The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

The Lotus Flower Tiara

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Detail from a colorized portrait of the Queen Mother wearing the tiara, ca. 1925
[Wikimedia Commons]

Last week, we ranked 35 of the best jewels worn so far by the Duchess of Cambridge, who recently celebrated her 35th birthday. Here’s a more in-depth look at the top jewel on that list: the Lotus Flower Tiara.

The Garrard necklace that was dismantled to make the Lotus Flower Tiara

The first royal wearer of this tiara, which takes its name from the lotus flower (or papyrus leaf) elements that dominate the piece, was the Queen Mum. She took a page out of her mother-in-law’s book when creating the sparkler: it was made from a necklace that she received as a wedding gift in 1923. The necklace, which was made of diamonds and pearls and featured meander and festoon designs, was given to her by her husband, the future George VI, who had purchased it from Garrard.

Colorized portrait of the Queen Mother wearing the tiara, ca. 1925
[Wikimedia Commons]

Even so, Elizabeth decided she’d rather dismantle it and reuse the gems elsewhere. Only six months after she received it, Garrard broke up the necklace and used the diamonds and pearls to create this tiara. Perhaps Bertie had learned from his mother not to have sore feelings over diamonds given, dismantled, and repurposed? Regardless, Elizabeth wore the tiara in a series of portraits that were later used heavily in the publicity materials for the 1937 coronation, although some illustrators took a bit of artistic license in their depiction of the piece.

To me, this is one of the few 1920s-era tiaras that works when worn either low across the forehead or atop the head, the way we generally see tiaras worn today. That’s the way the second wearer of the tiara, Princess Margaret, used the sparkler. Margaret received the tiara from her mother in 1959, just before she married Antony Armstrong-Jones. (Who, if you haven’t heard already, died recently at the age of 86.) Along with the Poltimore, it became one of her most frequently worn tiaras.

In 1993, Margaret loaned the tiara to a third generation. Her new daughter-in-law, Serena Stanhope, wore the tiara at her wedding to Viscount Linley, Margaret’s only son. (Serena also wore a wedding dress that echoed her mother-in-law’s famous 1960 wedding gown — not a bad way to ingratiate yourself with your royal MIL, if you ask me). When Margaret died in 2002, this tiara was not among the pieces that were auctioned by her children — in fact, the Poltimore was the only one of Margaret’s tiaras that was sold.

The Duchess of Cambridge wears the tiara at the Chinese state banquet, October 2015
[Dominic Lipinski – WPA Pool /Getty Images]
For years, jewel lovers speculated about the ownership of the tiara after Margaret’s death. Because Serena Linley wore it at her wedding, many assumed that the Linleys perhaps inherited the tiara from Margaret. But in December 2013, the Duchess of Cambridge surprised everyone by wearing the tiara at the annual diplomatic reception; she also wore it in 2015 for a state banquet in honor of the President of China. It turns out, apparently, that Margaret returned the tiara to the royal vaults, either before her death or in her will. And so the Lotus Flower lives on, being enjoyed by an entirely new generation of Windsor women.

The Cartier Halo Tiara

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The Duchess of Cambridge wears the Cartier Halo Tiara on her wedding day (Fiona Hanson – WPA Pool/Getty Images)

For the new year, we’re resurrecting one of our most popular early features: the Magpie of the Month! This January, we’ll be featuring pieces worn by the Duchess of Cambridge, whose jewelry box has been growing by leaps and bounds since this blog began a few years ago. First up on the list: her bridal diadem, the famous Cartier Halo Tiara.

The Cartier Halo Tiara is displayed at Buckingham Palace (Lewis Whyld/WPA Pool/ Getty Images)

The tiara is a relatively small, minor one, but it has always been in the main line of the British royal family. Made by Cartier in 1936, it was an anniversary gift from King George VI (then still Duke of York) to his wife, Elizabeth (who we all know better as the Queen Mum). She was photographed in the piece, which features large scroll elements arranged across a geometric band of diamonds (hence the fact that it is sometimes called the “Scroll Tiara”), but it never became one of her most frequently worn tiaras.

