Clarence It’s William IV’s 248th birthday. Just two pictures – He’s welcoming the Reform Bill, nestling among Whigs while the British Lion sees off the Tories. Well, not quite: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reformact1832cartoon.jpg He’s got a spy-glass to his eye in the picture I knew and loved when I was six, taken from the Farjeons’ Kings and Queens, ‘with a bottle of rum/ for Will-y-um/ the Fourth, our Sailor King’: panoramastock/info/brg323971.html I liked the jaunty internal rhymes as well as the naval jargon, so William has never seemed especially bad, despite his many prejudices and peccadillos.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 06:11:32 +0000
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