A viral tweet has resurfaced some harrowing information about Queen Elizabeth II’s beloved corgis. It seems the late monarch’s favourite pets caused quite a bit of trouble in the royal household, reportedly biting staff and even the Queen herself – so much so that she had to receive three stitches.
Queen Elizabeth II died on 8 September in Balmoral Castle at age 96. Throughout her 70-year reign, the British monarch was known for her love of the breed and owned more than 30 corgis during the course of her life. Although the Queen’s corgis seem like lovable creatures, one Twitter user unearthed some little known facts about the dogs which proves that living with the furry friends may not have always been so pleasant.
Writer and historian Hannah Rose Woods took to Twitter on 14 September after scrolling through a Wikipedia entry for the Queen’s corgis. The section was menacingly titled, “Victims”.
“I did not expect the Wikipedia entry for the royal corgis to become this horrifying,” she tweeted, alongside two screenshots from the site.
According to the page, the Queen and her royal staff have been bitten by the corgis on several occasions. The first one occurred in 1954, when a Pembroke corgi named Susan – who was gifted to the Queen on her 18th birthday – bit the royal clockwinder, Leonard Hubbard, at the Royal Lodge in Windsor.
A New York Times archive from 1954 reported that one of the Queen’s dogs, possibly Susan, also bit one of the Queen’s Guardsmen one week after biting Hubbard. Later in the same year, the Queen Mother’s corgi bit a policeman on duty in London.
In 1968, parliament member Peter Doig called for royal staff to put up a sign at Balmoral Castle that reads “Beware of the dog” after another corgi bit a postman who was delivering a letter at the castle.
“This is a laughing matter here but it isn’t a laughing matter for the postman,” Doig told the House of Commons at the time, according to the St Joseph Gazette.
When the corgis’ bad behaviour started to get out of hand, the royal family reportedly hired an animal psychologist in 1989 in order to tame the dogs.
But it wasn’t just humans that the corgis seemed to bite. In 1989, the Queen Mother’s dog, Ranger, led a pack of corgis that attacked and killed Chipper, the Queen’s beloved dorgi (a dachshund and corgi mix). And in 2003, one of the Queen’s beloved dogs, Pharos – who was a tenth-generation offspring of Susan – was fatally mauled by Princess Anne’s English bull terrier, Dotty.
The incident occurred when Princess Anne visited her mother at Sandringham Place on Christmas Day as the Queen’s corgis rushed out the door. “As the door was opened by a servant, the queen’s corgis raced down the main staircase to greet Anne,” The Sun reported at the time.
“But Dotty went for Pharos – savaging the corgi’s hind legs and breaking one in three places.”
This wasn’t Dotty’s only offense. In November 2002, Princess Anne pled guilty to a charge under the Dangerous Dog Act, after the English bull terrier bit two children in Windsor Great Park. The Princess Royal was ordered to pay a $790 fine, $395 in compensation to the boys, and court costs of $234.
The Queen was not left unscathed by her beloved corgis’ behaviour, either. In March 1991, she tried to break up a fight among ten dogs and had to receive three stitches in her left hand. Two of the Queen Mother’s dogs also joined in on the fight. The Queen Mother’s chauffeur, Joan Collins, had to receive a tetanus shot after she tried to intervene.
“Now I have a mental image of the Queen trying to break up a fight between 10 of her corgis stuck in my head,” one person said in response to the viral tweet.
“Proposing The Real Story of the Royal Corgis for a micro series,” another user wrote.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon paid tribute to the Queen when she recently shared a funny story about the misbehaving corgis. “One of the Queen’s young corgis, a beautiful pup called Sandy, was eating through a lamp switch,” Sturgeon said, describing the experience as “tense”.
“Thankfully, tragedy was averted and Sandy emerged unscathed, though not before a stern ticking off from his mistress.
Upon Queen Elizabeth II’s death, much speculation has surrounded the fate of her two dogs who were left behind. It was announced on 11 September that the Duke and Duchess of York will inherit two of the Queen’s dogs, Muick and Sandy. Both dogs were gifted to the late monarch by her son, Prince Andrew.
