Queen Elizabeth II told midwife Charles had am ‘enormous appetite’

A candid letter from Queen Elizabeth to her midwife has revealed how a young King Charles was ‘getting fatter due to his enormous appetite’ on a trip to Scotland. 

The then Princess Elizabeth wrote to her midwife Helen Rowe from Balmoral Castle seven weeks after giving birth to Anne in 1950.

She gave ‘Rowie’ an update on the health of both Anne and the then 21-month-old Prince Charles.

The late Queen told her that they were ‘getting on very well’ and she was ‘feeling much stronger already’.

However, she also disclosed Charles’ huge appetite and even revealed the toddler was getting fatter.  

Elizabeth added that the assertive young prince looked at objects he could not reach and told her ‘mummy, lift!’

She also wrote of how the Queen Mother was ‘spoiling’ her grandson while at Balmoral.

She wrote to ‘Rowie’: ‘We are all getting on very well up here and I am feeling very much stronger already.

‘It was lovely to be on the hill again the second day I was here, but the third day the jeep which takes one everywhere over the ground missed picking me up and I had to walk down to the road, with the result that I strained my knee on something, which has been very effective in keeping me within bounds!

‘However, the air is so good that I feel better every day and though I still go to sleep in the afternoon, I don’t do it so often now.

‘Charles is getting fatter as he has an enormous appetite and takes a great deal of exercise.

‘I find it extremely difficult to explain it away when he looks at something he can’t reach and then turns his back meaningly on me and says ‘Mummy, lift!’

‘He enjoyed the train journey far more than Anne, who wasn’t too keen on the rattling to begin with, but she has steadily been putting on weight up here and has got lovely pink cheeks after she has been out. 

‘The sugar in her foods is gradually going up, and she doesn’t seem to be nearly so ravenous, often sleeping right up to bottle time.

‘The children’s grandmother is spoiling her eldest quite openly and will do so with Anne if she got a chance!’

The four page handwritten letter, dated October 4, 1950 and on Balmoral Castle letterhead, is tipped to sell for £3,200 at RR Auction, of Boston, US.

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An RR Auction spokesperson said: ‘This is a wonderful letter from the princess, touching on the health of her two young children: Charles, a month shy of his second birthday, and Anne, who was only one month and 19 days old when this letter was written.’

The sale of the letter, which has been consigned by a private collector, takes place on July 11.

This is not the first letter written by late Queen to go under the hammer. 

In 2017, a letter to the same royal midwife following Prince Edward’s birth went up for auction.

The handwritten message, written in 1964, saw the monarch talking about her ‘wonderful’ baby and telling how he ‘makes everyone happy’.

Edward, the Queen’s fourth and youngest child, was born on March 10 at Buckingham Palace and five months later his proud mother said he was ‘good as gold, trying to sit up and weighing 15 lbs 12 oz’.

The one-page handwritten letter, signed ‘Elizabeth R’ on Buckingham Palace letterhead, is dated August 5, 1964 and was sold by Boston-based RR Auction.