Hi history lovers and welcome or welcome back to the channel
where I bring you new videos every week on all aspects of the past.
Today I have another royal jewels documentary for you as we look at the history of St Edward’s
crown, most famous for being the coronation crown used in the United Kingdom. As you may
know if you’ve been here for a while, I’m a bit of a sucker for shiny, pretty things (so much so that
I have an entire playlist dedicated to treasure which is linked on-screen and below for you),
so I’m excited to share with you the story behind this crown’s creation, as well as the
gorgeous precious stones it contains, the time it was nearly stolen from the Tower of London,
its appearance in royal monograms and its use in past and most likely future, coronations.
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Sadly for historians and jewellery lovers alike, almost all of the medieval crown jewels of
England, which had taken centuries to accumulate and which included the items you see here,
were broken up, sold, melted down for coinage or otherwise destroyed in 1649 on the orders
of Parliament, after the Parliamentarians, led by Oliver Cromwell overthrew the monarchy in
the late 1640s and had the then King, Charles I, executed in January 1649.
After a little over a decade however, Cromwell was dead and the Republican experiment had failed.
Charles I’s eldest son, Charles II, was invited to return to England from his exile in mainland
Europe and retake the throne, which he duly did in 1660. He had virtually no crown jewels however
and this was a major problem. Jewels weren’t just beautiful objects to look at; they helped
to project the air of majesty, wealth and power that a monarch (especially one who’d only just
regained his throne) needed, in order to appear suitably magnificent and not be an embarrassment
to the country on the world stage. They also had and still have important ceremonial uses. Charles
II needed to have a coronation, but the committee charged with organising it admitted in September
1660 that the crowns he should have inherited were gone, as were most other accoutrements such as
orbs and sceptres. A few items were recovered, including some precious stones and this 12th
century spoon which holds the holy oil used to anoint the sovereign during their coronation,
but everything else had to be made afresh. Top of the list was a new coronation crown.
Previous coronations had used a medieval crown known as St Edward’s crown and named after King
Edward the Confessor, who had also been declared a saint. Now a new version was created. There is
a 20th century theory that most of the gold in this new Crown actually came from the old,
however this has, to my mind, been thoroughly debunked, though I know you still see it pedalled
in guide books and websites. In fact we have a primary source which says that the medieval crown
was delivered to the mint and the idea that it survived and was even used on Cromwell’s
funeral effigy in 1658, is a fallacy. The Cromwell coronet was likely made from cheap materials and
fake gemstones (a common cost-cutting measure at the time, which we’ll learn more about in
a minute) and was also destroyed in 1659, before the Restoration. To provide a sense of continuity
with the past however the new St Edward’s crown did share its predecessor’s name and
was to follow its design as closely as possible, even if the basic materials were not identical.
The contract for creating the new suite of jewels, of which this crown was just a part, was given
to a goldsmith/banker named Richard Vyner and the 11 principal pieces cost an eye-watering £13,000.
While many other items in the Restoration crown jewel set have been altered and even
remade over the centuries since (see my video on the Cullinan diamond to hear about changes made
to the Imperial State Crown and the sceptre for instance), the new St Edward’s Crown has remained
remarkably untouched and is still essentially the same item which Charles II commissioned.
At its widest, the crown measures 30.2 cm, though this drops to 24cm at its base and
it weighs 2040g, which is just shy of 72 ounces. Starting from the bottom, it is composed of a gold
band sitting on top of a circle of ermine to make it more comfortable to wear. That gold band has
rows of small golden beads at its top and bottom though looking at older images you can see that
they used to be pearls, or perhaps fake pearls. Running around the middle of it are a selection
of 16 quite large, precious gemstones. These gemstones are mounted in enamel which has been
fashioned into the shape of acanthus leaves and they are surrounded by aquamarines and topazes.
Depending on the pictures you look at and the lighting they are under, they can have
the appearance of diamonds, but in fact there are no such stones in this Crown. The Royal
Collection Trust, which cares for it, instead lists the stones present as being tourmalines,
topazes, rubies, amethysts, sapphires, garnet, peridot, zircons, spinel and aquamarines.
