Anne Glenconner

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The Right Honourable

The Dowager Lady Glenconner

LVO
BornAnne Veronica Coke
(1932-07-16) 16 July 1932
Kensington, London, England
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1956; died 2010)​
Issue
  • The Hon. Charles Tennant
  • The Hon. Henry Tennant
  • The Hon. Christopher Tennant
  • The Hon. May Creasy
  • The Hon. Amy Tennant
Parents

Anne Veronica Tennant, Dowager Baroness Glenconner, LVO (née Coke; born 16 July 1932) is a British peeress and socialite. The daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester, she served as a maid of honour at the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 and was an extra lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, from 1971 until the Princess's death in 2002. Her memoir, Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown (2019), became a New York Times Best Seller.

Early life

Anne Veronica Coke (pronounced "Cook") was born on 16 July 1932 at 13 Queensberry Place, South Kensington.[1] She is the eldest daughter of the Hon. Thomas Coke and his wife, Lady Elizabeth (née Yorke), the son and daughter of Thomas Coke, Viscount Coke, and Charles Yorke, 8th Earl of Hardwicke, respectively. Her great-grandfather, Thomas Coke, 3rd Earl of Leicester, died in 1941, whereupon her grandfather succeeded as the 4th Earl of Leicester and her father became Viscount Coke. Following her grandfather's death in 1949, her father became the 5th Earl of Leicester. She has two younger sisters, Carey (1934–2018) and Sarah (born 1944). Their father served as equerry to George VI from 1932 to 1952.[2]

Coke spent much of her childhood at the family estate, Holkham Hall in Norfolk.[3] During the Second World War, she and her sister Carey stayed at Cortachy Castle in Angus, Scotland, with their paternal great-aunt, Alexandra, Countess of Airlie, her husband David Ogilvy, 12th Earl of Airlie, and their children, David and Angus.[4]

As Sandringham House lay less than 20 miles from Holkham, Coke was a regular childhood companion of Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.[5] The King and Queen were friends of her parents, and the family was often invited to Christmas parties at Buckingham Palace.[6]

Debut and early adulthood

In 1950, at the age of 18, Coke was presented at court, and was named "debutante of the year" by Tatler. In 1953, she served as one of the maids of honour at the coronation of Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey.[4][3] She later became engaged to Johnnie Althorp, father of Diana, Princess of Wales, but the match was ended after his father objected on the grounds of "mad blood", a reference to her Trefusis ancestry, which was shared by institutionalised relatives of the Queen. In 1997, the director of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute[7] suggested that a genetic condition in the Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis family may have caused early childhood deaths in males and learning disabilities in females.[8][9]

Marriage and children

On 21 April 1956 at St Withburga's Church, Holkham, she married the Hon. Colin Christopher Paget Tennant, son of the 2nd Baron Glenconner.[3] Guests included Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret; the Princess's future husband, Antony Armstrong-Jones, was the wedding photographer.[4]

The Glenconner's had five children:

  1. The Hon. Charles Edward Pevensey Tennant (15 February 1957 – 19 October 1996), who struggled with heroin addiction but later recovered and married Sheilagh Scott in 1993.[10][3] Their son, Cody Charles Edward Tennant (born 1994), became the 4th Baron Glenconner in 2010. Charles died of Hepatitis C in October 1996.
  2. The Hon. Henry Lovell Tennant (21 February 1960 – 2 January 1990), who married Teresa Cormack in 1983.[11] He died from AIDS.[10][12] His son, Euan Lovell Tennant (born 1983),[13] is the current heir presumptive to the barony.[14]
  3. The Hon. Christopher Cary Tennant (born 25 April 1968), who suffered severe brain damage in a motorcycle accident in 1987.[12] He married Anastasia Papadakos in 1996 and had two children; the marriage later ended in divorce. He married Johanna Lissack Hurn in 2011.[15]
  4. The Hon. Flora May Pamela Tennant (born 8 November 1970), a goddaughter of Princess Margaret. She married Anton Ronald Noah Creasy in 2005 and has two children.[16]
  5. The Hon. Amy Jasmine Elizabeth Tennant (born 8 November 1970). No issue.

Lord Glenconner succeeded as the 3rd Baron Glenconner on 4 October 1983. The couple divided their time between Mustique, St Lucia, and the United Kingdom. They remained married for 54 years until his death in 2010. After his death, it emerged that he had made a new will leaving his estate to an employee, Kent Adonai. The family contested the will, and after prolonged legal proceedings the estate was divided between Adonai and Cody Tennant, the 4th Baron Glenconner.[17][4][18] Lady Glenconner now lives in King's Lynn, Norfolk.[4]

Friendship with Princess Margaret

In 1960, following Princess Margaret's marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord and Lady Glenconner gave the couple a plot of land on Mustique, which Lord Glenconner had purchased in 1958.[19] They commissioned Oliver Messel to design a house for the couple, later named Les Jolies Eaux.[4]

In 1971, Lady Glenconner became an Extra Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Margaret, a role she held until the Princess's death in 2002.[3] She accompanied the Princess on numerous overseas tours, and once represented her on a visit to the Philippines to meet Imelda Marcos when the Princess was ill with pneumonia.[4] Princess Margaret frequently visited her at her Norfolk home, where she would sometimes assist with household tasks such as laying the fire or washing the car.[20]

Lord and Lady Glenconner introduced Princess Margaret to Roddy Llewellyn in 1973, initiating a relationship that lasted eight years and contributed to the breakdown of her marriage to Lord Snowdon.[21][22] After Princess Margaret's funeral in 2002, the Queen told Lady Glenconner that she was grateful for the introduction, as Llewellyn had "made her really happy".[23][24]

She was appointed Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in the 1991 Birthday Honours for her personal service to the Royal Family.

