About the programme
John Charles Francis, the King's youngest son, had died 16 years earlier, aged just 13. He had suffered from epilepsy and was most likely autistic.
Had Prince John lived, he would have been the present Queen's uncle, and yet at least one official version of the 'House of Windsor' family tree does not include him – which has led many to believe that Prince John was an embarrassment the Royal Family wanted to hide.
Christopher Wilson, a royal historian, comments: 'There's a strange ruthlessness about the House of Windsor, which there doesn't need to be, but for their own reasons if they have somebody that they feel isn't up to scratch they want to write them out of the history books.
It happened in the case of Prince John. The moment that he died we hear no more about him. Suddenly the Royal Family is apparently, if you read the newspapers, a family with five children, not six children. And it's very easy to forget this poor child who died in his teenage years.'
And a letter written by Prince John's eldest brother seems to confirm the very worst suspicions about how the family dealt with him. On hearing the news of John's death, Prince Edward:
'I've told you all about that little brother, darling, and how he was an epileptic. He's been practically shut up for the last two years anyhow, so no-one has ever seen him except the family and then only once or twice a year… this poor boy had become more of an animal than anything else.'
The idea of Prince John as a guilty secret ruthlessly shut away by the Royal Family circulated as rumour for years after and eventually found its way into print. But now, almost 90 years after Prince John's death, we can tell another story, because, according to one of the few people still alive who knew him, the reality was very different.
Elsie Hollingsworth, a childhood friend of Prince John, says: 'There was an article… about Prince John and I was very angry about it and upset because it said he was locked away, neglected, unhappy and lonely. And it was so untrue because he was a happy little boy doing all sorts of things that he could do.'
With the help of this firsthand witness and accounts from others, as well as photographs that have never been seen before on television and letters written by Prince John himself, this film refutes many of the myths that have grown up about him in the years since his death.
The truth about his life is very different from the story that is commonly told and reveals much more about the extraordinary family life of the Windsors, and how they dealt with a public and private tragedy.