Kensington Palace

This guide to Kensington Palace in London follows an eighteen-year-old princess raised under a strict household regime that kept her from ever sleeping alone or walking downstairs unaccompanied. It traces the early morning of June 20th, 1837, when two men arrived from Windsor with urgent news and she went down to meet them alone for the first time in her life. Court official Charles Greville later recorded her composure that day, and something else besides. Picture her sitting room on the palace's upper floor as you walk through.