"The Golden Coronet"

My mother compiled several stories she had written earlier into a book which she had photocopied and then gave to her grandchildren.

I think the grandchildren were too young to appreciate them at the time!

Here is the first of them again for you Douglas, Angela, Dianne and Gillian; Nicola, Jennifer, David, Jonathan and Susan; Michael; Shelly, Colleen, Andrew, Cindy and Richard; and Shawn - and all the spouses of these grandchildren:

By P Powrie - 1974

The Golden Coronet

Once upon a time there lived a pretty little princess named Gloriana -so named because of her beautiful golden hair - whom everyone called Princess Glory for short.

Gloriana's Mother died when she was but a small girl and her Father, the King, married again, a woman who had been sweet enough before the wedding, you may be sure, but afterwards showed her true colours of greediness, selfishness, pride and jealousy.

When the new Queen's first baby was born she was a funny wizened little person with dark hair and did not look at all beautiful, like Gloriana with her lovely face and long golden hair, and so the new Queen turned even more against poor Glory and sought to find every opportunity to rebuke and punish her.

Glory's Father, the King, was always so busy with his Kingly duties of State - and the other friends he had made to help him forget his new, shrewish Queen - that he very seldom even saw Glory and therefore did not know that she was so unhappy.

This sad state of affairs carried on for what seemed to Glory such a long, long time that she felt that she would never be happy ever again. Then one day, when her step-mother, the Queen, was in a particularly unpleasant mood and was walking in the garden, snapping off the heads of some beautiful flowers - just because they were beautiful and so she hated them for that - she, followed by her ladies-in-waiting, who were walking behind her, silent for fear they might say the wrong thing and get the sharp edge of the cross Queen's tongue, they rounded the curve in the tall hedge of the "Creeper Walk" - a long grassy path guarded by a trellis of every different kind of flowering or variegated creeper that the royal gardener had been able to find in his travels around the world in search of creepers for this walk, which was to be the first lovely Queen's delight and which she had so loved during her seven years as the Queen of Varieland.

The King and his first Queen had been married a year when Gloriana was born but when Glory was seven years old her poor Mother died, taking Gloriana's little brother with her.

The King had married his second Queen, Morena, when Glory was eight years old and now, after three years of sadness Glory was a slender, elfin beautiful child of eleven, with a lovely face, dark blue eyes and her long golden wavy hair which, when it was not braided, reached down almost to her waist.

Well, as I was saying, Queen Morena was walking along snapping off flowers as she and her ladies rounded a curve in the Creeper Walk, when they came upon the little Princess Glory, sitting sadly by herself (although her attendant lady-in-waiting sat, sewing, on a bench a little way along the path) upon the grassy floor of the Walk, talking quietly to herself as she plaited strands of long grass and creepers together and fastened a flower into the plait every now and then so that she had a very pretty green plait dangling in her lap. As she worked, she talked sadly but quietly to her own Mother, telling her how much she missed her and how much she wished that she had her own little brothers and sisters to play games and romp with her!

Well, the Queen and her ladies had been silent as they walked on the soft grass. The Princess and her maid-in-waiting had been silent too -or almost silent, because Glory spoke so very softly - and now the Queen stopped and looked down at Glory with hatred in her eyes and Glory, feeling the venom of this gaze, looked up, saw the Queen and scrambled hastily to her feet to make the curtsy her new Mama demanded of her.

The sun was shining, the birds were making their sweet noises but the palace peacock chose that moment to make one of his horrible screeches, away off on the front lawns of the palace.
Glory, whose legs might have been a little stiff from the way she had been sitting, made a rather clumsy curtsy, stumbling a little and, putting her hand out to steady herself, she caught hold of a strand of creeper, which promptly broke off under the strain.

This was enough cause for her step-mother to fly into a worse rage and rant at the child for her clumsiness, her lack of respect and the fact that she was destroying the palace property by breaking pieces off the hedge!

