Nine Glimpses of Royal Jewelry in the Newest Biography of Queen Elizabeth II
Craig Brown's latest royal biography offers us a view of the late monarch through the eyes of others, from poets and artists to world leaders and everyday people
With the second anniversary of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II approaching this weekend, many publishers have timed the release of new books about the late monarch to coincide with the date. Among these is a new biography by satirist and critic Craig Brown, who previously wrote about the late Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret. The new book, Q: A Voyage Around the Queen, shares many similarities with that earlier text. Today, I’ve got a peek inside the new book, sharing nine moments from Q linked to royal jewelry.
1: Chips Channon surveys Princess Elizabeth’s wedding presents, 1947.
Members of the public were allowed to tour a display of Elizabeth and Philip’s wedding gifts at St. James’s Palace in the autumn of 1947. “‘The heat was appalling,’ complained Chips Channon in his diary. With his beady eye, he noted ‘some fine but many horrible presents,’ though even he had to admit to being impressed by a wreath of diamond roses from the Nizam of Hyderabad,” Brown writes.
The tiara, made by Cartier, featured a trio of roses in a floral setting. Elizabeth had been allowed to choose it herself from the firm’s existing stock. But, though she wore it often in her youth, she discarded the tiara later on, reportedly because it was difficult to keep it balanced during gala dinners. In the 1970s, she would have the tiara dismantled entirely, preserving just the three rose ornaments. The rest of the diamonds were used in the making of a new diadem, the Burmese Ruby Tiara.
2: The Queen Mother requests diamonds for Coronation Day, 1953.
Brown quotes a letter, originally published by William Shawcross in Counting One’s Blessings, from the Queen Mother to her daughter on May 27, 1953.
Darling Angel, I don’t want to bother you when you are so busy, but I must somehow borrow a row of diamonds for the Coronation, & if I don’t hear from you I will get hold of one of Granny’s – OK?
Your loving Mummy
The Queen Mother ended up wearing three separate diamond necklaces for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Brown also quotes a footnote from Shawcross, explaining that the three necklaces were “probably her own Coronation necklace given to her by the King in 1937, the Teck collet necklace, which first belonged to George III’s daughter Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester, and the necklace that Queen Alexandra was given as a wedding present by the City of London in 1863.”
All three of these diamond necklaces remain in the royal vaults today. Though it can be extremely difficult to tell the necklaces apart without scrutinizing them closely, we know that the Queen Mother’s Coronation Necklace has been worn most recently by Queen Camilla.
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