King Charles’ beloved nanny Mabel Anderson: meet his surrogate mother who he could share his ‘feelings and frustrations’ with

Outside of his family, King Charles has shared a decades-spanning bond with one particular woman, Mabel Anderson. She was just 22 years old when the future monarch was born in 1948. Mabel reportedly first applied to be an assistant nurse to Charles and was the only applicant who was “not shaking with nerves”. 

The younger of two Scottish nannies who cared for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s eldest son, Mabel came to be “a surrogate mother” to the Prince who would one day become King. 

“She was clearly really close to him in his formative years,” Ailsa Anderson, the late Queen’s former private secretary, tells HELLO!. “And clearly she’s still really special to the King and to his heart.”

Nanny to a future King

In the 1994 book The Prince of Wales: A Biography, author Jonathan Dimbleby wrote that Mabel “fully lived up” to Prince Philip’s expectations after the royals’ older nanny, Helen Lightbody, left. 

According to Jonathan, Mabel “was devoted to her employers, she had her own clear sense of how to handle the two very different children in her care, and she was not easily suborned. Firm, even strict by the standards of a later generation, and in extremis willing to administer a smacking, she was, by nature, kind and gentle, quick to comfort and to encourage.”

“Under her regime in the nursery, equerries and ladies-in-waiting, as well as butlers and footmen – who had not always found favour with Helen Lightbody – were able to take advantage of the friendly seclusion of Balmoral from the rigours of Palace duty. For Prince Charles, who had already discovered that only in the nursery could he always be assured of a cuddle, Mabel Anderson became ‘a haven of security, the great haven’ to whom he invariably turned first for comfort and support,'” Jonathan continued. 

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A surrogate mother

Charles and Anne were young, just three and one, respectively, at the time of their mother’s ascension to the throne. 

“With parents who were often away, and were not, in any case, given to displays of affection even in private, Mabel Anderson came to assume a vital role in the Prince’s life,” Jonathan penned in the biography. “The adoration of the young child for his nurse (who was almost the same age as the Queen) led friends and courtiers to conclude that Mabel Anderson had become in effect ‘a surrogate mother’, while to his father it was clear that she was much the most important influence on him.”

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A bond that has endured

Per The Daily Mail‘s Richard Kay, the King “once bitterly” told his first wife, Princess Diana, that Mabel “was the only woman who really understood him”. Charles even reportedly invited his former nanny to join him and Camilla on their first public holiday, an Aegean cruise, in the late 90s.

After Mabel retired in 1981, she was given a “grace and favour” apartment on the grounds of Windsor Castle. At his own expense, it’s been claimed that Charles had the apartment decorated and furnished for her.

Since fulfilling his destiny and becoming King, Charles hasn’t forgotten his beloved nanny. The British monarch visited Mabel in February 2026 to celebrate her 100th birthday. It was a promise the King had made to her. The two are said to have enjoyed tea together on the Windsor estate. 

“For him to go and see her on her 100th birthday, I think it’s really sweet actually,” Ailsa tells HELLO!. “It’s a connection to his past and to growing up and to bygone days. I think we’d all like that. I think it’s really charming and sweet and it must mean so much to a woman who’s just turned 100.”