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We’ve talked a lot lately about the generous gifts of jewels that Brits made to the late Queen Mother. Today’s brooch is another piece of that bejeweled category — The James Bow Brooch, which was presented to Elizabeth by someone very close to her.

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The brooch, which features a diamond ribbon with a diamond quatrefoil element in the center of the bow, was one of the gifts given to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon when she married the Duke of York in 1923. She received the brooch from someone particularly close to her: one of her godmothers, Mary Venetia James. Born Venetia Cavendish-Bentinck, she was a cousin of Elizabeth’s mother, the Countess of Strathmore. Venetia married the famous racehorse owner Arthur James in 1885, and their mutual love of horses brought them into the circle of King Edward VII. (Venetia’s name is sometimes included in lists of Bertie’s mistresses.) In the display of Elizabeth’s wedding gifts, the brooch was placed beside a label bearing the name of “Mrs. Arthur James.”

As a side note: this diamond bow wasn’t the only jewel that Venetia gave to the Queen Mother. When she died in 1948, the Guardian quoted from her will: “To my goddaughter her Majesty Queen Elizabeth my gold chain with diamond drops surmounted by rubies and large diamond brooch (Japanese design with large stone in the middle).” Venetia sensibly left her grand paintings, including pieces by Titian and Gainsborough, to the National Gallery, and she bequeathed a collection of furniture and art objects to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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The Queen Mother kept and wore her godmother’s wedding gift for her entire life. In November 1998, at the age of 98, she wore the brooch for a visit to the Royal British Legion’s Field of Remembrance in London.

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Here’s another angle on the brooch from this particular event. At this point, the brooch had been in her jewelry box for a full 75 years. Three quarters of a century!

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The Queen Mother died in 2002, leaving all of her jewelry to her daughter, the present Queen. But a collection of her pieces were set aside, and in 2005, the new Duchess of Cornwall began wearing them in public. For Remembrance Sunday that year, she wore the bow brooch as she watched the solemn Cenotaph ceremony.

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Camilla has generally worn the brooch with dark colors, but on at least one occasion, she strayed from that trend. During her November 2006 visit to Pakistan, she wore the brooch (and a poppy) against a vividly patterned jacket.

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But perhaps the most important outing for the brooch came earlier that year. In September 2006, Camilla chose the brooch for a memorial service honoring her beloved father, the late Bruce Shand, at St Paul’s Church in Knightsbridge. On that occasion, she paired the brooch with a pearl necklace with an art deco clasp, also from the collection of the Queen Mother.

The Queen Mother wears the Duchess of Teck’s Flower Brooch at Dover Castle (Wikimedia Commons)

When you look at old photographs of the Queen Mother, one piece of jewelry in particular crops up often among her daytime attire: a diamond flower brooch with four pendants and a detachable diamond chain. It was one of the Queen Mum’s wedding gifts, but its history goes back even further than that.

An 1856 daguerreotype by Antoine Claudet of Queen Victoria with her aunt, Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucster, and two of her children, the Prince of Wales and Princess Alice (Wikimedia Commons)

We know for sure that this brooch once belonged to Queen Mary’s mother, Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck. It’s definitely a nineteenth-century creation, possibly created by Garrard. But Hugh Roberts speculates in The Queen’s Diamonds that its history is even longer. He posits that the brooch once belonged to Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester.

Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck depicted in a bejeweled portrait by Hermann Schmiechen, ca. 1882; Mary Adelaide’s jewelry includes the Teck Ears of Wheat Tiara and the Teck Diamond Hoop Necklace (Wikimedia Commons)

Princess Mary was one of the fifteen children of King George III and Queen Charlotte. She married her first cousin, the Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, in 1816. She didn’t have any children of her own, but she was close to two of her royal nieces: Queen Victoria (the daughter of the Duke of Kent) and Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck (the daughter of the Duke of Cambridge). When Princess Mary died in 1857, she bequeathed a collection of jewelry to Princess Mary Adelaide. We know for sure that the bequest included the Gloucester Pendant Earrings; if Roberts is correct, it may also have included this brooch.

Prince Adolphus of Teck and Lady Margaret Grosvenor on their wedding day; the bridesmaids were Lady Mary Grosvenor and Lady Helen Grosvenor (half-sisters of the bride), as well as four of the bride’s nieces, Lady Constance Grosvenor, Lady Millicent Grosvenor, Lady Beatrice Butler, and the Hon. Lilah Cavendish

Regardless, the brooch was definitely in Princess Mary Adelaide’s collection by the time of her death in 1897. The duchess died without a will, and her jewels were divided up among her children. This brooch was inherited by her eldest son, Prince Adolphus. (He would later inherit his father’s title, becoming the Duke of Teck. After the outbreak of World War I, however, Adolphus renounced his German titles and was created the Marquess of Cambridge by his brother-in-law, King George V.)

At some point, the brooch changed hands between the Teck children. By 1923, it was in the collection of Prince Adolphus’s elder sister, Queen Mary. That year, she handed over the brooch to her second son, the Duke of York, so that he could give it to his new bride, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. The Yorks would eventually become King George VI and Queen Elizabeth; she would be better known later as the Queen Mother. The Queen Mum wore the brooch from the very start of her marriage, posing in the piece with her lotus flower tiara in the 1920s. You can see it positioned on the strap of her dress in the photograph above.

The Queen Mother wears the brooch at Dover Castle in Kent (Wikimedia Commons)

And she continued to wear the piece throughout her life. You can often spot it in photos, pinned high on her shoulder. Photographer Allan Warren snapped her wearing the brooch during an engagement at Dover Castle in Kent. You’ll note that she’s also wearing an additional badge (a backwards “s” bisected by an oar) below the brooch’s central pendant.

She also wore the brooch with her gala jewels at evening events, as she did during this trip to the theater in 1985. (You may notice that she’s also wearing the Duchess of Cornwall’s engagement ring.)

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Near the end of her life, the Queen Mother’s milestone birthdays were celebrated with public appearances. Above, she wears the brooch for the celebrations of her 89th birthday in August 1989.

When the Queen Mum died in 2002, her jewels were inherited by her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. The brooch is in the Queen’s collection today, but although Roberts says she has worn it “on occasions” since 2002, it seems that the only public appearance of the jewel so far has been in a portrait taken by her former brother-in-law, Lord Snowdon. Appropriately, the photograph was printed on the cover of the Radio Times issue celebrating the BBC’s Diamond Jubilee documentary, The Diamond Queen. Nothing like a major heirloom diamond brooch to go along with the theme!