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Jewel History: Coronation Tiaras on Show (1911)

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“Coronation Tiaras on Show”
(originally appeared in the Marlborough Express on 1 Jun 1911)

At Cartier’s, the well-known jewellers in Bond Street, London, there is to be seen one of the finest collections of gems ever got together. The exhibits are the tiaras and crowns to be worn by princesses and peeresses at the Coronation, and the proceeds (the charge for admission is a guinea) are to be devoted to the Prince Francis of Teck’s Memorial Fund [1] for the endowment of Middlesex Hospital.

The jewels are housed in a small room, but they are valued at the minimum at £250,000. They make a dazzling collection. Elaborate precautions against theft have been taken. Uniformed officers at the door closely scrutinise each visitor, and among those who walk around the room gazing at the glittering gems are several immaculately-attired men who never seem to tire of the show. They are Scotland Yard men.

At night the whole of the jewels are moved to the vaults in the basement and placed in iron safes fitted with quintuple steel walls. As a further protection against burglars the safes are embedded in cement walls. The safes are not fitted with keys, but are opened by means of an intricate combination lock. Of such strength and temper is the steel that a gang of burglars would have to work for nine or ten hours with the most powerful drills and acids before they could penetrate the safe. A small army of men is constantly on guard.

Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone at the 1911 coronation [source]

Naturally the ornaments to be worn by some of the princesses are among those to first attract attention. The small circular crown of Princess Christian [2] is unique; it is the only one in the exhibition with a setting of turquoises, which alternate with very fine diamonds on raised points. The headgear of the Duchess of Albany [2] is made up of a quadruple row of diamonds surmounted in front by a half sun, the rays of which are formed by glittering brilliants. Of unusual design is the tiara of Princess Alexander of Teck (pictured above). It has slanted wheatears formed of diamonds in a curious old setting, and meeting in front. The whole is divisible into corsage ornaments and brooches.

There is nothing finer in the collection than the magnificent crown made for the Duchess of Westminster, which dominates the main wall of the exhibition room, and is valued at £20,000. The design is very quaint. There are looped and inter-laced circles and scrolls of fine diamonds, and in the centre of each of the large front arches are set five immense stones treasured among the Grosvenor heirlooms. The famous Nesca stone, a large flat brilliant, is mounted loosely, so as to swing with each movement of the wearer and throw out beams of light.

In the tiara to be worn by the Duchess of Sutherland, one of the four canopy duchesses, large pearls intersect the compact lines of diamonds which form a geometric design of semi-circles, lying against a band of diamonds. Pear-shaped pearls are introduced to give height to the tiara.

A contrast is formed by the smaller but unique diadem of the Duchess of Newcastle. This consists of a straight band of diamond lace work about one and a half inches in depth. The front of the tiara broadens into flat volutes, all formed of dazzling stones, while rising from one side of the central spike is a feather, the drooping fronds of which are cleverly simulated in diamonds.

The Duchess of Norfolk will wear a crown entirely composed of a high garland of diamond oak leaves and acorns, the badge of the Howards. The acorns are formed of single stones of great beauty.

Emeralds make a perfect ensemble with diamonds in the crowns of Lady Plymouth, Lady Gerard, Lady Carnarvon, and Lady Newborough.

Two splendid head ornaments worth a vast fortune are to be worn by a beautiful mother and daughter, Lady Ripon and Lady Juliet Duff.

Lady Clementine Waring has a wide Marie Stuart headdress of fine stones, cleverly conveying the idea of the lace cap belonging to Marie Stuart, from which it was designed. The delicate pattern of lace is suggested by intricate scrolls of diamonds held on platinum wires. A large heart-shaped diamond falls upon the forehead.

Lady Tweeddale’s crown is in the form of a wide band of diamonds, with a splendid single ruby giving a gleam of color as it swings lightly in the central arch. Lady Antrim has had all the family diamonds set in a crown of interlocking wreaths, in which are set large pearls.

Eighteen thousand pounds is the assessed value of the crown of diamonds topped with eight emerald spikes which Lady Newborough will wear, while a larger amount will be represented by the precious stones on her corsage, the pearls on her neck, and the immense emerald pear which she will wear as a pendant.

Lady Decies, the most recent of trans-Atlantic brides, will wear the Cartier crown of diamonds which her father, Mr. George Gould, gave her on the occasion of her marriage.

Lady Denman, wife of the Governor-Designate of Australia, has a lovely crown of leaves in fine diamonds. Lady Sandhurst has family gems set into triple roses, which stand high in her tiara. An exquisite chaplet of laurels formed of stones of rare brilliance and purity will be worn by Lady Ashby St. Ledgers. Lady Tennant’s Russian diadem of pearls and diamonds is another perfect example of the jeweller’s craft. Somewhat similar in shape is the wide band of pearls and diamonds to be worn by Lady Lytton, while Lady Granard’s crown of matchless stones will be one of the finest in the Abbey.


NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Prince Francis, brother of Queen Mary, died unexpectedly in October 1910; we’ve discussed before that he left the Cambridge emeralds to his mistress in his will, and that Mary had to negotiate them back into the family jewel collection.
2. Both Princess Christian and the Duchess of Albany are visible in this photograph of the gallery at the 1911 coronation.
3. In the images of the peers and peeresses leaving the Abbey, the individuals in the photographs are not identified by Getty. Any help in figuring out who they are would be much appreciated!

Queen Sofia’s Fleur-de-Lys Tiara

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After news broke yesterday of King Juan Carlos of Spain’s upcoming abdication, how could we pick anyone else for our June Magpie of the Month than the woman who has supported him for more than forty years, Queen Sofia? Today, we’re looking at the grandest tiara in her current collection — the Fleur-de-Lys Tiara, which will no longer be hers when the abdication is complete.

Queen Ena wears La Buena, ca. 1922 [source]

The Fleur-de-Lys is the most impressive tiara that the Spanish royal family possesses — in fact, the longtime family nickname for the piece is “La Buena,” or “The Good One.” Through decades of upheaval, they’ve managed to hang on to the good one, and it’s graced the heads of three of the first ladies of the land.

In fact, only three women have ever worn this tiara in public. The first was Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, better known to history as Queen Ena of Spain. When she married King Alfonso XIII in 1906, this tiara was her gift from her new husband. The all-diamond diadem had been made for the new queen by Ansorena, and she wore it on her wedding day. It was an appropriate choice, as the fleur-de-lys motif that dominates the tiara is also the symbol of the House of Borbón. Originally, the piece was a closed circlet (as you can see in the portrait of the young queen above), but shortly afterward, Ena had the tiara converted into the more open form we’re used to seeing today. I’ve also read that the conversion allows the tiara to be worn either open or closed, though it’s not been worn as a closed circlet since Ena’s time.

Queen Ena wears La Buena, ca. 1914 [source]

Ena was quite generous with her jewel collection, frequently loaning major pieces to family members, including her daughters. But not La Buena — that one was reserved for her own personal use. In fact, she only loaned the tiara to one person during her lifetime: her daughter-in-law, María Mercedes, the Countess of Barcelona. Had the revolutions and civil wars of the early twentieth-century not resulted in a temporary cessation of the monarchy in Spain, María Mercedes would have become queen in 1941. Instead, she and her husband, Infante Juan, never ascended to the throne; their son, Juan Carlos, would eventually become the next Spanish king. But Queen Ena offered her daughter-in-law the chance to wear a queen’s tiara anyway, lending it to her to wear at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, among other occasions.

When Ena died in 1969, she bequeathed the tiara to her son, the Count of Barcelona. But she did so with a caveat: the tiara was earmarked specifically for the use of Spanish queens. (Also reserved for the use of the Spanish queen in Ena’s will, and therefore being transferred to Letizia’s collection soon, are Ena’s diamond collet necklace, a pair of diamond earrings, a pair of diamond bracelets, and a number of pearl pieces, including a copy of the famous La Peregrina pearl pendant.) The next wearer, accordingly, was Queen Sofia, the wife of King Juan Carlos. She has worn the tiara, which somehow manages to be both imposing and delicate at the same time, on important occasions throughout her husband’s reign.

The next wearer of the piece will be Sofia’s daughter-in-law, Letizia. She will become Queen Letizia of Spain when the government approves the king’s abdication, likely within the next four to six weeks. It’s a bit difficult for me to imagine what La Buena will look like on Letizia, as she is petite and tends to favor sleeker looks. But ultimately, we may not see this tiara on the new queen for a long time. With Republican feelings swelling on the heels of the abdication, La Buena and the rest of the most glittering Spanish jewels might be tucked away until the country is in a more stable and prosperous state.

Crown Jewels: The Sovereign’s Orb

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Happy Coronation Day! Sixty-one years ago today, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms was crowned at Westminster Abbey. The crowning of a British monarch is one of the only coronation ceremonies that still retains the pomp and pageantry of centuries past, and today, we’re looking at a bejeweled object that has been present at every British coronation since the seventeenth century: the Sovereign’s Orb.

