When William IV. Was King

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 508, 10 November 1928, Page 26

When William IV. Was King

QUAINT TOYS THAT QUEEN VICTORIA PLAYED WITH AS A CHILD STILL PRESERVED AT KENSINGTON PALACE (WRITTEN for THE SVN 6.V HECTOR BO LIT HO

RIOS remember Queen Vicsquat figure in a car- / l-iage. We know prints L of her receiving foreign ® princes, and an engraving of her sitting in St. George's Chapel, at the marriage of her son to the Danish Princess. We think of her, a determined, hardworking, sentimental, .ut amazing woman, ruling men and Ministers and her own family with an iron rod, from within the grim walls of Windsor Castle. The picture of her childhood at Kensington Palace has faded from public memory. The widowed Queen has overshadowed the childprincess. But it is easy to recreate the story of her childhood without going to the history books —if we turn off the noisy main road and walk to Kensington Palace, sitting so sedately back, like some old Cranfordian lady, upon a velvet lawn. Here, in the rooms where she played, Queen Victoria's toys are still preserved, so that you may see them if you care to withdraw from the noise and bustle of the streets.

Victoria seemed to be surrounded, by discipline and strictness. Once she was making a haycock when something else attracted her attention. She threw down the rake to run away. But there was a governess who said, “No, no, Princess; you must always finish what you have commenced.” Yet she had a spirit which survived the authority. Even a little humour intervened. When she was being told the story of Cornelia and how she called her sons “My jewels,” she said; “She should have said, ‘My cornelians.’ ” Not so bad for a little girl! She had two passions—cleaning windows and dolls. When she visited Windsor Castle, Queen Adelaide asked her what she would like to do

, and slie surprised the Court by sav ing that she wanted to clean window's. She has told us in her letters that her first recollection was of playln on an old yellow carpet at Kensington Palace —her first toy the Carter badge belonging to Bishop Fisher of Salis” bury. She was catholic in her chop of toys, and was not above plaving tricks on the important people whf came to see her. The ghosts 0 f these incidents have faded away from Kensington Palace, and the rooins ar full of tourists now. But the toys remain to tell their story. The Kensington Palace toys are in the Queen’s bedroom, a chaste, white room, overlooking the gardens. Here in glass cases, are a hundred of the things with which she played during her childhood —when she was inno cent of the fact that she was so near to the English throne. Charles Knight, in his “Passages of a Work ing Life," tells how. in the summer he used to see the little Princess on the lawn before the palace, with her toys. The “lovely Duchess of Kent and Victoria, then nine, breakfasting in the open air. a single page attending them.” But the rooms and the gardens are changed now', and tourists walk through the fine old chambers and hover over the toys. There is a sofa in mauve silk, edged with sequins with a silk fringe and gilt legs, and there is a doll’s trunk—a joyous little thing, with a picture of Robinson Crusoe on the bottom—a carriage in yellow wood, rackets, and a straw

bed for her doll. It is dusted with golden stars and inside there is a little doll princess, very pale, with one hand missing. Above the bed there is a crown. But the loveliest of all the things is her dolly’s house. There are only two rooms, a dining-room and a kitchen. She must have played some odd tricks w'ith the furniture, for the grandfather clock Is on the mantelpiece. There is a cook standing by the fire, a rather dirty cook, and there are tin plates. In the upper room, the furniture is painted and the paper is deliciously Victorian; pink, with roses around the edge. From the ceiling hangs a bird cage. It is rather pleasant to go to Kensington (Continued on Page 29)