The new Queen always insisted that Glory make her the deepest of curtsies in order to show her deference for her new Mama and now she said that if Glory could not do better than that then she must be locked away in the bare tower room, with nothing else to occupy her time so that she would have time to practice her curtsy and think more upon her good manners.

Poor Glory. Her Father was away on a State visit and so there was nobody to help her - but even if her Father had been there it is doubtful that he would have known what befell the little Princess.

(Ah. How lucky are all children who have loving Fathers and Mothers!)

So, Glory was banished to the tower room and there she sat upon the floor and cried - even 'though princes and princesses are not supposed to cry - because she was so very lonely and sad.
After a little while she, having nothing else to do, carefully pulled out one and then another strand of her long golden hair until she had enough to make a plait as slender as her little finger. These she put with all the ends together, tied a knot in the one end, held the knot between her teeth, divided the hairs into three strands and proceeded to plait them together into a long slender gleaming gold braid. When this was finished she again knotted it and found that it was quite long enough to encircle her head and fasten the two knots together with some more strands. She placed them on her head like a golden crown and said aloud "Oh, if only I were Queen I would be so happy and sweet, I would never punish anyone with such loneliness and unkindness as this."

Immediately the room seemed to brighten and looking up little Glory saw a bright shaft of light shining through the little tower window and in the light she saw, first faintly and then clearly, her own loving, lovely Mother. Yet now, it wasn't her Mother as she had known her but the spirit form of her Mother, now made visible to her earthly eyes.

Her Mother spoke softly "My poor baby," she said "Just a little longer and your unhappiness will end and you will come and live with me in this new lovely country where all of us who were good kindly people on earth have gathered to make such happy homes for ourselves and just wait for our loved ones to come to us in their own due time. Now just so that you will remember my promise, and to be a constant reminder of it, I shall turn your coronet into pure gold so that you will know that you did not dream only that you saw me. So be of good cheer and keep a happy heart and soon you will be with us, in happiness."

So saying, her Mother stretched out her hand and touched the little circlet on her daughter's head and instantly the hair turned into real, fine, spun gold, heavier than hair, but not too heavy for the little Princess' head to bear.

The tower room was cold and damp as well as bare and as the hours passed little Glory began to shiver more and more and then to feel hot and then cold again. At last there were footsteps on the stone steps and a key turning in the lock. The door opened and a lady-in-waiting said kindly, waking the sleeping feverish child. "Come your Highness, your supper awaits you in your warm nursery." and little Princess Gloriana awoke and once more stumbled to her feet and, feeling dazed, was guided back down to her rooms by a very concerned lady-in-waiting.

She could eat but little and the next day the fever was worse and Glory constantly spoke of her Mother and the Land of Happiness to which she was soon to depart.

The ladies-in-waiting hovered anxiously over her, the doctor hummed and hawed and tried his best. Her Father was summoned hastily home and the wicked Queen smiled to herself. Now perhaps her little girl would be the next Queen instead of Glory!

Then, on the third day, Glory suddenly sat up and cried out "Mother, Darling, you have come for me at last. Oh how happy I am." and she stretched out her arms and then quietly fell back on her pillows, the smile still on her lovely peaceful face.

By the time the King reached home again, later that day, all that Princess Gloriana's lady-in-waiting had to give him was a slender circlet of pure shining gold strands with the words "This is a miracle Sire, but in the tower room her braid of hair turned into pure gold and her Royal Highness said Her Majesty her Mother had given it to her as a token of her visit. More than this we do not know."

When the whole story came out the King banished the wicked Queen to another Land and some years later he took another Queen and had three little princes and another little princess from her and she was almost as sweet as princess Gloriana's own Mother had been - and do you know that in a glass case in the beautiful palace with-drawing room, lies a slender coronet of pure golden hair as a reminder that Glory and her Mother had once been here but that now they were in the Land of Happiness where all good, kindly people go and where you and I may also go, one day, if we are sweet enough.