Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1898 — ANECDOTES OF WILLIAM IV. [ARTICLE]

ANECDOTES OF WILLIAM IV.

Some Good Stories Told of Victoria’s Predecessor. It is somewhat singular that, conCoring the quaint characteristics and thfi popularity of William IV., the crop ol auC^ ot ® 8 related of him should oe, comparatively speaking, go svaZtj’: I Q one of the ladies* magazines the countess of Muusvv/, who is better able, we should imagine, ■ thafi auy Uvifig person id add to their i number, discourses pleasantly about I her childish recollections of the Sailor King, and of the watering place to i which, like his brother, he was so much attached. An interesting memj ory, not without a twofold touch of pathos, is recalled by her in connecI tion with that venerable structure which succumbed to so stormy a fate some three years ago, the Brighton Chain pier. Lady Munster’s first sight of the then popular promenade i was a privilege granted to her at the ' tender age of three and a half, and 1 “well I remember my walks thither,” i she writes, “in company with my sister and our old nurse, to meet the king, who walked there almost every morning, accompanied by my mother and one of my aunts. Up and down the old sailor would pace along the deck of the pier head, and my mother often subsequently told me* how he used to say that place reminded him of ‘the most delightful place’ in the .world, the deck of a ship.” One wonders whether the king, who, as his granddaughter tells us, so “dearly loved the fast-vanishing wooden walls of old England,” would have spoken as enthusiastically of one of our modern war monsters. Very pleasing, too, is the picture of the genial old monarch talking kindj ly and familiarly to-almost everyone i he met on the pier, especially to the children, and buying them- little toys and pebbles from the shops which were dotted about under the different archways, and reassuring ladies who feared to intrude upon his privacy with a hearty “don’t go! Don’t mind me, ma’am! Pray don’t mind me!” an encouragement which often led to a long conversation, in which the blunt and breezy ways of the royal sailor would be amusingly displayed. Such an. incident seems to carry us’ back to a far more remote period than that of the thirties, and to revive a relation between royalty and its subjects which recalls not only the manners of a much earlier age, but the characteristics of the sovereigns of an extinct dynasty. But by far the most curious illustration of the change which has taken place in our social habits since the date of these reminiscences is to be found in Lady Munster’s account of the king’s impromptu hospitality. It seems that every day the two principal hotels in Brighton were desired to send up their visitors’ list to the pavilion, to be conned over by His majesty at his breakfast, and when the king saw any names he knew, or even fancied he knew, he invited these acquaintances or supposed acquaintances to dinner that same evening. The practice of guest selection on this somewhat casual principle led in at least one instance to an awkward complication, when the owner of some too widely distributed name, having I been invited to dinner under the imgression that he was a different Mr. mith or Jones, as the case may have been, was received by his royal host on his arrival with the disconcerting question!: “And who the devil are you; sir?* Explanations, however, naturally followed, and, the king’s good nature reasserting itself, he not only apologized and expressed himself “much pleased” to make his unhappy guest’s acquaintance, but at the conclusion of the dinner he rose and “called out in a clear voice, so that everyone heard: ‘Gentlemen, a toast. I wish to propose the health of my new friend, Mr. J. Smith/ *— 1 London Telegraph.