ROYAL HOUSEKEEPER FOR THIRTY YEARS

Shannon News, 25 June 1926, Page 4

ROYAL HOUSEKEEPER FOR THIRTY YEARS

MISS CLARK'S MEMOIRS.

THE MEAN KAISER

Interesting stories of most of the present and late crowned heads of Europe were told by the late Miss Ann Clark, who has died at the age of 70 after almost lifelong service with the Royal family. For 30 years Miss Clark acted as housekeeper to the present King and Queen, but long before that she was in the service of Queen Victoria and. other members of the. Royal Family. The best proof of Miss Clark's de. voted attachment to her Royal ni!s- ( tress was the fact that though wealthy Americans eager for some of the reflected glory of the British Court made frequent liberal offers to induce her to enter their service, she rejected them all. Even after her retirement on pension she was approached by the agent of one American millionaire who wanted her to take service with him if only to serve as an attraction to his home because of the eagerness of what he called "the best families" in the United States to get into personal touch with English Royalty or to hear first-hand stories of how the Royal, Household was run. To all these offers Miss Clark turned a deaf ear, much to the amazement of the Americans, who could not un. derstand why the dollar appeal failed. Hated I>y . ExJKaiser. Miss Clark, had the distinction of being hated by the ex-Kaiser, who showed his dislike in every possible way. x - ,

Th e reason was an incident of Wilhelm's childhood days, when Miss Clark, then a youn? servant at Windsor, soundly boxed his ears as the sequel to a bullying incident in which the other Royal children were the victims of infantile Prussianism.

Miss Clark regarded the ex-Kaiser as the meanest of all the Royal persons coming under her notice, and said, shortly before* her death, that she had known cases where the valet secretary of the head of the House of Hohenzollern used to make a point of leaving out as many ser„ vants as possible when it came to distributing largesse at the end of a visit.

She regarded the ex. Kaiser as one of th e fussiest of the Royal visitors. H e would never settle down in his room without satisfying himself by personal examination that there were no unauthorised persons in hiding H e made a point of never being in the dark, and always had a servant within call. An Awkward Encounter.

The late Tsar was obsessed with ! the fear of Nihilist plotters, and went I so far as to suggest that even when i he was staying at Windsor or BuckI ingham Palace it was possible for his enemies to reach his room by means of secret passages and doors lets into the walls. It was part of his routine to have the walls tapped for mystery doors, and the rooms were always searched for unwanted visitors. On one occasion the search reveal,, ed the presence of a a terrified youth who looked as though h e expected to be hanged on the spot. Nothing would convince the Tsar that . this was not a dangerous conspirator, with designs on his life, but .the fact is that the culprit was merely anew servant, who had been anxious to see for hinisclf the sleeping quarters of the great, had stolen in, and had been discovered before h e could get away, despite the fact that he had hidden himself securely, as 'he thought. To allay the fears of the Royal visitor, the luckless servant was sent home for the remainder of th e visit. Empress' Premonition,

Another annoyance of the life of the Royal Housekeeper arose from the number of Americans who tried to bribe her to allow them to enter the servants' quarters in order that they might see something of Royalty at close quarters. Once or twice she had definite offers of large sums if she would be a party to the introduction as servants of American Royalty worshippers, but she only smiled at these offers.

One of the tragic figures recalled by the Royal Housekeeper was the ill-fated Ebpress of Austria, who met her death by th e hand of an assassin. Curiously enough, she had the idea that she would meet a violent death, and when last she left St. James', where she had been on a brief visit, she told Miss Clark she did not expect to return again. "I am a doomed woman," she said. She died by the weapon of an assas. sin within a few weeks of making this statement.