother to his son, Prince Archie.

Ms Legge-Bourke often accompanied Harry and his friends on stalking trips, always letting him have “a nip” from the flask of sloe gin that she carried with her.

She was there, he revealed, when he made his first kill, telling him: “Well done, darling!” before marking him in the gory “blooding” tradition said to show respect for the slain animal.

“She dipped her long, slender fingers into the rabbit’s body, under the flap of smashed fur, scooped out a dollop of blood and smeared it tenderly across my forehead, down my cheeks and nose,” he wrote in his memoir.

“Now, she said, in her throaty voice, you are blooded.”

Ms Legge-Bourke also accompanied the boys – and sometimes their father – on family holidays to the Greek islands and Africa, among other places.

In 2006, she accompanied Prince Charles, Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall, and Prince Philip to Prince Harry’s passing-out parade at Sandhurst.

Harry’s ‘surrogate mum’

Later, Harry spoke to his therapist about how she had “been a surrogate mum to me and Willy”.

While he freely admitted she was their “favourite nanny”, he added: “Tiggy couldn’t stand being called that. She’d bite the head off anyone who tried. ‘I’m not the nanny, I’m your friend’!”

But it was not all plain sailing. The Prince of Wales was furious in 1998 when he discovered that Ms Legge-Bourke had allowed his sons to abseil down a 160ft sheer drop near her Welsh home without protective helmets, boots or a back-up safety line.

And while she may have been fun, she was also unafraid to question the princes’ behaviour.

The Duke revealed that in 2020, she was one of the first people to chastise him after he and his wife bared their souls to Oprah Winfrey.

“How could you reveal such things? About your family?” she and other close friends asked him.

Tiggy and Charles Pettifer, the son of an antique furniture dealer, were childhood sweethearts, dating in their teenage years.

However, he was not considered good enough by her aristocratic family, it was claimed at the time, and she was forced to sever contact.

He went on to join the Coldstream Guards, and married Camilla Wyatt, a florist and the daughter of a racehorse breeder, in 1991.

The couple had two sons, Edward, in December 1993, and Harry in September 1995.

Ms Legge-Bourke, who was good friends with the first Mrs Pettifer, was godmother to Edward, who was killed in the New Year’s Eve truck ramming attack in New Orleans.

However, the couple divorced when the boys were young and Mr Pettifer rekindled his romance with Ms Legge-Bourke. By 1998, the pair were described as “inseparable”.

Their engagement was announced in October 1999 and Princes William and Harry attended their wedding later that month on her family’s 6,000-acre Welsh estate.

The couple have two sons, Tom, 22, who is Prince William’s godson, and Fred, 23, who is Prince Harry’s godson.

In 2000, Ms Legge-Bourke was appointed Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in the New Year’s Honours list. Her family retains close links with the royals.

Until her retirement last year, her mother, Shan Legge-Bourke, 81, was a lady-in-waiting to the Princess Royal.

Damages for Bashir’s lies

Ms Legge-Bourke now runs a bed and breakfast at the family home near Crickhowell, in Wales, where she teaches guests fly fishing while her husband, who for years travelled the world as a security consultant, is the director of a company that repairs and maintains ships and boats.

She has maintained close contact with both William and Harry and attended both of their weddings.

In July 2022, she won damages of around £200,000 from the BBC after telling the High Court that Martin Bashir’s Panorama interview with Princess Diana had “haunted” the Royal family.

Ms Legge-Bourke said the “false narrative” created by the 1995 programme had caused great distress.

She sued for defamation after Bashir told the late Princess that her husband was “in love” with Ms Legge-Bourke and that the two of them had flown off on a two-week holiday.