This crown is much more than the sum of its gleaming parts

The Crown. Something we all know about: regal institution; glittery gem-encrusted headpiece; Netflix blockbuster. But the funny thing is we don’t really. The object we recognise (evoked in the opening credits of the drama series) is the Imperial State Crown – all brilliant cut diamonds and stonking sapphires – which the Queen wears for the State Opening of Parliament. But this is just a stand-in. The crown with which she was invested by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1953 is another object altogether, and one that most people would struggle to sketch.

Even the Queen, reunited with the crown in a new BBC documentary to be shown this month, eyes it unfamiliarly, unsure – like the Archbishop at her father’s coronation – which way round it goes. The Coronation Crown, or St Edward’s Crown, as it is properly called, is used only for the act of coronation. So, for the past 65 years it has gone unworn, locked up safely in the Jewel House at the Tower of London.

Its story is as fascinating as any Bafta winner. The puritans who defeated Charles I in the Civil War had gleefully disposed of the original medieval regalia: selling gems to the highest bidder and dropping the gold frames into the mint’s melting pots to be recast as coins. Charles II found the Jewel House empty.

St Edward’s Crown, the same object used for the Queen’s coronation in 1953, was made for his coronation in 1661, named after the saint-king Edward the Confessor. The occasion was a sensation, the new regalia representing not just a new reign but the restoration of monarchy itself. Samuel Pepys watched it from a vertiginous bank of seating in the north transept of Westminster Abbey and was “sure never to see the like again in this world”.

Those not on the guest list in 1661 had the option of queuing up afterwards to see the crown at the Tower, and it was during one such viewing, 10 years later, that the only attempt to steal the Crown Jewels was made. The aptlynamed Colonel Blood buttered up the keeper of the Jewel House over successive visits to the Tower, disguised as a vicar.

Choosing his moment, Blood stabbed the keeper in the stomach, shoved St Edward’s Crown under his cloak and made a run for it. More by luck than tight security, Blood was brought down on the banks of the Thames before he could get away. The crown was reported to be “bruised” and needed £145 worth of repairs.

Perhaps more undignified even than being stolen was the fate of St Edward’s Crown in the Georgian era, when it was simply ignored. The diamond-mad Georgians were unimpressed by its simple, solid-gold frame, which had been designed to imitate the medieval crowns melted down in 1649.

George II didn’t bother with St Edward’s Crown at all, and for almost 200 years it was passed over. Then, in the Edwardian era, a new enthusiasm for royal ceremonies could be detected. The very antiquity of the crown – and indeed its name – brought it back to the fore and it regained its place as the coronation centrepiece of the English monarchy, used to crown George VI in 1937 and then Elizabeth II 16 years later.

While St Edward’s Crown is today a gleaming expression of the solidity and continuity of the monarchy, it is also a reminder that things weren’t always thus.

Anna Keay is the author of ‘The Crown Jewels’

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