“THE KING’S DAUGHTERS”.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 52, 29 January 1938, Page 13

“THE KING’S DAUGHTERS”.

BATCH OF ANECDOTES.

A new batch of anecdotes about the Royal Princesses was released recently by the publication of “The King’s Daughters’’ by that royal biographer, Lady Cynthia Asquith, who has been “granted the permission” of the proud parents. Thus we learn that the elder daughter, who may grow up to be another Queen Elisabeth, has painted herself as follows':

“If ever I am Queen the first thing I shall do will be to make a law forbidding people to ride or drive on Sunday. Horses must have a holiday.” Recognising the late Prime Minister, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, at Buckingham Palace, Princess Elizabeth informed him, “I saw a picture of you in Punch, as if you were a gander leading some ducks.” To another palace visitor little Margaret said :

“Are you an American?” “No. Why?” “Cos I see one, two, three gold teeth in your .mouth.”

When “Uncle David” abdicated and “Papa” and “Mommy” moved to Buckingham Palace from their Piccadilly house, Margaret prattled:

'“lsn’t all this a bore? We have got to leave our nice house now.” And again:

“Just think. I’d only learned yesterday how to spell York—Y-o-r-k —and now I am not to use it any more. I am to find myself just ‘Margaret,’ all alone.”

Joining in the coronation of their parents, the Royal sisters for the first time tried on their tiny coronets. Princess Margaret thought it a new game of ‘‘dressing-up.” In her own words, “I put on my coronet and walked about just like Johnny Walter.” George V. was “Grandpapa of England” to his granddaughters. Queen Mary is their “Granny Queen.” The princesses are kind to animals, lambs as well as horses. When some one suggested that they pick mint from her garden, Princess Margaret protested, “Oh, no! No more mint sauce from my garden if it means deading the lambs.”

Denying briefly a rumour about the speech of the younger princess, Lady Cynthia Asquith writes: “Although rumour is so notoriously inventive about royalty I could not help being surprised as well as amused to hear of a widespread rumour that Princess

Margaret was dumb. Ironic enough this rumour must seem to those who are much in the company of this little chatterbox. Certainly dumbness is the very last complaint they are likely to make against her.” The Royal sisters draw a shilling pocket money every week. In addition Margaret has saved 170 shiny pennies, the gift of her late friend, Sir James Barrie. “He is my greatest friend and I am his greatest friend,” Margaret had said after meeting the elderly playwright, who thereupon incorporated her words in the play he was writing, “The Boy David.” This plagiarism, as he called it, forced him to bring her a bagful of pennies as her share of the royalties.