I have to disagree with you. In my view, everything that was left to the Crown (jewellery, works of Art, and so on) is now part of the Crown and cannot be considered the private property of the Monarch.
Maybe so; but my point is there does not appear to be any legislation concerning jewellery other than the Coronation Regalia ! :-)
Maybe so; but my point is there does not appear to be any legislation concerning jewellery other than the Coronation Regalia ! :-)
That's true. Although that got me thinking, are there actually any legislations (laws) concerning the actual Crown Jewels, or it's just tradition they belong to the state? I only know of one document to the effect - the one the Prior of Westminster produced, maintaining Edward the Confessor had left his regalia in the Abbey's care to be used in the coronation of the future monarchs. And that document was a forgery.
EDIT: Just found how the Crown Regalia ended up in the possession of the state rather then the monarch: in 16054, James I issued a riyal decree declaring that the Crown Regalia (along with a number of other jewels and ornaments) was "indivisible from the Kingdom".
January 26 was the day the famous Cullinan Diamond was found.
Two of the most important Crown Jewels - The Imperial State Crown and the Sovereign's Sceptre with Cross - contain the two largest Cullinan stones:
Most of the stones in the present Imperial State Crown came from Queen Victoria's Imperial State Crown. The crown is remodelled for each Monarch and if necessary additional stones would be bought from the Crown Jeweller or supplied by the Monarch. The empty crown frames of George I, George IV and Queen Victoria still exist and are kept in the Tower of London. The larger stones (eg St Edward's Sapphire, the Black Prince's Ruby [spinel], the Stuart Sapphire and Queen Elizabeth I's pearls) have survived over the centuries and just over 100 years ago the Cullinan II diamond, or Lesser Star of Africa (a whopping 317 carats) was added to the front of the crown.
What jewelry did Princess Alexandra of Denmark receive from her parents, Christian and Louise, when she married the Prince of Wales, Prince Albert Edward?
Inside the Crown of St. Edward is a velvet cap called a "Cap of Estate."
Henry VII first started wearing a crown over such a liner, presumably for greater comfort, and later all crowns worn by royalty on State occasions were set on a cap called the Cap of Estate.
Two of the four pearls dangling from the Imperial State Crown were once worn by Queen Elizabeth I.
It was interesting to learn that the pattern of oak leaves and acorns on the arches of the Imperial State Crown symbolize the oak tree at Boscobel in which King Charles II hid from Cromwell's troops after his defeat at Worcester.
Until 1962 the Imperial State Crown was conveyed to the Houses of Parliament in a closed carriage.
In 1962 the crown was conveyed in Queen Alexandra's State Coach.
What was the name of the closed carriage that originally conveyed the Imperial State Crown to the Houses of Parliament?
Crown Jewels leave London to take centre stage in Norfolk ceremony
Princess Charlotte christening: Crown Jewels leave London to take centre stage in Norfolk ceremony The Lily Font and royal ewer will be taken from the Tower of London to St Mary Magdalene church in Sandringham for a royal christening with a difference.
So it seems a group of disgruntled Indians [headed up by a Bollywood actor] intend to sue HM the Queen for the return of the Koh-i-noor diamond. This stone was given to Queen Victoria, by the last Maharajah of Lahore [in what is now Pakistan]. Aside from giving heaps of work, and money to Lawyers this will be a pointless and fruitless exercise since the diamond was never 'owned' by India.
It was a personal possession of the Maharajah. None of these named individuals have any claim upon the title of it's previous owners. They have no legal right to petition for its return anywhere.So it will remain in the Tower of London.
The Koh-i-noor was surrendered by Maharajah Duleep Singh - then aged 13 - not given. The last owner in the interesting and already controversial chain of ownership, had been Duleep's father, Maharajah Ranjit Singh, who died in 1839, and he had willed the diamond to a Hindu temple in Puri. The Punjab was annexed by the British East India Company in 1849 during the Anglo-Sikh Wars, and Governor-General Lord Dalhousie decided the Koh-i-noor was a spoil of war and confiscated it. He orchestrated Duleep Singh's trip to England to present the stone to the Queen.
In a letter written in August 1849, Dalhousie stated:
"The Court [of the East India Company] you say, are ruffled by my having caused the Maharajah to cede to the Queen the Koh-i-noor; while the 'Daily News' and my Lord Ellenborough [Governor-General of India, 1841-44] are indignant because I did not confiscate everything to her Majesty... [My] motive was simply this: that it was more for the honour of the Queen that the Koh-i-noor should be surrendered directly from the hand of the conquered prince into the hands of the sovereign who was his conqueror, than it should be presented to her as a gift—which is always a favour—by any joint-stock company among her subjects. So the Court ought to feel." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor
__________________ "That's it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, -- and call off Christmas!!!"
LAHORE: A Pakistani court today dismissed a petition filed by a barrister seeking direction to the government to bring back the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond, which India has been trying to get from the UK for years, terming the plea as non-maintainable
Barrister Jaffry in his petition had said that the Koh-i-Noor, once the largest known diamond in the world, should be returned to Pakistan as it was cultural heritage of Pakistan's Punjab province and its citizens owned it in fact.
Linear Mode
