There are some lovely girls around the Palace ...I’m sure you could find someone suitable
PAUL BURRELL: WHAT QUEEN SAID TO ME ABOUT GETTING WED
FORMER royal butler Paul Burrell today tells how he fell for a fellow servant after the UK Queen told him to go off and find “a suitable girl from around the Palace”.
The monarch turned marriage adviser after Paul was linked to a Navy scandal on board the Royal Yacht Britannia.
He heeded her advice and after he married Maria Cosgrove – then Prince Philip’s maid – the delighted Queen sent them to Balmoral on honeymoon.
Paul reveals a string of amazing conversations with the Queen in today’s exclusive Sunday Mirror interview.
The marriage advice all stemmed from the 1981 episode on Britannia.
Paul remembers how a naval officer was prosecuted and dismissed from the UK navy over homosexual acts. The events are still hurtful for Paul to recount. He says: “It’s very delicate... still today. I knew these people, there was a lot of suffering. They were different times.”
Paul was suspended from Palace duties and revealed his pain in a letter to his Aussie lover Greg Pead, who later sold his story.
PLEASED
“I’ve never spoken about what happened,” says Paul.
The Queen, who Paul says is “incredibly broadminded”, later took him aside and expressed how pleased she was he was returning to his duties as her personal footman and that the matter was considered closed.
Then came her firm advice. Paul, 58, says: “Her Majesty took me aside and said, ‘Paul, the institution of marriage is a wonderful thing – have you thought of getting married?’ I said, ‘Well, your Majesty, I have, yes’. She replied ‘Well there are some lovely girls around the Palace. I’m sure you can find one suitable’.
“Some time later I was in Her Majesty’s bedroom and Prince Philip’s maid came in to help me. She helped me pull over a cover and smiled at me and I thought, ‘How sweet, she’s lovely’. That was Maria. We went to Balmoral, very much a party place and somewhere to begin relationships. We got to know each other better and realised we had a great deal in common. I took a picture of her as she was leaving to go back to London. That’s the moment I thought, ‘Yes, she’s the one I’m going to marry’.”
Paul broke the news to the Queen when he and Maria announced their engagement. They wed in 1983.
He goes on: “She said, ‘I’m absolutely delighted, so thrilled for you Paul. You won’t regret getting married. Marriage is a wonderful, wonderful thing and when you have children you will realise it is the foundation of life.
“So there we have it... the Queen giving me marital advice. Giving me a serious talk, the chance to go forward.”
Dad-of-two Paul says the Queen “showered” him with gifts, including candlesticks and a gold carriage clock.
“I was the Queen’s boy,” says Paul. “We had a close, special relationship. Her Majesty knows what I haven’t said and that is important to me.”
He says it was protocol for wives in royal service to step down – to bring up the family. But Paul says: “The Queen asked why Maria was going to stop working for Prince Philip.
“She said, ‘He’s going to be very unhappy, why does it have to happen?’
ETCHED
“I told her one of her relatives had made the rule and she said, ‘I’ll change it’ – and she did.”
When Paul told the Queen he was going on honeymoon to Rhyl, North Wales, she instead offered them the chance to go to Balmoral for a few days before the royal party arrived. Paul says: “It was bliss. Charles and Diana came back from honeymoon to Balmoral. And it’s the place Queen Victoria and her daughters had theirs.
“There’s a bedroom where brides etched their names, with diamond engagement rings, in the glass panes. The most romantic place. Maria’s diamond wasn’t big enough to do that.
“When we got there the housekeeper said, ‘What are we going to do with you? There are no double beds in staff accommodation – only singles’.
Nine months later our son Alexander was born... we shared a single bed.”
And first to be told about the birth was the Queen. Paul adds: “I rang her. She was delighted and wanted to meet him as soon as Maria got out of hospital.
“So, the first person to see my son was the Queen. Two days old and there he was in the sitting room of Buckingham Palace with his little hand clasping on to her finger. What an amazing memory.”
Paul says the Queen would always offer advice when it was needed and was “very understanding” back in 1981. He
says she is fully aware of all that happens below stairs in her Palaces but only intervenes when necessary.
“Nothing fazes the Queen. She accepts everything that happens. You can go to her with any problem. She was always there for me and she was fascinated to know the details,” he says.
Maria, Paul’s wife of 32 years, was at his side when the Queen presented him
with the Royal Victorian Medal in November 1997 for services to the Royal Family. But Paul admits the Queen may be “bewildered” by his life today. Last week it was revealed he will marry his lawyer boyfriend Graham Cooper in April after divorcing Maria. Today he reveals the wedding will be an intimate affair, with around 50 guests, at a luxury country house. Paul says: “It’s going to be a glamorous affair. Not a lavish one, nor a circus themed one which some people have suggested. It will be beautiful hats for a beautiful, special day. There won’t be a dry eye in the house.”
Paul has told how Princess Diana is never far from his thoughts.
He reveals she tested his loyalty before poaching him to be her butler – and “her rock”.
He says: “She was pregnant with Harry and was just showing. She pushed me into a Balmoral dining room, took my hand and said, ‘Put your hand on my tummy. You feel that?’ she said. ‘It’s a boy.’
“It was a state secret and she was handing me my biggest test. I didn’t even tell Maria... I passed the test.”