Camilla to wear Queen Mary’s crown without Kohinoor: Has British royalty scored a diplomatic win with India?
Camilla to wear Queen Mary’s crown without Kohinoor: Has British royalty scored a diplomatic win with India?
Britain’s King Charles’ coronation is three months from now — in May — and there’s been big buzz about the crowns and the jewels that will be on display at the ceremony. In fact, ask anyone and all they want to know is what crown Camilla, the Queen Consort, will wear on the historic day. The last time Britain saw such an event was back in June 1953 when Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth II was coronated.
On Tuesday, Buckingham Palace finally revealed that Camilla will wear the Queen Mary’s Crown for her coronation in Westminster Abbey on 6 May. The Palace in its statement said that the choice was made “in the interests of sustainability and efficiency”.
However, the crown won’t feature the famously controversial Kohinoor diamond and will be reset with the Cullinan III, IV and V diamonds in tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II, who held them in her personal collection and often wore them as brooches.
The move isn’t being seen just as a sentimental but also as nimble diplomacy; Buckingham Palace has sidestepped a diplomatic clash with India, where calls for the return of the jewel has only grown louder in recent times, especially after the Queen’s death.
As Britain gears up for the momentous occasion, let’s take a closer look at the history of the crown.
The crowning details
Queen Mary’s Crown was made by reputed jewellery company Garrard’s for the 1911 coronation and was commissioned by Queen Mary, the consort of King George V.
The Daily Telegraph had then described it saying, “It has no jewels but diamonds, and the diamonds cluster together as if they had no support but their own light.”
The design of the crown was inspired by Queen Alexandra’s Crown of 1902. Like Queen Alexandra’s Crown, it can be worn without the arches in the form of a regal circlet, which Queen Mary wore for the Coronation of her son, King George VI, in 1937.
The crown is composed of a silver frame, lined with gold and has a whopping 2,200 diamonds, mainly brilliant-cut, with some rose-cut. The Royal Collection Trust, that manages the Royal Collection and the official residences of the monarch, describe the crown as having an openwork band, set at the front with a detachable rock crystal replica of the diamond, Cullinan IV, a large cushion-shaped stone, and a frieze of quatrefoils and rosettes, each with a large brilliant in the centre, surrounded by smaller stones, between borders composed of single rows of brilliants. The crown is fitted with a purple velvet cap with an ermine band.
At the centre of the throne is the Kohinoor diamond — which means Mountain of Light. The jewel, originally about 186 carats, has a storied and murky history with India, Pakistan and even Afghanistan laying claims to it.
The website of the UK’s royal palaces state that the Kohinoor was unearthed from the Golconda mines in central southern India before it was handed to the British monarchy in 1849. As per British records, Britain came into possession of the diamond when the East India Company took the jewel from deposed 10-year-old Maharaja Duleep Singh.
As per Business Today, the British royals in 1851 held an exhibition at Hyde Park to showcase the Kohinoor, which drew a large crowd. But some found the jewel underwhelming. It was then recut to enhance its fire and brilliance in 1852 at Garrard of London, the royal jeweller.
The Kohinoor then became part of the Crown Jewels, first in the crown of Queen Alexandra (the wife of Edward VII) and then in the crown of Queen Mary.
The diamond finally came to rest at the front of the crown worn by Queen Elizabeth, wife of George VI and mother of Elizabeth II. As per Smithsonian Magazine, the crown that holds the Kohinoor made its last public appearance in 2002, resting atop of the coffin of the Queen Mother at her funeral.
Diplomatic changes
The modification to the crown, removing the Kohinoor diamond, is being seen as the Palace’s efforts to engage in gentle diplomacy.
Nigel Fletcher, a teaching fellow in politics and contemporary history at King’s College London, was quoted as telling the Daily Mail: “This is a smart solution to the problem of the Kohinoor diamond, and avoids the inevitable controversy which surrounds that stone. Wearing it during the coronation, as the last two Queens Consort have done, would today seem particularly insensitive, and would have risked a diplomatic row, given that India, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan have all claimed ownership over the years.”
Historian Priya Atwal echoed similar sentiments. On Twitter, she wrote that it “feels like a big shift that the Kohinoor is not going to be used in the coronation”, adding it “feels significant that the royal establishment is now apparently attuned enough to debates about colonial history to drop the gem from the ceremony”.
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