page_title: St Edward's Crown
section_title: Restoration
hierarchical_section_title: St Edward's Crown / History / Restoration
caption_attribution_description: English: St Edward's Crown as it looked in 1685.
context_page_description: St Edward's Crown is the centrepiece of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. Named after Saint Edward the Confessor, it has been traditionally used to crown English and British monarchs at their coronations since the 13th century.
  The original crown was a holy relic kept at Westminster Abbey, Edward's burial place, until the regalia was either sold or melted down when Parliament abolished the monarchy in 1649, during the English Civil War.
  The present version of St Edward's Crown was made for Charles II in 1661. It is solid gold, 30 centimetres tall, weighs 2.23 kilograms, and is decorated with 444 precious and semi-precious stones. The crown is similar in weight and overall appearance to the original, but its arches are Baroque.
  After 1689, it was not used to crown a monarch for over 200 years. In 1911, the tradition was revived by George V, and all subsequent monarchs have been crowned using St Edward's Crown. A stylised image of this crown is used on coats of arms, badges, logos and various other insignia in the Commonwealth realms to symbolise the royal authority of Queen Elizabeth II.
context_section_description: The monarchy was restored in 1660 and in preparation for the coronation of Charles II, who had been living in exile abroad, a new St Edward's Crown was supplied by the Royal Goldsmith, Sir Robert Vyner. It was fashioned to closely resemble the medieval crown, with a heavy gold base and clusters of semi-precious stones, but the arches are decidedly Baroque.
  In the late 20th century, it was assumed to incorporate gold from the original St Edward's Crown, as they are almost identical in weight, and no invoice was produced for the materials in 1661. A crown was also displayed at the lying in state of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England from 1653 until 1658. On the weight of this evidence, writer and historian Martin Holmes, in a 1959 paper for Archaeologia, concluded that in the time of the Interregnum St Edward's Crown was saved from the melting pot and that its gold was used to make a new crown at the Restoration. 
  His theory became accepted wisdom, and many books, including official guidebooks for the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London, repeated his claim as fact. In 2008, new research found that a coronation crown and sceptre were made in 1660 in anticipation of an early coronation, which had to be delayed several times. His other regalia were commissioned in 1661 after Parliament increased the budget as a token of their appreciation for the king. The crown at Cromwell's lying in state was probably made of gilded base metal such as tin or copper, as was usual in 17th-century England; for example, a crown displayed at the funeral of James VI and I had cost only £5 and was decorated with fake jewels.
  In 1671, Thomas Blood briefly stole the crown from the Tower of London, flattening it with a mallet in an attempt to conceal it. A new monde was created for the coronation of James II, and for William III the base was changed from a circle to an oval. After the coronation of William III in 1689, monarchs chose to be crowned with a lighter, bespoke coronation crown (e.g., the Coronation Crown of George IV) or their state crown, while St Edward's Crown usually rested on the high altar.
caption: St. Edward's Crown as it looked at the coronation of James II of England in 1685
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