Princess Margaret wears the Cartier Halo Tiara to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden on the eve of the coronation; beside her, the Queen Mother wears the Oriental Circlet with the Crown Rubies (British Pathe screencap)

In 1944, Queen Elizabeth gave the tiara to her daughter, the current Queen, as an eighteenth birthday gift. However, Elizabeth II never wore the tiara in public. Instead, she loaned the piece frequently to her younger sister, Princess Margaret, who wore it at the 1953 coronation.

Princess Anne wears the Cartier Halo Tiara in New Zealand in 1970 (William Lovelace/Daily Express/Getty Images)

The tiara really is the perfect size for a younger princess, and Margaret wore it often in the years before she married Antony Armstrong-Jones (when she graduated to something a touch bigger — the mighty Poltimore), as well as afterward. The next borrower of the tiara was the queen’s daughter, Princess Anne, who also wore the tiara frequently before her marriage. But then the tiara went into the vault, unseen for years until Kate Middleton arrived at Westminster Abbey for her royal wedding in 2011.

The Duchess of Cambridge wears the Cartier Halo Tiara on her wedding day (BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images)

Her choice of a bridal tiara is only one of the signals Kate has given in recent years that she wants her royal role to be patterned after that of the late Queen Mother. Kate also used another of her wedding jewels — her diamond earrings — to join together motifs from her birth and marital families. The main shape of the earrings mimics the scroll motif of the tiara, but the earrings also feature a diamond acorn, which comes from her father’s new coat of arms. We don’t know whether Kate has been loaned the tiara on a long-term basis, but the coordinating earrings made it seem highly likely that we will see her in it again someday.

Note: This is an updated version of an earlier post, with new text and images.

Belgian Royal Brides: Queen Fabiola of Belgium

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Time for the third installment of our series on Belgian royal brides! This week, we’re discussing the December 1960 wedding of King Baudouin and Fabiola Mora y Aragon; if you missed them, here are links to our earlier posts on the weddings of Queen Astrid of Belgium and Queen Marie Jose of Italy.

King Baudouin was the second child and first son of King Leopold III and Queen Astrid, who was born a Swedish princess. Baudouin’s childhood was filled with upheaval. When he was four, his grandfather’s unexpected death placed his parents on the throne. His mother died in a tragic car accident when he was five; his father made a controversial second marriage when he was eleven. In 1940, when his father capitulated to the Germans, Baudouin and his family were imprisoned and narrowly avoided a tragic fate.

King Leopold’s actions during the war were extremely controversial in Belgium, and as a result, Baudouin came to the throne in a rather unconventional way. Even though Leopold was ultimately exonerated of many of the charges leveled against him during the war, continuing political division led him to abdicate in 1951. As a result, Baudouin became King of the Belgians at the age of twenty.

Baudouin was shy and reserved. He was so committed to the Roman Catholic religion that he reportedly once considered becoming a monk. His devout faith ultimately led him to his future wife. Fabiola Mora y Aragon, the daughter of Spanish aristocrats (and goddaughter of Queen Ena of Spain), was also devoutly Catholic. She was working as a nurse in Madrid in 1959 when she was approached by Sister Veronica O’Brien. A Belgian cardinal had tasked O’Brien with finding a wife for the quiet, lonely king, and she selected Fabiola as the perfect candidate. Baudouin and Fabiola were introduced and quickly bonded, and she accepted his proposal of marriage. Baudouin later confessed in his diary that he felt God had brought Fabiola to him and that O’Brien was his “guardian angel.”

On September 16, 1960, the royal engagement was officially announced by the Belgian prime minister, and the couple appeared before the press. Baudouin and Fabiola had actually been engaged for some time before the announcement, but they had managed to keep the relationship so private that the Belgian people were surprised. The engagement announcement had been delayed because of the tragic and complicated political situation in the Congo, which was then a Belgian colony.

Baudouin and Fabiola appeared together in public in Brussels eight days later, where they were greeted enthusiastically by crowds.

