THE Queen Mother pleaded against sending Prince Charles to boarding school in Scotland because she predicted he would be miserable, previously unpublished letters have revealed.

Correspondence between the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth reveal that she urged the monarch not to send Charles to Gordonstoun as he would feel "terribly cut off and lonely in the far north". His grandmother added that it would be better for the young prince to attend "staunchly Protestant" Eton rather than the inter-denominational Scots school, near Elgin in Aberdeenshire.

However, the Duke of Edinburgh overruled the Queen Mother and insisted that his eldest son would attend his former alma mater regardless of her concerns – which would prove justified as the Prince later dubbed the institution "Colditz in kilts" and spoke of his ordeal of bullying.

In one letter dated May 23, 1961, the Queen Mother writes: "However good Gordonstoun is, it is miles and miles away and he might as well be at school abroad."

She added: "All your friends' sons are at Eton and it is so important to be able to grow up with people you will be with in later life."