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Vicissitudes

FROM the period of the Plantagenet rule to the close of the Stuarts, the CROWN JEWELS experienced strange vicissitudes, and were repeatedly pawned to provide for the necessities of kingly ambition or extravagance. To begin with Henry III., who spent enormous sums on the decoration of Westminster Abbey, and who more than once took the jewels he had given to it, and pawned them to meet his wants. When he was in conflict with his nobles, he provided against probable contingencies by confiding the royal jewels and plate to the Queen of France, and raised money, as he required it, from the French merchants upon the security of these valuables. His successor, Edward I., had to redeem these jewels, and although saddled with his war expenses in Scotland, he managed to keep the kingly dignity unsullied in this respect. His accumulation of crown jewels, which were deposited for safety in Westminster Abbey, and, as related in a previous chapter, "Robberies," were sacrilegiously plundered, was enormous. He had four crowns: one set with rubies, emeralds, and pearls; one set with Indian pearls only; a third mounted with emeralds and rubies; and most valuable of all, the great crown of gold used at his coronation, ornamented with emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and large Eastern pearls. Among his lesser treasures were gilt combs and mirrors, pearl-covered ewers, silver-gilt mugs, knives and forks in silver sheaths, crosses set with precious stones, silver girdles and trumpets, gold clasps and rings, and a fine collection of topazes, amethysts, sapphires, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, carbuncles, garnets, and chalcedonies.