At first, it seems peculiar that the monarch of a modern nation would hold a rather large shiny golden ball as a part of a coronation ceremony. It makes a bit more sense when you think about the ball as symbolizing the globe. Orbs feature a cross surmounting that globe to symbolize the Christian world, divided in three by the jeweled bands to represent the three continents known to medieval Europeans. The Royal Collection website explains that the orb, which is placed in the monarch’s right hand during the coronation, is “a representation of the sovereign’s power” [1]. The Brits aren’t the only ones who have an orb as a part of their regalia. A quick glance through Prince Michael of Greece’s book on the crown jewels of Europe finds orbs in the regalia of Bavaria, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland, too.

Orb in detail of portrait of Elizabeth I [2]

Like virtually all of the coronation regalia of the British monarchy, the sovereign’s orb dates to 1661. It is a recreation of an orb used in earlier coronations; that orb was one of the pieces melted down by the new republican government after the execution of Charles I in 1649. Orbs had been part of royal portraiture and ceremonies for centuries. In her excellent book on the British crown jewels, Anna Keay notes, “Exactly when the orb started to appear in the English regalia is not entirely clear,” though orbs appeared on coins from the reign of Edward the Confessor, and orbs are found “in several Tudor inventories and depicted in many portraits” [3]. Elizabeth I, for example, is shown clutching an orb in a seventeenth-century portrait of her wearing her coronation robes (pictured above).

After Charles I was executed, most of his possessions and the possessions of the crown were auctioned or sold. However, because the regalia held such important symbolic meaning, Anna Keay records that it was ordered to be “totallie Broken and defaced” [4]. The orb, along with crowns, scepters, and bracelets, was melted down at the Mint and made into coins. If you find a coin minted in 1649, with the words “Commonwealth of England” on it, it might just be one of the coins made from the melted-down sovereign’s orb.

Detail of Charles II’s coronation portrait, including the new sovereign’s orb [5]

When Charles II was restored as king, new regalia was needed for his coronation. Goldsmith Sir Robert Viner was commissioned to supply the new pieces, including a new sovereign’s orb. The orb is made of a hollow sphere of gold — actually two separate hollow hemispheres joined together at the central jeweled band. The Royal Collection states that the the jeweled bands are “a zone and arc with clusters of emeralds, rubies and sapphires, surrounded by rose-cut diamonds, each in a champleve enamel mount, between single rows of pearls” [6]. On top of a large step-cut amethyst sits the diamond-studded cross, with a central sapphire on one side and a central emerald on the other. Anna Keay notes that the cross originally faced forward over the jeweled band. Keay also explains that, “more than any other 17th-century piece in the collection, the orb retains its original gems, including most of the 365 rose-cut diamonds” [7]. The orb weighs two and a half pounds, and Charles II was the first king to hold it during his coronation.

Ten years after the new orb was made, it was almost lost. In 1671, Thomas Blood attempted to steal the crown jewels from the Tower of London. He shoved the orb down his breeches (seriously) and fled with it and with the contemporary version of the Imperial State Crown. He was stopped at the River Thames, but both the orb and the crown had been damaged and had to be repaired.

Since then, it has been used at every coronation; it’s been placed in the right hands of James II, William III, Anne, George I, George II, George III, George IV, William IV, Victoria, Edward VII, George V, George VI, and Elizabeth II (pictured above). You’ll note one crowned monarch missing from that list: Mary II. Since she was crowned jointly with her husband, an additional orb was needed for her use. Made in 1689, Queen Mary’s orb was slightly smaller than the sovereign’s orb. Although it was originally set with precious stones, those were later removed and replaced with paste for display at the Tower. After Mary’s reign, it was never used again for a coronation, but did make one more appearance in public: at Queen Victoria’s funeral in 1901, both of the orbs were placed atop her coffin.

If you’re in London, you can see the sovereign’s orb and the rest of the crown jewels on display at the Tower of London. They’re always there, unless they’re needed for an official occasion, like a coronation, the State Opening of Parliament, or a royal funeral. I especially love rewatching clips of the coronation knowing how much that golden orb weighs — can you imagine having to carry a round two pound weight placed on the flat of your hand, knowing that dropping it would mean dropping the symbol of your divine right to rule? At least the Queen had an armrest and a special velvet orb-holder (suitable for golden orbs or the biggest of Big Gulps) during the carriage ride!

(If you want to continue your Coronation Day festivities, pop on over to The Royal Roundup, where I’ve added a link to a color film version of the coronation, complete with a narrator who sounds like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a behind-the-scenes documentary. Enjoy!)

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. See the Royal Collection website for more, including great color pictures of the orb.
2. Detail of the ca. 1600-10 portrait in coronation robes; source here.
3. See Anna Keay’s The Crown Jewels, p. 32.
4. See Keay, p. 43.
5. Source here.
6. See the Royal Collection website.
7. See Keay, p. 56.