Created by a Tudor and destroyed by the Parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell’s rule, the spectacular
lost crown of Henry VIII is one of the more famous royal jewels we no longer have, but
what exactly did it look like, what did Henry wear it for and what was its precise fate?
This is History Calling where I bring you new videos every week on all aspects of the
past and today we’re looking at the Tudor state crown.
Make sure you stay til the end and I’ll also tell you why some people think part of
this item was rediscovered in 2017 and whether I think this theory is true.
According to Anna Keay in her official illustrated history of the crown jewels, the Tudor state
crown was most likely created by either Henry VII or Henry VIII, though you’ll often see
it referred to as Henry VIII’s crown.
This is perhaps because the earliest clear mention we have of it comes 12 years into
his reign, on 24th February 1521 in a detailed inventory entry which describes this show-stopping
item from the Tudor crown jewels collection.
This lengthy description (which I’m going to summarise for you here) says that the King’s
crown was made of gold and that the border of it, which I take to mean the main band
that would go around the head, was garnished with six ballas rubies (which are what we
would now call spinels), five sapphires, five pointed diamonds, twenty rubies, nineteen
pearls and four collets, which were the rims of gold into which the jewels were set.
There were then five crosses alternating with five fleurs de lis rising up from this band.
Each of the fleurs de lis had a little medallion attached to it, on its top leaf (for lack
of a better term).
Three of these showed Christ, another showed Mary and the baby Jesus and the last showed
St George, patron saint of England and the guy who supposedly fought a dragon.
The crosses and fleurs de lis were also heavily decorated with precious stones including large
sapphires, emeralds, many more ballas rubies and scores of pearls.
The 1521 description doesn’t make a very clear reference to the arches on top of the
Crown, however it does talk at the end about there being ‘oon the Diadem above’, 12
pointed diamonds some better than the other three triangles diamonds, one table diamond
and 28 pearls.
I’m taking this ‘diadem above’ as a reference to the four golden, gem encrusted
and closed arches we can see in this picture of Charles I with the crown, though you can
let me know below if you disagree.
We can also see in this image that it was topped by a golden monde (to represent the
world) and a golden cross.
There was a bonnet underneath the arches which was most likely made of velvet and which looks
to be a deep red colour in this image.
That said, we do also have this version of Charles’s portrait held by the National
Portrait Gallery in London, in which the bonnet is blue, as is the King’s outfit.
Whether this bonnet, monde and cross were there in the early 1520s I don’t know, as
they aren’t mentioned in the inventory, but we do know that the crown was altered
long before the Stuarts inherited it.
After Henry’s break from the Church in Rome, Historic Royal Palaces tells us that it was
felt that having three Christ figures on the crown was no longer appropriate and at some
point they were replaced with three English Kings who were renowned as saints in the 16th
century.
These were Edward the Confessor, St Edmund and Henry VI, the latter of whom was never
officially made a saint, but was often treated as such given his known piety and very suspicious
death.
See my video on his fate, linked onscreen and below for you, for more information about
that.
It would be nice to know what the primary source was that supplied this information
(I’m guessing it’s something like treasury records that record the price of the alterations
to the crown), but I’m prepared to trust that HRP of all places, didn’t just make
this up.
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What was this crown used for though, besides looking great in royal portraits.
Historic Royal Palaces’ website has some answers to this question too.
It tells us that Henry wore the crown at Hampton Court, especially on 6 January, which is the
feast of the Epiphany and that it was used at the coronations of his three surviving
children, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I and the first two Stuart monarchs, James
I and his son the aforementioned Charles I. That doesn’t mean that it always appears
in images of these events however.
Here we see a later portrait of Elizabeth’s coronation for instance, but it is clear that
the crown on her head is not the Tudor State Crown, probably because just like today, coronations
could involve the use of more than one crown.
Even when the actual item was not in use though, its image could appear elsewhere and it has
seemingly appeared in numerous monarchs’ coats of arms and royal monograms.
I say seemingly, because images of these arms are sometimes so small and simplified that
it can be difficult to be sure which crown we’re looking at but I do think we’re
seeing the Tudor crown in this picture.
Furthermore, we know though that an approximation of it is definitely what we’re seeing in
the monograms of monarchs including George V and Charles III and you can see George V’s
here on a post box in Windsor.
Others, including Elizabeth II, have used St Edward’s Crown, which I already have
a video on and which I’ll leave linked for you.
As objects embossed with such monograms and cyphers are often not regularly replaced,
we can therefore see images of the Tudor State Crown on publicly used items like this post
box and also payphones all over the United Kingdom and Commonwealth.
