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The deeds that were done

The title deed to Buckingham Palace is to go on show as part of a new exhibition at Windsor Castle.

Documents from the Royal Family’s private archive have been brought out of storage – some for the first time – to mark the centenary of the Royal Archives being housed in the castle’s Round Tower.

The exhibition also includes a 100th birthday card from the Queen to the Queen Mother and a letter from Prince Albert to Queen Victoria, written during their engagement.

Among the collection are the official papers relating to the sale of Buckingham Palace – which has been used as the official London residence of Britain’s sovereigns since 1837.

A title deed dated April 20, 1763 and bearing George III’s wax seal records the purchase of “Buckingham House” from Sir Charles Sheffield for the sum of 28,000 pounds – STG2 million ($A3.65 million) in today’s money.

King George III chose Buckingham House for his wife Queen Charlotte to use as a family retreat close to St James’s Palace, where many court functions were held. It became known as the “Queen’s House” and 14 of the King’s 15 children were born there.

George III is widely remembered for being both the monarch who went mad and the one who lost the American colonies. The book reveals his personal reflections on the end of the War of Independence in 1783.

“America is lost!” the King wrote, but he also expressed the hope that “we shall reap more advantages from their trade as friends than ever we could derive from them as Colonies…”

Other exhibits include a letter written in 1728 by a seven-year-old Bonnie Prince Charlie to his father in which he responds to being told off for upsetting his mother.

“Dear Papa, I thank you mightily for your kind letter. I shall strive to obey you in all things. I will be very Dutifull to Mamma, and not jump too near her…,” he wrote.

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