Home › Robberies › Robberies: Lovat

Robberies: Lovat

A singular anecdote is related of the famous Lord Lovat, of Jacobite tendencies. This nobleman was one evening in a ball-room in the house of Mrs. Howison Craufurd, of Crawfurdland, in the county of Ayr, and was engaged in conversation with the great-grandmother of that lady. As he was playfully examining and holding in his hand her diamond solitaire, a voice whispered in his ear "that government officers were in pursuit of him, and that he must decamp." Decamp he did, taking with him, perhaps by accident, the costly jewel. The lady was in the greatest trepidation at her loss, and her family were resolved to recover the jewel. Many years afterwards, on his return from France, Lovat, whose character in no respect rose above suspicion, was taxed with the robbery, and refunded a sum which gave twenty pounds to each of a host of granddaughters, then in their girlhood.

In the disorders attendant on the French Revolution a great robbery of jewels in the public treasury occurred in 1792. France then possessed precious stones, and diamonds especially--including the famous "Regent"--valued at twenty-one millions of francs. After the report of M. Delattre, in 1791, the quantity of diamonds in the inventory made in 1774 amounted to 7,482. At different times from that period, during seventeen years, 1,471 had been sold, but purchases of other diamonds to make buttons for Louis XVI., and to ornament his sword, raised the number to 9,547.