l FURTHER to the report by Liam Sloan about Lisa Liddell’s family relationship with Alice Liddell (Oxford Mail, March 3): Alice was a favourite of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) who wrote down the Alice In Wonderland story for her after a trip with her sisters in a punt on the Isis to Godstow.

However, what Lisa probably does not know is that Alice was nearly related to our Royal family.

While up at Oxford, Prince Leopold fell in love with Alice and wanted to propose to her. Unfortunately, he had to first ask Queen Victoria’s permission.

This she refused on the alleged grounds that she was a commoner.

But it was probably more due to the fact that he was a haemophiliac, a hereditary illness which still lies dormant in the Royal family genes.

Alice became a competent artist and later in life carved a wooden door in St Frideswide’s church, in Botley Road, Oxford, which is still there.

So impressed was Queen Victoria with Alice In Wonderland that she asked for a copy of Dodgson’s next book.

He was first and foremost a mathematician, and his next publication was called The Condensation of Determinates – an abstruse, mathematical tome. She was not amused.

DEREK HONEY

Queen Emma’s Dyke

Witney