Above the gold band are 4 crosses-pattee alternating with four fleurs-de-lis.
The crosses are decorated with precious stones in their centres, again set into enamel, with three
more square-cut precious stones set into each of the bars (coloured stones in the middle with
what I’m guessing are aquamarines flanking them). The fleurs-de-lis have clusters of similarly pale
stones on their leaves and a single more deeply coloured gemstone in each of their centres.
Moving on up the crown, we have the four arches which start from the tops of the crosses pattee,
then meet in the centre. The Royal Collection Trust states that closed arches were a way to
‘demonstrate that England was not subject to any other earthly power’ and that the
practice to design crowns in this way became popular during the 15th century.
Like the golden headband at the bottom, the arches have rows of gold beads running up either
side of them (though once upon a time, these were fake pearls) with precious gems set in-between.
These are also set in enamel and as you can see, there is a cluster of what seems to be five
zircons, topazes or aquamarines at the bottom of the arch, then a large green stone in the middle.
There is then another cluster of pale stones and another darker stone at the top. Where the arches
meet, there is a golden orb, or monde (not to be confused with the word mound. Monde means world).
The current monde has a band of very light coloured stones around its horizontal
circumference and a band of golden beads going over its vertical circumference, with a ruby,
or perhaps a garnet in the middle, where they meet. This brings us to the very top of the crown.
Surmounting the monde is a golden cross, its bars of equal size and decorated with more pale
gemstones and what look like two rubies on the left and right. There is a small golden bead atop
the cross and two tear-shaped golden beads hanging from its sidebars. If you look back at these
images of the crown published in 1897 and 1919 however, you see more instances of the changes
which have been made to the gems set into it, for once again we see that presumably fake pearls
have been removed to make way for these beads. Underneath the arches is a purple velvet bonnet,
purple being the traditional colour of monarchy. This bonnet is obviously not the original,
which we can see was red and its colour has in fact changed several times throughout the years.
A description I read of the Crown from 1727 gave it as purple, while a description from
1919 said it was red again, even though the image used in that same book shows it as purple.
When it actually switched back to purple I don’t know, but I like both colours.
By the date of Charles II’s English coronation on 23 April 1661, the crown was ready.
Charles’s use of it on this occasion set a precedent for it to be used at other coronations,
but despite that, it has not sat upon the heads of all English and British monarchs ever since.
His brother, James II, used it at his coronation in 1685, but after he was ousted from the throne
in late 1688 (a bit of an occupational hazard in the Stuart family) and replaced
by his daughter and son-in-law/nephew, William III and Mary II, England entered into the only
case of dual monarchy in its history and with two sovereigns, St Edward’s crown couldn’t be used for
each person. At their joint coronation, William was crowned with it, but Mary used another crown
created especially for her. When her sister Anne ascended to the throne in 1702, she also used a
different and specially made crown. In fact St Edward’s crown was not used in any coronation
service between 1685 and 1911. Instead it was carried as part of the coronation procession,
with the Imperial State Crown being placed on the sovereign’s head. Edward VII tried to revive the
tradition of wearing it for his coronation in 1902, however he was taken ill before the big
day (which had to be postponed) and in the end, was also crowned with the lighter Imperial State
Crown. Although he never got to wear St Edward’s crown, it did sit on his coffin in 1910 during
his lying-in-state in Buckingham Palace. It was only when his son, George V came to the throne
that St Edward’s crown finally came back into use, after well over 200 years on the shelf.
It was only in 1911 by the way, that it was permanently set with a suite of gemstones.
Prior to that, as the Crown was so rarely used, monarchs from Charles II onwards had
taken the economical decision to simply hire the necessary stones from a local jeweller. In 1661
for instance, Robert Vyner provided them at a cost of £500 then retrieved them after the coronation.
The Crown was used again for the coronation of George VI in 1937 and Elizabeth II in 1953 and
unless there is a massive breach in tradition and protocol, I would expect it to be used at
the coronation of Charles III as well. Edward VIII never wore it, as he wasn’t King for long enough
before his abdication in 1936 to be crowned, but he was able to use it in another way and
one which is shared by many other monarchs too; I’m speaking of his royal monogram or cypher.
