Childhood Letter by queen elizabeth Heads to Auction in Kent
A one-page handwritten letter penned by the future queen as a child is set to go under the hammer later this month, offering a rare and intimate glimpse of royal family life. The note, full of sketches and affectionate domestic details, is expected to attract bids up to £4, 000 when it is sold in Penshurst on 27 February 2026 (ET).
Small details, big human interest
The letter was written while the then-Princess Elizabeth was staying at a coastal location in Cornwall between 1936 and 1940, when she was about 10 to 12 years old. Addressed to the head housemaid at Royal Lodge, the single-sheet message mixes childish drawings of dogs, horses and young children with playful questions about the household: "are the birds well, and the goldfish haven't died. " It also mentions primroses the writer had picked and asked to be shared among staff.
The informality and tactile domesticity of the note — doodles alongside concern for pets and flowers — is what auctioneers handling the sale say has captured public imagination. An expert involved in cataloguing the lot described the page as an unusually vivid example of juvenile correspondence from a future monarch, noting its immediate emotional appeal and the way it humanises a figure often viewed only through ceremony and duty.
Provenance and family context
The letter was part of a small archive addressed to Beatrice Stillman, who served as head housemaid at Royal Lodge. Those items remained private for decades until they resurfaced in 2024, when a family member discovered them tucked away in a suitcase beneath a bed after the death of the original recipient. The finder said the family had always known the letters existed, but seeing them in person produced a palpable sense of wonder: "We knew the letters existed, but to read them in the flesh was a 'wow' moment, " he recalled.
Alongside the teenage future monarch's note was a short message from her younger sister, Princess Margaret, asking Stillman to "look after my bathing suit. " Those small exchanges reflect a wartime-era household where personal comforts and caretaking duties intertwined with official life — and where the royal family forged ties with local residents and staff.
Additional contextual detail traces a wartime connection: when a relative of the household staff was killed in an air raid in 1940, members of the royal family invited the bereaved widow and her two young daughters to Royal Lodge, integrating them into family activities. One aunt later recalled, fondly, memories of playing in a large playhouse in the garden with the princesses — a domestic scene that the newly surfaced correspondence helps to resurrect.
Auction expectations and cultural resonance
The sale is scheduled for 27 February 2026 (ET) in Penshurst, with pre-sale estimates placing the item within a modest collector range — bids are expected to reach as much as £4, 000. Specialists handling similar memorabilia note that childhood letters from prominent public figures often appeal to a mix of private collectors, social historians and institutions seeking to illustrate personal dimensions of public lives.
Beyond its monetary value, the note resonates because it reframes a widely recognized public figure as a child concerned with the small anxieties and delights of everyday life. In a century defined by spectacle around the monarchy, such intimate artifacts provide a counterpoint: a reminder that even future heads of state once worried about goldfish, flowers and bathing suits.
As the sale approaches, the letter is likely to prompt fresh interest in other surviving fragments of domestic life from the royal household and to encourage renewed attention to the quieter narratives that accompany grand historical figures.
