On a grey morning in London, people were rushing by Kensington Palace with coffee cups and sleepy eyes. But behind those brick walls, a quieter kind of ceremony was going on. No balcony, no crowds cheering, and no wave from the balcony. Just a few people, a shiny floor, and a woman whose face most people wouldn’t know on the street.
Maria Teresa Turrion Borrallo is her name. She has been the nanny for Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis through good times and bad.
The royal spotlight turned to her on this day
The royal nanny who became a legend without anyone knowing it
Maria Borrallo joined the royal family in 2014, when Prince George was still a wobbly toddler. She stepped into a life full of state dinners, trips abroad, and bedtime stories that had to fit in between hospital visits and news from around the world. What she didn’t get was fame.
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You can see her in the corners of pictures, like on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, on the tarmac when the royal jet lands, or holding a small hand or catching a runaway cardigan. She is always right behind the kids, never in front of them, and she wears a calm blue uniform.
She has now received one of the rarest royal honours
The King has made her a member of the Royal Victorian Order, which is a personal gift from the King for outstanding service to the Crown. A committee or a public nomination process doesn’t give you this kind of honour. It comes from the royal family’s own sense of loyalty and thankfulness.
Maria gets this kind of recognition that usually goes to private secretaries, ladies-in-waiting who have been there for a long time, and senior courtiers. The people who make sure the machine keeps working while the cameras are pointed somewhere else.
The picture is striking: a nanny, not a duke or general, is quietly told she is now part of that group.
The message is stronger than the ceremony. This award is a way of saying, “The person who keeps your kids safe, grounded, and loved is not “staff.” She is in the inner circle.
There is also the context that isn’t said. The Princess of Wales is still having health problems, Prince William has to balance his public duties with picking up his kids from school, and their three young kids have had to grow up with their mother in the hospital. In that delicate balance, having a trusted nanny isn’t a luxury. She is the infrastructure.
This is the Crown’s very public admission that emotional labour is just as important to the monarchy as gold coaches and coronation crowns.
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You can almost see Maria’s job in invisible lines if you look closely at past royal events. When the royals are on tour, she stands at the bottom of the stairs to the plane and decides in seconds if George is about to lose it or if Charlotte has had enough handshakes for the day.
When the crowd gets too loud at Sandringham walks, she’ll be close enough to see her and give her a reassuring look. Before she goes out on the balcony for Trooping the Colour, she’s behind the curtains, probably kneeling down to their level and calmly explaining what’s going to happen.
That award from the royal family isn’t for one brave act. It’s for thousands of little choices that weren’t photographed.
Just think about the last year. While the world picked apart every royal statement and every blurry paparazzi photo, someone still had to keep the school day going. Someone had to wash the PE kit, check the homework and answer the bedtime questions that start with, ‘Mummy is in the hospital. Will she be okay?’
William stayed closer to home when the Princess of Wales took a break from public life to get treatment. But state duties didn’t just go away. Maria was one of the few things that stayed the same for three kids whose family life became a global topic of conversation overnight.
It’s easy to talk about resilience in general. For George, Charlotte, and Louis, resilience means seeing the same nanny at the school gate and hearing the same voice at bath time.
The Royal Victorian Order pinned to Maria’s name means something that many families already know. Childcare isn’t just something you hire for practical reasons; it’s also something that helps you feel better.
We’ve all been there: the moment you realise that the person who is helping you with your kids knows their little quirks almost as well as you do. Charlotte’s stubbornness, Louis’s troublemaking on the balcony, and George’s love of airplanes—those aren’t just headlines for her. They are real life every day.
The Prince and Princess of Wales are saying out loud what a lot of parents think in private: the person who sees your kids cry and win shapes your family’s story.
What this means for loyalty, care, and work that isn’t seen
The main “method” behind this award is to treat the people who care for your kids as partners, not as background props. The Waleses have had Maria for ten years now. In a world where political aides and palace staff can leave and come back, that kind of consistency is impressive.
You can see that partnership in small, useful ways. Instead of being left behind, she rides with them on tours. People trust her when things are tough, like when she visits states or goes on balconies. She has room to do her job without being forced into publicity stunts.
In this case, loyalty has gone both ways, and it has quietly helped a very public family stay stable.
A lot of parents might feel a little weird when they read about a royal nanny getting an award. They think of the people who take care of their kids, like the nursery worker who knows their child’s favourite toy, the grandparent who picks them up after school, or the babysitter who can get a shy toddler to talk.
Not everyone can give out medals. It’s clear. But there’s a common problem that we all face: how often do we really see how much other people care about our kids?
Let’s be honest: no one does this every day. We hurry, we’re tired, and we mentally mark a “thank you” and then move on to the next thing. Maria’s award gently points out the gap between how much we depend on carers and how little we thank them.
A royal family doesn’t always make the clearest statement by giving a speech. Sometimes, it’s just a name on an honours list. The Prince and Princess of Wales made it clear when they chose their nanny that “This person helped hold our family together.”
Who got the prize?
A nanny from Spain who trained in Norland and has worked for the royal family for ten years, taking care of three kids in the most unusual way possible.
What makes the honour so special?
The monarch personally gives the Royal Victorian Order to people, usually close aides who have been with the monarch for a long time. It is not given to household staff that most people never see.
Why does it echo outside the palace?
Because it brings attention to the kind of care that is mostly done by women, who are often underpaid or not given enough credit, that keeps families going during tough times.
The quiet change behind the palace gates and beyond
There is a bigger change in mood behind this story. For years, royal news focused on tiaras, scandals, and rules, hardly ever looking at the nursery wing. Now, news about a nanny getting a royal honour is as popular as political drama and celebrity gossip. That gives you an idea of where people’s minds are going.
We’re more interested in how powerful families really live, who they turn to when the cameras aren’t around, and what happens when illness interrupts their carefully planned schedules. The romantic fantasy of being a royal has turned into something much more painful: a family under pressure trying to keep their kids safe.
In that light, Maria’s award seems less like a cute royal footnote and more like a signpost. It makes us think about who in our lives quietly keeps everything going. The friend who helps with school runs. The neighbour who invites another kid over for tea. The teacher who sees what you missed.
You don’t need a palace or a ribbon to do the same thing. A handwritten note, a real conversation instead of a quick “thanks,” a small rise when you can, and publicly supporting someone when they are criticised are all examples of royal orders in everyday life. They say, “I see what you’re doing.” I appreciate it.
The Princess of Wales has said before that childhood is the most important time in a person’s life. This award fits that message better than any flashy campaign video. Giving the nanny who stands in the doorway of that foundation a name is a radical act in a very traditional setting.
It won’t fix the problems with childcare or help parents who are burnt out from working. It won’t change the fact that many carers will never be honoured. But it might make us think about who we should respect the most by looking to the side instead of up. The story starts at Kensington Palace, but where it ends is up to us.
