Sarah Ferguson Fell Out of Favor With Palace Staff — as 'They Preferred The Gentleness of Diana'
Life behind Palace walls has always been as much about perception as protocol, and not everyone who married into the royal family won hearts on both sides. Former butler Paul Burrell has shed light on how Sarah Ferguson and Princess Diana were perceived ‘downstairs.’ He revealed that one was embraced with affection, while the other left the staff divided.
Recently, the Duchess of York found herself surrounded by controversy, and by Burrell's account, she was never far from them. In a leaked email to Jeffrey Epstein, she described him as “a steadfast, generous and supreme friend," after publicly vowing that she would cut ties with him.
But Burrell, who served both Diana and Ferguson, argues that her difficulties within the institution went beyond headlines. They stretched into her everyday dealings with her staff. He recalled an incident during a country picnic at Balmoral, when the men had gone out stalking and the women joined them in the hills for lunch. As was tradition, a page asked each guest for their order. Ferguson, however, reportedly ignored the process, and it left the aide seething.
“In a voice heard by all the ladies assembled, including the Queen, he boomed, ‘What does that red-haired mare want for lunch?’” Burrell recalled. He explained that Ferguson was energetic and unpredictable. “She was 26 and like a bouncy, uncontrollable red setter puppy. She was not as popular or as well-received downstairs as Diana had been.”
While some saw her humor and warmth as a refreshing change, others found her way too casual, too familiar for her own good. And by contrast, Diana had been part of that household for a good five years, earning both affection and trust of the staff. “Fergie may have been a breath of fresh air for the royals, but the staff preferred the gentleness of the established Princess of Wales,” Burell said. “Fergie was a newcomer, and she had to earn the trust of the staff. She was far too familiar for her own good, but the staff could be snobs at times.” Diana, however, was disliked by the royals who found her too vocal about her struggles in the royal fold, reportedly resenting also her popularity amongst the public. Fergie, comparatively, was more accepted for loving the royal ways and never speaking against the family.
Unlike Burrell, former Buckingham Palace press secretary Dickie Arbiter, who worked closely with Diana for years, painted a different picture, describing her relationship with the staff as 'complicated.' For all her empathy and warmth, she was also known to be mercurial. He claimed she was delightful “when things were going her way,” but when they weren’t, she had a habit of freezing people out.
In his memoir On Duty with the Queen, Arbiter recounted how these silences could stretch on for days, sometimes weeks. “If anything out of the ordinary occurred, anything that conflicted with what she wanted to do, and in her way, then you were frozen out and left to stew until she decided to invite you back into the fold,” he wrote. He himself experienced it after cautioning her against hosting a reception for England’s football team right after their defeat. Diana pressed ahead with her plan — and Arbiter didn’t hear from her again for two weeks. Over time, Arbiter came to see these 'freezes' less as personal slights and more as Diana’s method of asserting control in an environment where she often felt powerless.