Continuing on with The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee year, I once again turn to her jewellery vaults for Style File Friday. We all know that Her Majesty has an impressive jewellery collection, but we still don’t actually know just how impressive it is… While some other royal families, like Sweden, place their jewels into a trust where anyone can wear them and information is somewhat readily available, it is not the case with Britain. Queen Alexandra, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother all bought a considerable amount of jewellery and it has been passed down, but who knows what that entails? So, we turn to Queen Elizabeth II’s ruby tiaras, or the two that we know of!
The Oriental Circlet Tiara
This is fairly old tiara, or its original setting is. Prince Albert designed the diamond tiara for Queen Victoria in 1853, using royal jeweller Garrard. It originally contained diamonds and opals, but unfortunately, Victoria didn’t wear it during her long widowhood. She did add it to the family jewellery collection, meaning that it couldn’t be sold off or given away (aka an Heirloom of the Crown).
When her daughter-in-law, Alexandra inherited the tiara, she swapped the opals for rubies, believing that opals were bad luck for the wearer. However, despite making these changes, it is not known if Alexandra ever even wore the tiara in its ruby state. We also don’t know if her daughter-in-law, Queen Mary, wore it either.
Queen Elizabeth (the future Queen Mother) and wife of King George VI did love this tiara, though. She wore it frequently throughout her time as consort, including on their 1939 royal tour to Canada. (If you have anything red, it must be worn in Canada- it is the law…) You also might recognise it as the tiara she wore when the family greeted London crowds from the Buck House balconies on VE Day.
Because Victoria had made it part of the collection, it should have gone to Queen Elizabeth II upon her father’s 1952 death. However, Elizabeth understood that it was one of her mother’s favourite tiaras, and allowed her to keep wearing the tiara until her death in 2002. She finally wore it herself in 2005 at a state banquet in Malta.
The Burmese Ruby Tiara
This tiara is a relatively new tiara, at least as far as they go for The Queen. It dates back to 1973, or at least in its current form. Because her mother was wearing the Oriental Circlet Tiara, The Queen needed to make a ruby tiara for herself.
Elizabeth was given the Nizam of Hyderabad Tiara for her 1947 wedding. Or to be more specific, the Indian ruler allowed her to go to Cartier and choose whatever tiara she wanted. (The best present if you ask me…) She chose a floral style necklace and tiara that were originally made in the 1930s, and wore it through the 1960s.
However in 1970, she had royal jeweller Garrard dismantle the tiara. (We don’t know why she chose this one to break up.) In order to have a ruby tiara that was her own, she used the diamonds from this original tiara, along with 96 Burmese rubies that she also received as a wedding present (from the people of Burma).
The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This tiara has a rose design; if you have a sharp eye, you will spot the white and red Tudor rose specifically. While it doesn’t necessarily have the design or provenance of some of the older tiaras in her collection, I do like this one. I think that if one has the money and jewels to make it happen, designing your own tiara seems like the best option. For a Jubilee connection, she wore it on her Silver Jubilee tour of New Zealand in 1977!
Want more tiaras? Find The Queen’s best diamond tiaras here and her best pearl tiaras here!
Which of Queen Elizabeth II’s ruby tiaras would you choose?
Cheers,
The Historian
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
_(cropped).jpg){kind=link}