Royal Clothespin Dolls

I know I should be saving more for retirement and doubling up on mortgage payments. But these clothespin dolls based on British royalty, found at uneekdolldesigns.etsy.com, make me want to take up a serious collection.

When I was a little girl, my father told me we were distant relatives of Katherine Parr, having the same surname. Do not ask me how a child in rural Alabama could entertain such a notion. But I think it goes far in explaining my deep-seated delusions of grandeur. Here, the Katherine doll has a gold collar, rhinestone trim, and a. velvet brown hood trimmed in gold and brown beads. For $40, I think that is a lot of handiwork.

Let’s face it … Mary Queen of Scots was the original drama queen. She drove her cousin Elizabeth I to distraction with her many attempts to assume the throne, so she finally got the axe. Of course, that was after many years spent under house arrest, during which she did needlepoint designs of an orange cat (shades of Elizabeth) torturing a mouse. Love that.

Here’s Elizabeth I in her coronation gown. Mary Queen of Scots should have known not to mess with her.

Poor Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII’s fourth wife. Her marriage with Henry wasn’t even consummated; he thought she was too unattractive, and quickly annulled their marriage. Can you imagine?

Of course, Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, met a worse fate than Anne of Cleves: The chop. But at least Henry allowed her the courtesy of an executioner who used the French method of a sharp sword, rather than the clumsier English hatchet. Yikes. But isn’t this doll simply darling?

The man who started it all: Henry VIII, shown with his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who never accepted that he had divorced her to marry Anne Boleyn. Somehow I feel Kate Middleton will have better luck with her royal.