Today in 1997, Queen Elizabeth II attended a state banquet during one of the most challenging diplomatic trips of her reign, wearing bejeweled mementos from her beloved father and grandmother during the dinner.
In October 1997, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh traveled from Britain to Islamabad for a state visit to Pakistan. They were welcomed by President Farooq Leghari, who hosted the visit at the Presidential Palace. The visit was coordinated to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Pakistan’s independence as a nation. In 1947, the territory that had been collectively known as British India was partitioned into two nations, India and Pakistan, based on a plan that was engineered in part by the colonial viceroy, Lord Mountbatten.
The decision to partition the territory was a fateful one, causing large-scale violence, enormous rates of migration across the new border, and effects that are still being felt today. There are still ongoing disputes about some of the territory in question, including Kashmir. In the years immediately after partition, the two new countries became independent, but each of them kept the British monarch as its head of state (similar to Commonwealth realms like Canada or Australia today). India jettisoned the monarchy for good in 1950, when King George VI was still on the throne, but Queen Elizabeth II succeeded as Queen of Pakistan when her father died in 1952. She remained the country’s head of state until 1956, when the country became a republic.
The 1997 state visit was Elizabeth’s second trip to Pakistan. She had previously visited in 1961, and in both cases, she also visited India during the same trip. Much had changed in Pakistan since her last trip. The capital city, Islamabad, had not even existed yet in 1961. This particular visit also took place at an especially difficult and sensitive time for the British monarchy. The Queen and the Duke traveled to Pakistan just a month after the funeral for Diana, Princess of Wales and the incredible amount of public emotion and scrutiny that had accompanied her tragic death. The spotlight on the monarch had rarely been quite so bright or quite so glaring.
Tensions had also been escalating along the border in Kashmir ahead of the trip. In her remarks at the state dinner held on the first night of the Pakistani visit, the Queen focused the majority of her remarks on the rift that continued to exist between the nation and neighboring India. “Reconciliation will take time,” she said, “but the effort must be made.” She added that it would “be worthwhile for the more than one billion inhabitants of the two countries.” But she also referenced the late princess in her speech, too: “It has been a source of comfort and strength to know that people round the world, including here, have shared our grief at Diana’s tragic, early death.” The British press called the reference to Diana, who had traveled to Lahore herself earlier the same year, a “moving tribute.”
The late Queen was always sensitive to the need to reflect an expected image of glamour when she arrived for events like state banquets, and she opted to wear her usual “uniform” of a gala gown, orders and decorations, and jewels for the Pakistani dinner in 1997. Whether consciously or not, she chose to wear jewelry that evening that was associated with two of the most supportive and important figures in her early life: her father, King George VI, and her grandmother, Queen Mary.
With her white gown and the green and white sash of the Order of Pakistan, Elizabeth wore the suite of diamond and sapphire jewelry that her father, King George VI, gave her as a wedding present in 1947, just a few months after Pakistan’s creation. The original set of nineteenth-century jewels included a pair of earrings and a necklace. The Queen later made alterations to the necklace, shortening it and adding a detachable pendant, and she also had a bracelet created to round out the suite.
The sapphire and diamond parure was completed in the 1960s, when the Queen acquired this sapphire and diamond tiara to add to the set. The tiara was a converted necklace that had originally belonged to a member of a related different royal family: Princess Louise of Belgium, a granddaughter of King Leopold I (an uncle of both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert).
The Queen secured her Pakistani order sash with another special heirloom jewel: the Dorset Bow Brooch. The playful diamond bow was a wedding present from the County of Dorset to Elizabeth’s grandmother, Queen Mary, in 1893. In turn, Mary gave the brooch to Elizabeth as a wedding present in 1947, the same year that she received the sapphires (and the same year that Pakistan became an independent nation).
The Queen completed the jewelry look with a diamond evening watch and several rings, including a diamond and sapphire cluster ring on her right hand and an interesting square-shaped ring on her left. Her engagement ring and wedding rings, worn in their usual place on her left hand as well, also date to 1947.
The entire jewelry look was a nod to the five decades that had passed since the momentous events of 1947: the independence of Pakistan and the marriage of Elizabeth and Philip. The wearing of jewelry given to the Queen by her father and grandmother also signaled continuity and support at a difficult time for both the family and the monarchy–reinforcing the resilience of both institutions in the wake of the loss of the mother of a future king.
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