THE REAL MISS SKERRETT...

The young Miss Skerrett, apprentice dresser in the TV series (played by Nell Hudson, right), is a fictional character but owes her surname to the real-life Marianne Skerrett, Queen Victoria’s dresser for 25 years. Here the similarity ends. On screen she’s a workingclass girl with a suspicious past, whereas the real Miss Skerrett was well-bred with impeccable credentials.

The daughter of an Army officer who owned a plantation in the West Indies, she spoke Danish, French and German and was extremely well-read. She was a tiny thing, even shorter than the Queen, ‘thin as a shred of paper’ and ‘comically plain’, according to a relative.

She was appointed Head Dresser when the Queen came to the throne in 1837 and in time became one of Her Majesty’s closest ladies, with a range of personal and administrative tasks. She wrote letters on her behalf to tradespeople, commissioned artists and engravers, answered begging letters and checked and paid bills for the Queen’s clothes. She was always referred to as ‘The Queen’s Miss Skerrett’, and everyone came to depend on her. It was said, ‘If anything goes wrong in Buckingham Palace or Windsor, whether a crowned head or a scullery maid is concerned, Miss Skerrett is always sent for to put it right.’ She retired in 1862, but continued to visit the Queen until her death in 1887.