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The Tudors and the Stuarts: Crown

Immediately after the accession of Charles II., a proclamation was issued commanding all persons holding possession of any jewels or plate belonging to the Crown, to restore the same. Nathaniel Hearne, a London merchant, was arrested for refusing to give up "Queen Elizabeth's great and precious onyx stone," upon which he professed to have lent money. Frances Curson was committed to prison, for having received a hatful of gold and jewels at the time of the dispersion of the Crown jewels, and she confessed that she knew of a Jesuit who had managed to appropriate property of the same kind worth forty thousand pounds. However, the royal valuables came in but slowly. Two years after the proclamation was issued, a warrant was granted to certain parties to search for and seize a diamond hatband and garter, a gold wedge and cup, and a stirrup of gold, taken from the late king's closet at Whitehall. In the same year, too, it was thought necessary to appoint a commission "to examine the accounts of the so-called trustees, contractors, or treasurers, for the sale of the late king's goods; viz., the crowns, jewels, plates, pictures, etc., formerly kept in the Tower and Whitehall Jewel-Houses, but forced from the persons to whom they were intrusted, and disposed of to those who were not creditors to the late king, and who are therefore not pardoned by the Act of Oblivion, but must return the property, or pay over the money they received for it;" but nothing came of this royal commission.