Slice of Royal History: Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s 77-Year-Old Wedding Cake Fetches Nearly $3,000 at Auction
Dog collars, a used tea bag, and bloomers serve as just three of many strange items auctioned off from the royal family. History enthusiasts collect just about anything from Queen Elizabeth II and her family, including food they nearly consumed. Recently, we saw another piece of history auctioned off to the highest bidders.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s 77-year-old wedding cake resurfaces
Then-Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten wed on Thursday, November 20, 1947. After a grand ceremony at London’s Westminster Abbey, the pair celebrated with 2,000 guests — likely requiring a lot of cake. The boozy dessert, a 9-foot-tall fruit cake, consisted of four tiers. As the BBC reports, James Grinter, of auction house Reeman Dansie, called it the “most magnificent cake” that “would fill a room. It was absolutely enormous.”
The royal family likely assumed guests had consumed all of that cake. However, a “very rare” slice of the famous cake appeared in a suitcase under a bed. Princess Elizabeth gifted the piece to Marion Polson, the former housekeeper at Edinburgh’s Palace of Holyroodhouse. The future queen gave the small slice as a token of her appreciation. Polson had bought the newlyweds a dessert service.
Along with the piece of cake’s presentation box came a note from Princess Elizabeth, written in 1947. It read: “My husband and I are deeply touched to know that you shared in giving us such a delightful wedding present. We are both enchanted with the dessert service. The different flowers and the beautiful colouring will, I know, be greatly admired by all who see it.” Polson died in the ’80s, leaving the cake under a bed until her family offered it up earlier in 2024.
The cake is no longer edible. However, Grinter calls it a “little time capsule of glorious cake.” He describes it as the first piece ever sold “in its completeness.” He continued, “This one actually has its original contents, which is very, very rare.” The auction house expected the slice of fruit cake to sell for around £500, or around $644. However, a bidder from China purchased the item for £2,200, or around $2,834.
Pieces of cake from several royal weddings
Believe it or not, this isn’t the first slice of royal wedding cake to hit the auction block. Prince Charles and Princess Diana had 23 wedding cakes baked for their July 29, 1981, nuptials. Forty-one years later, the cake sold at auction for £2,100, according to Royal Central. In 2014, Gee Chuang, CEO of a Silicon Valley startup, paid $7,500 at auction for a slice of Prince William and Duchess Kate’s wedding cake. Another elaborate fruit cake, 17 types of sugar-paste flowers adorned this one.
