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The Royal Crowns: Crown

THE STATE CROWN OF QUEEN MARY, CONSORT OF GEORGE V.

This beautiful and light diamond crown was made for the coronation of Queen Mary in 1911 by Messrs. Garrard, the Court Jewellers. In the centre of the circlet is one of the lesser Cullinan diamonds of square shape, and the rest of the ornamentation, in open work, consists of diamond bosses of circular form divided by quatrefoils, each composed of four fine single diamonds.

The circlet is surmounted by four crosses-patée and four fleurs-de-lys as usual in English crowns, the Koh-i-Nur being set in the centre of the front crosspatée. The Elizabethan plan of having four complete arches over the top of the crown is followed in principle, only that the arches are not actually complete but halved, so that they are really eight half-arches of reversed continuous curves, tapering upwards. In architecture this form is known as an ogee arch. The half-arches, rising from the tops of the crosses-patée and the tops of the fleursde-lys, are broad at their bases and taper sharply upwards. Their outlines are marked by a narrow fillet and the spaces between the fillets are each filled with a graduated line of six brilliants. At their tops each half-arch has a small additional outward curve, on the extreme end of which is a single diamond. a The graceful design of ogee arches for closed crowns has often been used abroad, especially in France, but until lately it has not been used in England. The arches support an orb, mound or monde, with a cross-patée above it, in the centre of which is set a beautiful drop-shaped Cullinan diamond. The device of an orb surmounted by a cross, which is only a version of the royal orb itself (see p. 32) has long been used as a finial to all English royal crowns. The cross, however, has gradually changed its shape from the original Latin form to that of a cross-patée, probably because this particular form has for a long time held the place of honour as the centre ornament above the circlet on all the English royal crowns. The design, as a whole, signifies the dominion of the Christian Faith over the world.