A royal monogram is a very simple device, consisting of the first letter of the monarch’s
name, followed by or intertwined with the letter R which stands for Rex in the case of a King (Rex
being the Latin word for King), or Regina in the case of a Queen (this is the Latin word for
Queen). Where necessary, it will also incorporate their regnal number in Roman numerals, such as
a II in the case of Elizabeth II. Above these letters and numerals is a crown and in numerous
cases that crown has been St Edward’s, as you see here in an example of Edward VIII’s monogram.
It doesn’t have to be though. In Scotland the Royal Crown of Scotland is used (I have a video
on the Scottish Crown Jewels if you’d like to learn more about them) and as you can see from
this example of Edward VII’s cypher, in some cases the monarch will opt to use the now non-existent
Tudor crown (because I guess everyone loves the Tudors!) These cyphers can be used on things like
royal correspondence and military uniforms, but they also appear all over the United Kingdom and
the Commonwealth on other objects including post-boxes and phone-boxes. Furthermore,
because these items are not replaced very often as you’ve already seen from the other images I’ve
shown you, there are still a lot of them in use today which have quite old monograms on them.
Here are two post-boxes in the town of Windsor for instance, one with the Elizabeth II monogram (on
the left and using St Edward’s crown) and one with her grandfather’s monogram, on the right.
The reason I can tell that this is George V by the way and not George VI,
is because there’s no regnal number here. George V opted not to use one, presumably feeling that
enough time had passed since the death of George IV in 1830 that no one was going to confuse
them.Sometimes the crowns even appear without the royal initials. Look at these phone-boxes
I photographed in London a few years ago for instance. The one on the left has a Tudor Crown,
the one on the right has St Edward’s Crown. King Charles III if you’re interested, has opted to use
the Tudor crown for his English monogram, with the crown of Scotland for the Scottish version.
Of course the monarchs since Charles II and the rest of us for that matter are
lucky to still have St Edward’s crown to use and admire, for on 9 May 1671,
when it was being stored here in the Martin Tower at the Tower of London with the rest
of the jewels, it was almost stolen by an Irishman named Colonel Thomas Blood.
By posing as a parson named Doctor Ayliffe, Blood gained the trust of the elderly man and
former solider who was charged with caring for the jewels and whose name was Talbot Edwards.
Ayliffe/Blood fooled Edwards into thinking that he wanted to marry his nephew to Edwards’ daughter
and on the morning of the planned wedding he showed up at the Tower with this supposed nephew
(who was actually his son) and two other men, all armed with knives, swords and pistols (a
fifth man waited outside the Tower). They asked to see the jewels while they waited for Edwards’
wife to arrive, then overpowered the old man, stabbed him, gagged him, knocked him on the head
and grabbed some of the jewels, damaging several, including the Imperial State Crown in the process.
They might well have taken St Edward’s Crown too if they had had the time (though I’m not sure when
we consider that it wouldn’t have had any gems in it at that point), but in a twist of fate so
unlikely it’s practically providential, Edward’s son, who had been away from England for years,
suddenly arrived back at the Tower at that very minute. Blood’s gang quickly made off with
what they had in their arms (Imperial State Crown, Orb and Sceptre) and Edwards Junior,
when he realised by the shouts of his family what had happened, gave chase, assisted by some other
men of the Tower. The four thieves were caught and the jewels were saved. Talbot Edwards recovered
from his wounds and Blood, bizarrely, was given a personal meeting with Charles II who pardoned
him for reasons which are still unclear. The would-be thief eventually died in 1680.
So now you know all about the coronation crown, from creation in 1661 to its use in
modern coronations. I hope you’ve enjoyed this video. Thank you to my Patrons for their support
and to those who you who donate using the Thanks button underneath videos. Your generosity helps to
make these videos possible. For more on the crown jewels and coronations, try one of these videos
next and let me know in the description box if you prefer the use of St Edward’s Crown or the Tudor
Crown in royal monograms. I’ll be back next week with something new and until then, keep learning.