Before Queen Anne Died

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 436, 31 October 1947, Page 9

Before Queen Anne Died

FTER a surfeit of the more romantic royalties (Josephine in Empress of Destiny and Marie Antoinette in a recent instalment of the Romance of Famous Jewels), it was. good to. come back to Mary Wigley’s homelier Queen Anne, who was featured in last Monday’s talk on Sports of Famous Queens. Miss Wigley gave life and personality to a character whose misfortune it is to. be regarded as even deader than most historical personages. Queen Anne, we ‘are told, was very fond of hunting, and used to pursue the quarry in a high chaise drawn by a single horse. She was devoted to horse-rac-ing, and it was she who started the practice of giving a gold cup to the winner. (The fact that the only time a horse of hers won she had lapsed into the two-day coma which’ preceded her death seemed to me even more typical of the misfortune that hounded this sovereign than the fact that she had borne and lost 19 children). Miss Wigley is well on the"way to qualifying as the Suetonius of radio, since she is not averse to passing on scandalous gossip defamatory to her subject (Queen Anne was known among undergraduates as Brandy Nan; she wore pearl necklets very tight about the throat; and every day would eat more cake than was good : for her). A most amusing morning talk.

HESE notes are not written by the staff of "The Listener’ or by any member of the New Zealand Broadcasting, Service, They are independent comments for which "The "Listener" pays outside contributors.