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Bonus Royal Review: Prince Harry: Brother, Soldier, Son

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Prince. Soldier. Humanitarian. Ginger. All excellent ways to describe Prince Harry of Wales, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and son of the Prince of Wales. This week, I’ve been working my way through Penny Junor’s recent biography of the prince, Prince Harry: Brother, Soldier, Son. As promised on Twitter, here’s my quick review of the book!

Prince Harry, 1986

You can sort of divide Junor’s biography into two sections: the part that’s about Harry, and the part that’s really more about his parents. The first half of the book or so is devoted to recapping the tempestuous marriage and divorce of the Prince and Princess of Wales. If you’ve read anything by Penny Junor before, you know precisely where her sympathy lies: she’s very pro-Charles and largely anti-Diana. And although there’s an effort to see some of the War of the Waleses through Harry’s young eyes, the book doesn’t really discuss much of his experience in these years. There’s a lot of well-trod territory here, and no real revelations about Harry’s early years.

Prince Harry, 2010

The second part of the book, which covers Harry’s time at Eton, his military career, and his charity work, is more compelling. I really liked reading about the roots of some of his best-known charity projects, including Sentebale, Walking with the Wounded, and the Invictus Games, which is discussed at the very end of the book. Interviews with some of the household members who work closely with the princes gave an extra dimension to Harry’s character. And the book also addresses some of Harry’s scandalous past behavior, including those notorious Las Vegas photos, and discusses his romances with Chelsy and Cressida.

Prince Harry, 2013

By the end of the book, you get a picture of Harry as a man with a clear sense of purpose and duty: someone who longs for a “normal” life but understands his position and all of the privileges and drawbacks that come along with it. I realized as I finished up the biography that the book I really want to read about Harry can’t yet be written: I want to read the biography that’s composed after he’s had a larger role in public life, with a longer legacy of work and a clearer royal role. The public is clearly fascinated by Harry, and he’s definitely inherited his mother’s rapport with the people he meets, but I’m curious to see what his life becomes.

Prince Charles and Prince Harry, 2014

Of course, another twenty years will need to go by before I can crack that book open. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a book on Harry, Junor’s biography covers much of the known territory of his life so far. If you’re hungering to read about Harry — and you don’t mind reading about some of the tales you’ve heard before — this book might tide you over.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions in this review are my own. If you purchase the book via the Amazon affiliate link above, I receive a small referral fee. All of those funds are put toward purchasing materials, including jewelry books, for this website. Thanks!

Reader Mailbag: The Queen’s Brooch?

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As you might imagine, I get lots of questions in my inbox about royal jewels, everything from identification of pieces to inquiries about purchasing items. As a new feature on the site, I’m going to offer answers to some of these questions, so that you can all enjoy the glittering results! Today’s question comes courtesy reader Vanessa:

Do you know what brooch Queen Elizabeth wore to Diana’s funeral? When I
google the images, several different ones come up. Do you also happen to
know if there was any significance behind it?

Thanks for the question, Vanessa! I can understand why the Google image search for this question is confusing: not only do you get multiple instances of HM wearing brooches on black coats at the time of Diana’s funeral, you also get images of Helen Mirren from The Queen wearing replicas of the jewels. Here are some photos to help us clarify things…

When the Queen arrived in London on Friday ahead of the funeral — she’d been at Balmoral with Prince William and Prince Harry since Diana’s death — she joined Prince Philip, Prince Charles, William, and Harry on a walkabout to speak with members of the public. She dressed in black and wore a diamond and pearl brooch with her usual daytime pearl earrings and necklace.

Pearls and diamonds are both often classified as “white jewels,” and are therefore appropriate for occasions when the wearer is in mourning. This brooch, though, also includes a yellow diamond. Leslie Field describes the brooch as “an unusual long narrow diamond triangle with two pearls and a canary yellow diamond set in the middle.” [1]

The Queen wore the same brooch in her televised tribute to Diana.

The pearl and diamond brooch worn by the Queen on September 5 is
apparently not a royal heirloom piece, though she has been wearing it since the beginning of her reign. However, the brooch that she wore at
the September 6 funeral service is one of her historical treasures. It’s
the smallest of Queen Victoria’s diamond bow brooches, part of a set
ordered by Victoria from Garrard in 1858. Victoria designated the
brooches as heirlooms of the crown in her will, and they’ve been worn by
every queen since.

I’m not sure if there was a specific connection between this brooch and Diana, but the piece is an important, valuable family heirloom, one that the Queen often wears for somber occasions. She sometimes wears one of the bow brooches with her poppies for Remembrance Sunday; above, she wears the bow brooch on Remembrance Sunday in South Africa in 1999. (For the funeral of her mother, five years after Diana’s funeral, the Queen wore another of her bow brooches, Queen Mary’s Kensington bow brooch, which has a pearl drop.)

The Queen Mother was still alive in 1997, and she also attended Diana’s funeral. She wore another Victorian heirloom: a diamond brooch studded with pearls. Victoria also designated this piece as an heirloom of the crown, but the Queen Mum wore it until her death. Today, it’s worn by Queen Elizabeth II.

Have a royal jewel question that you’d like Ella to answer on the blog? Send an email to
ella@thecourtjeweller.com! 

NOTES
1. See Field, The Queen’s Jewels, p. 112.

Jewel History: Men Wear Hidden Jewels (1901)

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King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, ca. 1903

“Men Wear Hidden Jewels”
(originally appeared in the New York Times on 6 Oct 1901)

The theft of Lord Angelsey’s £40,000 worth of jewelry [1], used in his personal adornment alone, has brought out much talk in ultra-fashionable society regarding men who wear unseen jewels. Investigations among West End jewelers disclose the fact that there is an extensive trade in curios and costly articles, worn beneath ordinary clothing, such as snakes around waists, necks, and legs, bangles, chains, and amulets of various, singular designs.

The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, ca. 1900

Besides this extraordinary vogue, the fashion among men of wearing jewelry increased enormously this year, many using two pairs of links in each cuff and jeweled buttons with evening waistcoats.

Lord Brampton, ca. 1877

It is recalled in this connection that King Edward occasionally wears a bangle on his wrist, the the late Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha wore a heavy gold bracelet for years, and that Lord Brampton (better known as Justice Hawkins of the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice), even when sitting on the bench, wore a number of such ornaments.

NOTES
1. The jewels of the extravagant, flamboyant 5th Marquess of Angelsey were stolen by his valet, a man named Julian Gault, in September 1901. Gault claimed that he was only a middleman, and that the jewels had been delivered to a woman in France, but he was convicted in late October 1901 and sentenced to five years in prison. The jewels were never recovered. (To give you an idea of the magnitude of the theft, £40,000 in today’s money would be worth nearly four million pounds.)