Lady Glenconner's memoir, Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown, was published in 2019. She stated that she wrote the book because she was "fed up with people writing such horrible things about Princess Margaret",[25][26] describing Craig Brown's Ma’am Darling as "that horrible book".[2]

Activism

In the 1970s, Lady Glenconner worked as a fundraiser for Refuge on the invitation of its founder, Erin Pizzey.[27]

Awards and honours

Country Date Appointment Ribbon Post-nominal letters
United Kingdom 2 June 1953 Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal
6 February 1977 Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal
14 June 1991 Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order LVO
Coat of arms of Anne Tennant, Baroness Glenconner
Coronet
Coronet of a Baroness
Escutcheon
Colin Tennant, 3rd Baron Glenconner (Argent two crescents in fess Sable on a chief Gules a boar's head couped of the first a bordure compony of the second and first) impaling Thomas Coke, 5th Earl of Leicester (Per pale gules and azure three eagles displayed Argent).[28]
Supporters
Dexter a stag Proper gorged with a mural crown Or sinister a tiger also Proper gorged with a crown palissado also Or each charged on the shoulder with a thistle leaved and slipped Gold.[29]

Bibliography

  • The Picnic Papers (edited with Susanna Johnston). London: Hutchinson, 1983. ISBN 009152220X
  • Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2019. ISBN 1529359066
  • Murder on Mustique. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2020. ISBN 1529336341
  • A Haunting at Holkham. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2020. ISBN 1529336406
  • Whatever Next?: Lessons from an Unexpected Life. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2022. ISBN 1529395763

References

  1. "Births". The Times. The Times Digital Archive. 18 July 1932. p. 1.
  2. Freeman, Hadley (20 March 2020). "'I'm no snowflake': Anne Glenconner on Margaret, marriage and Meghan Markle". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  3. Cooke, Rachel (24 November 2019). "Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner review – fascinating portrait of English repression". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 November 2019.
  4. Glenconner, Anne (17 October 2019). Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-1529359060.
  5. Bishop, Chris. "Lifelong friend recalls Norfolk childhood with Elizabeth II". Eastern Daily Press. Retrieved 15 October 2022.
  6. Briggs, Stacia (10 November 2019). "'We were convinced he was coming to Holkham' - Lady Glenconner on why she and her sister plotted to kill Hitler". edp24.co.uk. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
  7. "The History of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute Archived 11 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine" website, retrieved 14 November 2011.
  8. Coke, Hope (19 November 2020). "Behind The Crown: The true story of the Queen's cousins, Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon". Tatler. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  9. "Bowes-Lyon Retardation Gene May Have Killed Males‎", The Age, 9 April 1987.
  10. Blow, Simon (25 October 2012). "How to blow £100 million". Evening Standard. Retrieved 8 November 2019.
  11. Willis, Tim (23 February 2011). "The final days of London bohemian Henry Tennant". Evening Standard. Retrieved 13 October 2019.
  12. "Courage of addicted aristocrat praised at funeral". The Herald. Glasgow. 30 October 1996. Retrieved 8 November 2019.
  13. "Tessa Tennant obituary". The Times. 23 July 2018. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 5 August 2018. [The couple] married on Mustique in 1983. Soon afterwards, their son, Euan, who became an electrician, was born. (subscription required)
  14. "Glenconner, Baron (UK, 1911)". Cracrofts Peerage. 11 July 2019. Retrieved 13 October 2019.
  15. "The Hon Christopher Tennant and Mrs J. Lissack - Marriages Announcements". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  16. "Lavish society wedding for May Tennant". Hello!. 18 April 2005. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  17. "In the end it took seven years to resolve. While Kent kept a huge amount of land and money, about half of Colin's estate was handed to Cody." Glenconner, Anne, Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown.
  18. "St. Lucian wins slice of multi-million-pound fortune after long legal battle - St. Lucia News Online". Archived from the original on 18 July 2018. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  19. "Our History | Mustique". Mustique-island.com. Archived from the original on 22 April 2020. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  20. Jenkins, David (2 June 2020). "Portrait of a Lady: Lady Anne Glenconner on her Extraordinary Life". Tatler.
  21. "Margaret: Unlucky in love", bbc.co.uk, 9 February 2002.
  22. Caroline Davies (11 February 2002). "I followed my heart, says Llewellyn". Daily Telegraph.
  23. Hallemann, Caroline (24 November 2019). "Princess Margaret's Relationship with Roddy Llewellyn, in Photos". Town & Country.
  24. "Queen Elizabeth II Was Reportedly Glad Princess Margaret Met Roddy Llewellyn". Oprah Magazine. 22 November 2019.
  25. Sampson, Annabel (15 October 2019). "Lady Anne Glenconner's memoir reveals her as the ultimate in royal companions". Tatler. Archived from the original on 8 November 2019.
  26. Davenport-Hines, Richard (18 October 2019). "Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner review — Princess Margaret, Mustique and me". The Times. Retrieved 21 November 2019. (subscription required)
  27. Mead, Rebecca (6 February 2023). "Oldest Living Aristocratic Widow Tells All". The New Yorker. Vol. 99, no. 1. p. 23. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
  28. Debrett's Peerage. 2003. p. 949.
  29. Debrett's Peerage. 2003. p. 650.
  30. "Instagram". www.instagram.com. Retrieved 22 November 2025.