Alexandra “Tiggy” Legge-Bourke, who served as a personal assistant and nanny to Princes William and Harry, became a close, sisterly presence for the royal brothers in the years after the death of their mother, Princess Diana, royal accounts and biographical sources say.
According to royal biographer Tina Brown in Palace Papers, Legge-Bourke sought to distract and steady the grief-stricken boys in the days following Diana’s funeral. On the Monday after the ceremony, she took the then-15-year-old William and 12-year-old Harry to follow the Beaufort Hunt on foot, an outing intended to provide normalcy and routine at a time of intense public scrutiny and private sorrow.
Legge-Bourke, appointed by then-Prince Charles in 1993, had longstanding family ties to the royal household. Her father served in the Royal Horse Guards, her mother became a lady-in-waiting to Princess Anne in 1987, and her brother served as a Page of Honour to the late Queen Elizabeth II. She joined the princes on family holidays, taught them outdoor pursuits such as hunting and fishing, and in the view of those close to the family acted more like an older sister than a traditional nanny.
The relationship was not without tension. Princess Diana was reportedly wary of how much time Legge-Bourke spent with Charles and the children and took issue with some of her habits and influence. In February 1996, Diana is said to have written to Charles asking that Legge-Bourke "not spend unnecessary time in the children's rooms, read to them at night, nor supervise their bathtime." Reports from the period also record disagreements about child-rearing approaches.
Prince Harry described Legge-Bourke in his memoir Spare as "our favourite nanny," though he wrote that she objected to that label and preferred to be seen as a friend. He recounted her admonishments later in life when he faced criticism for a 2021 interview, noting that she chided him for revealing family matters publicly. The closeness endured over decades: she attended Harry’s commissioning as a second lieutenant at Sandhurst in 2006, was present at his wedding to Meghan Markle in 2018, and is godmother to the couple’s eldest child, Archie.
Legge-Bourke’s public profile was affected by a high-profile controversy connected to the circumstances surrounding Diana’s 1995 BBC interview with Martin Bashir. Investigations later found that Bashir had used falsified documents to obtain the interview, including material shown to Diana suggesting an intimate relationship between Legge-Bourke and the then Prince of Wales. The BBC subsequently apologised and agreed to pay damages to Legge-Bourke over what it described as "fabricated" allegations used to secure Diana’s cooperation.
She left her role as a royal nanny after marrying her childhood friend and security consultant Charles Pettifer in 1999. Both princes attended the wedding; senior members of the royal family did not. Even after her formal departure from the household, Legge-Bourke remained a constant figure in the princes’ lives and retained a private, long-term friendship with the brothers.
Observers and biographers have pointed to her combination of continuity, practical care and relatability as factors in the brothers’ enduring affection. Captain Ian Farquhar, a friend of the family and joint master of the Beaufort Hunt, is quoted in Brown’s account as offering the princes condolences and then encouraging them to "get on with the day," a response emblematic of the mixture of public composure and private support that surrounded the family in the weeks after Diana’s death.
Legge-Bourke’s role illustrates how non-royal staff and family friends can become central figures in the personal lives of senior royals. Over three decades, she moved from an appointed caregiver to a private confidante and godparent, maintaining ties across moments of mourning, public controversy and family change. Her story has been revisited in recent years as part of wider examinations of the royal household’s handling of Diana’s death and the media practices that shaped it.