In early October, the palace announced that the royal wedding would take place in Brussels on December 15. In the meantime, the couple made visits to various parts of the country, including a successful visit to Antwerp where the locals cheered “Long Live the Queen!” at Fabiola’s appearance. Wedding invitations were issued in November, and numerous foreign royals were on the guest list. Princess Margaret, a newlywed herself, was Britain’s representative. Queen Juliana of the Netherlands was on the list, as were his uncle, King Olav V of Norway, and Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg (the mother-in-law of his sister, Josephine-Charlotte), and his aunt, Queen Marie Jose of Italy. The exiled Spanish royal family sent four representatives: the Count and Countess of Barcelona, Infante Juan Carlos, and Infanta Maria Cristina.

Fabiola was not only popular in Belgium; she also became something of a superstar in her native Spain. The New York Times noted that she had “replaced movie stars and soccer champions as Spain’s current darling” and was “honored and regaled with jewels, cars, and other gifts from official and social groups.” She departed Spain ahead of the wedding on December 4. Spain’s leader, Generalissimo Franco, and his wife, Carmen, presented Fabiola with a glittering wedding gift: a diamond tiara that could be worn in various configurations.

Fabiola wore the new tiara for the first time with a yellow silk gown at the gala dinner held the night before the royal wedding. Newspapers noted the presence of Princess Margaret at the gala, wearing “a diamond-studded tiara and a gown of lilac silk.” (The tiara was the Poltimore.)

Photographs of other royal guests show Princess Irene of the Netherlands wearing her mother’s aquamarine tiara and Princess Margaret of Denmark (the groom’s maternal aunt) wearing the borrowed Khedive of Egypt Tiara.

Queen Marie Jose of Italy, the groom’s paternal aunt, wore her own wedding tiara, the Musy Tiara, to the gala.

Queen Anne of Romania (pictured with the Princess of Rethy) also wore her wedding tiara: the family’s Greek Key Tiara, a Romanov heirloom.

Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg (escorted by Baudouin’s father, King Leopold) wore the imposing Luxembourg Empire Tiara.

King Baudouin’s grandmother, Queen Elisabeth, wore her glittering Cartier bandeau at the reception. Hereditary Grand Duchess Josephine-Charlotte of Luxembourg, Baudouin’s sister, wore one of her wedding gifts, the Belgian Scroll Tiara.

The groom’s sister-in-law, Princess Paola, wore the diamond art deco bandeau that had originally belonged to Queen Elisabeth; his stepmother, the Princess of Rethy, wore a diamond Van Cleef and Arpels necklace as a tiara. A reporter for the Associated Press reported that a security officer marveled that “he never had seen so many costly gems in years of guarding royal heirlooms.”

On the morning of December 15, the family gathered at the palace in Brussels for the civil wedding ceremony. The couple signed more than twenty documents to legalize their marriage. Four men served as witnessses: for Baudouin, Prince Albert, his brother, and Hereditary Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, his brother-in-law; for Fabiola, the Marqués de Casa Riera, her brother, and the Count of Barcelona, the pretender to the Spanish throne.

Because both the civil and religious weddings were daytime affairs, the only person wearing a glittering tiara was the bride. With her Balenciaga wedding gown, Fabiola wore the Nine Provinces Tiara, which was made as a wedding gift in the 1920s for her late mother-in-law, Queen Astrid. The tiara’s distinctive height and design held its own against her wedding veil and immediately announced her new royal status.

The religious ceremony was held at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, where Baudouin’s parents had been married more than 30 years earlier.

The couple received a papal blessing from a Vatican representative and were married by the same man, Cardinal Suenens, who had instigated the search for Baudouin’s bride. They were surrounded by more than two thousand guests and 150,000 pink carnations that had been sent from Spain.

After a drive through the city and a balcony appearance, the couple departed for their honeymoon in Spain. Baudouin and Fabiola sat on the throne of Belgium for three decades, until Baudouin unexpectedly died of heart failure while on holiday in Spain in 1993. They served as a unifying presence in an often-divided nation and had a happy marriage, although their inability to have children was a source of personal sadness. Fabiola remained an important part of the Belgian royal family until her death last December.