page_title: Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom
section_title: Consort crowns
hierarchical_section_title: Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom / Crowns / Consort crowns
caption_attribution_description: English: Queen Mary's Crown
context_page_description: The Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, originally the Crown Jewels of England, are a collection of royal ceremonial objects kept in the Tower of London, which include the regalia and vestments worn at their coronations by British kings and queens.
  Symbols of 800 years of monarchy, the coronation regalia are the only working set in Europe – secular ceremonies have replaced coronations in other European monarchies – and the collection is the most historically complete of any regalia in the world. Objects used to invest and crown the monarch variously denote his or her roles as head of state, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and head of the British armed forces. They feature heraldic devices and national emblems of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and recent pieces were designed to reflect the monarch's role as Head of the Commonwealth.
  Use of regalia by monarchs in England can be traced back to when it was converted to Christianity in the Middle Ages. A permanent set of coronation regalia, once belonging to Edward the Confessor, was established after he was made a saint in the 12th century.
context_section_description: After the Restoration, wives of kings – queens consort – traditionally wore the Crown of Mary of Modena, wife of James II, who first wore it at their coronation in 1685. Originally set with 561 hired diamonds and 129 pearls, it is now set with crystals and cultured pearls for display in the Jewel House along with a matching diadem that consorts wore in procession to the Abbey. The diadem once held 177 diamonds, 1 ruby, 1 sapphire, and 1 emerald. By the 19th century, the crown was judged to be too theatrical and in a poor state of repair, so the Crown of Queen Adelaide was made for the wife of William IV to wear in 1831 using gemstones from her own collection of jewellery.
  Thus began a tradition of each queen consort having a crown made specially for her. In 1902 the Crown of Queen Alexandra, a European-style crown – flatter and with eight half-arches instead of the traditional four – was made for Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII, to wear at their coronation. Set with over 3,000 diamonds, it was the first consort crown to include the Koh-i-Noor diamond presented to Queen Victoria in 1850 following the British conquest of the Punjab. Originally 191 carats (38 g) and set in an armlet, it was cut down to an oval brilliant weighing 105 carats (21 g), which Victoria mounted in a brooch and circlet. The second was Queen Mary's Crown; also unusual for a British crown in having eight half-arches, it was made in 1911 for the coronation of Queen Mary and George V. It contains 2,200 diamonds and has contained Cullinans III and IV. In 1914 both stones and the Koh-i-Noor were replaced with crystal replicas and the arches were made detachable so it could be worn as an open crown. Mary paid for the Art Deco-inspired crown and originally hoped that it would be used by future queens consort.
  After George V died, Mary continued wearing the crown (without its arches) as a queen mother, and so the Crown of Queen Elizabeth was made for Queen Elizabeth, wife of George VI and later known as the Queen Mother, to wear at their coronation in 1937. It is the only British crown to be made entirely of platinum, and was modelled on Queen Mary's Crown, but has the usual four half-arches instead of eight. The crown is decorated with about 2,800 diamonds, most notably the Koh-i-Noor in the middle of the front cross. It also contains a replica of the 22.5-carat (5 g) Lahore Diamond given to Queen Victoria by the East India Company in 1851, and a 17.3-carat (3 g) diamond given to her by Abdülmecid I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, in 1856. Elizabeth last wore it as an open crown at the coronation of her daughter Elizabeth II in 1953. The crown was laid on top of Elizabeth's coffin during her lying in state and funeral in 2002.
caption: Queen Mary's Crown
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