Jacob Panons and Dominic KingSouth East
Hansons Auctioneers
A handwritten letter penned by Queen Elizabeth II as a child is set to go up for auction with bids of up to £4,000 expected.
The one-page note, addressed to the head housemaid at Royal Lodge in Windsor, includes drawings of dogs, horses and young children and asks if “the birds are well, and the goldfish haven’t died”.
The letter was written while the then Princess Elizabeth was in Praa Sands in Cornwall sometime between 1936 and 1940, when she would have been between 10 and 12 years old, the auctioneers said.
Justin Matthews, from Hansons Auctioneers which is selling the letter in Penshurst, says: “In my 27 years in the international auction world I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
Getty Images
The letter, which is due to go up for auction on 27 February, also refers to primroses the late queen had picked, which she asked to be shared among staff at Royal Lodge.
The letter was one of several found addressed to Beatrice Stillman, the former head housemaid at Royal Lodge.
Another, from Princess Margaret, asked Stillman to “look after my bathing suit”.
When Stillman’s brother-in-law John Dicker was killed in an air raid in 1940, the Queen Mother invited his widow, Stillman’s sister, and their two young daughters, Rene and Jean, to play with the princesses at Royal Lodge.
Hansons Auctioneers
Jean Dicker’s son, William Westacott, found the archive of letters in 2024 in a suitcase under his mother’s bed after she died.
He said his aunt Rene “fondly” remembered meeting the royal family and recalled playing in a large playhouse in the Royal Lodge’s garden.
Westacott, from Sevenoaks, said: “We knew the letters existed, but to read them in the flesh was a ‘wow’ moment.”