What happened to the original though?
The short answer is that Oliver Cromwell happened to it, or rather the Parliamentarians who
were under his ultimate control did, for I’m not saying that he personally destroyed the
crown.
After the abolition of the monarchy and the execution of Charles I in 1649, the former
King’s possessions were taken and inventoried before being destroyed or sold to raise money
for the new government.
In those inventories we find a record of the Tudor State Crown and its final fate.
In that document it is listed as ‘The Kings Crowne’ and valued at £1110.
For context, this would have the purchasing power of about £114,904 nowadays.
Its description and the description of its destruction reads as follows:
The Imperiall Crowne of Massy gold weighing 7.
li. 6 ounces, enriched with 19.
Saphires. 37 Rubies Ballass, 21.
small Rubies. 2 Emrods [which I think is a contraction of the word emerald], 28 Diamonds
168.
Pearles, The gold (6.
Oz being abated for the stones), valued at 280.
li The Saphires at 198.
li.
The Ballass.
Rubies at 149li the small Rubies at 16.li.
the Emralds at 5li the Diamonds at 288li the pearle at 174li.
The inventory goes on to tell us who bought what from the crown, though I’m afraid I
don’t know who the people mentioned in this paragraph were.
It reads:
The contractors sold to Crooke on 3 Jan. 1649/50 [this means 3 Jan. 1650 in our modern calendar]
232 pearls from it for £320.
The 19 sapphires were sold to Humphreys 30 Apr. 1652 for £198.
Lavender appears to have been unable to fulfil an earlier contract to buy them.
The gold was delivered to the Mint to be coined [this means the royal, or rather the formerly
royal at this point mint in the Tower of London].
The copies give valuation for the individual sapphires.
[I don’t know what this little sentence refers to unfortunately.]
56 rubies were sold to Leigh 7 Jan. 1649/50 for £200 and 2 more sold to Dyreck. 2 emeralds
were sold to Murray a/o [this is an abbreviation meaning ‘and others’] 23 Oct. 1651 for
£5.
28 diamonds were sold to Mallory 3 Jan. 1649/50 for £191.
10s.
6d.
A little later in the inventory, we have the following sentence: ‘The foremencion Crownes
since ye Inventorye.
was Taken are accordeinge to order of Parlamt totallie Broken and Defaced.’
I think when you read these entries you can understand how complete the destruction and
dispersal of the crown and its jewels was.
It’s no wonder that it was impossible to reconstruct it later on.
It’s also absolutely gut wrenching to read documents like these and think of the history
that was being completely trashed to make a quick buck in interregnum England and destroy
the symbols of monarchy.
Cromwell and his supporters would have considered themselves patriots, doing the best thing
they could for their country, yet I find it impossible to buy into this when I look at
their actions regarding the jewels.
No one doing their best for their country deliberately destroys its cultural history
like this.
It’s the same behaviour we see nowadays from totalitarian regimes and at any other
point in early- modern English history, it would have warranted a death sentence for
treason.
So the Tudor State Crown is gone and we can’t ever get it back, but in 2021 a story emerged
in the press claiming that one tiny part of it had been found.
I’ll leave a link to an article about this in the description box, but in short a metal
detecting enthusiast found a 2.5 inch tall gold and enamel statue of Henry VI in a field
in 2017 and by 2021, he was questioning whether it was one of the little saintly figures from
the Tudor crown which I described to you earlier.
The theory goes that because the figure was found near the site of the 1645 Battle of
Naseby (which the royalists lost), Charles may have dropped this piece off one of his
crowns as he was fleeing the battlefield.
If true this would of course be brilliant and would make the figurine much more expensive
too, but for now at least I would advise caution.
Unless evidence can be produced showing that the King had the Tudor crown with him at the
time of the Battle I find this theory to be quite the stretch and even if he did, it would
still be hard, verging on impossible, to prove that the figure came from it.
It’s a good story though and helps to shine a light on this lost Tudor treasure.
I really hope you’ve enjoyed this video.
As always a big thank you to my patrons and to those of you who donate to the channel
using the Thanks button beneath videos for your very generous support which helps me
to keep creating for you.
Let me know in the comments below how likely you think it is that the rediscovered figure
found in a field actually comes from the Tudor crown and if you’d like to learn more about
the English or Scottish crown jewels (and the Scottish ones have had a really adventurous
existence and actually managed to survive Cromwell), then try one of these videos next.
Whatever you choose, please enjoy and until next time, keep learning.