Odd when you come to think of it, crowns. But ever so important to some and the designs are so varied. Possibly all peoples have - or have had - crowned heads and the designs unique to each culture..... most of my cards with assorted kings are wearing the wrong ones. And oh how I long for the crackers of old which had many different paper crowns not just a silly ring of tissue. Do you think Queen Vic designed that diddy little job herself...... for jaunty day wear, I assume.

Crowns, or in Danish-Swedish-Norwegian languages 'kroner', is the name of the coinage of the lands, but their design both as coins and in paper varies decidely.

Oops, sorry P., I started replying before having read your message to the end.

We used to have - crowms and in more use, half a crown,  2/6 2hillings and sixpence and one of those in your childhood pocket made you gang royalty in the sweet shop circuit of penny sweets -alas we only have p's now - and you can't even pee for a p in some places...... Regards, P. (So what of royal Scandinavian heads? What denotes top dog royal status .......paper crowns?(high denomination natch.))

AFAIK P., the royal heads of state are just proclaimed when their predecessors drop of.

The last Norwegian coronation took place when King Haakon VII was elected following the secession from Sweden 1905.
The last Danish one was, I think, when Christan VIII took over in 1840, I never heard of his successor, being crowned nor anointed.
The last Swedish one was, according to wiki, of Oscar II in 1873.

Interesting list Nielsen. It's yet another example of how much more advanced the Scandinavian countries were than the UK in terms of constitutional development. Hopefully 1953 will also go down as being the last time England was subjected to such.

May it also be mentioned that Norway abolished noble titles by law in 1821 to be out of use in three generations. 
The Danish Constitution of 1849 stopped ennoblements and promised that entailments should be abolished as well, this was made law in 1919 even though those so entitled [sorry, bad pun] might continue to use whatever titles they held; since then no Dane has received an inheritable title but a few foreigners have had their titles acknowledged when being naturalized.
Regarding Sweden, the last conferment of nobility took place in 1902, yet only by the Constitution of 1974 was this possibility removed from the Crown.

In these three countries, though, the Monarch may still grant titles to his/her immediate family and their spouses or ex'es.
One such example was when the Danish Queen granted the title of Countess on the ex-wife of her younger son, with the explanation that she is the mother to two heirs to the throne, and still carries out some royal duties. 
The Countess Alexandra of Frederiksborg has this year announced that following the coming of age of her younger son, she will no longer receive public money.


Edited because of cleaning up misunderstandings

Nielsen,

are they still entitled to make Knights, Barons and all that has the king can do here each year?
Even a cartoonwriter was made Knight...
http://www.marc-sleen.be/en/home
http://www.marc-sleen.be/en/who-is-marc-sleen/life-and-work
" In 1999 Marc Sleen was knighted by King Albert II. He was the first Flemish comic strip author to earn this distinction."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Nero
https://goo.gl/WsUKh7://goo.gl/WsUKh7


Marc Sleen passed away...

Kind regards, Paul.

Addendum:
it as to be:
https://goo.gl/WsUKh7
instead of the other one: a mingling of the two

Kind regards, Paul.

Hello Paul, thank you for the references above.

Yes, a number of knights are created every year as well as some court offices are filled, but no inheritable titles like barons or counts has been created outside of the royal family since 1849.

Kind regards to you too, and my best seasonal greetings for all members of this forum.

Thanks Nielsen for the explanation, I think it is a bit the same now allover the kingdoms of Europe, even in Britain? I wonder if it is the same in the principality of Liechtenstein...in some weeks the grand-daughter moves to Switzerland and will work in Liechtenstein...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Liechtenstein
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein


Kind regards from Paul.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" always used to puzzle me. Surely it would be more comfortable to remove it when going to bed? I know I always did.

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" always used to puzzle me. Surely it would be more comfortable to remove it when going to bed? I know I always did.

Gilgamesh,

is this an "existential" question...?

Although all this English stuff is Greek for me (is Chinees voor mij) I guessed that it was from Shakespeare...who else would be quoted in this Christmas period...but yes...Charles Dickens...?
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/396000.html

Kind regards from Paul.

Indeed it is Will I Am Shakespeare (or perhaps another dramatist of the same name), from Henry IV part 2. This is probably to intensify the scene where the young Henry V tries on the crown thinking his father is dead - but he isn't.

Gilgamesh of Uruk,

(or perhaps another dramatist of the same name)

that's what I like so much about you...not the statement...but the way in which it is brought...

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

Thanks Paul - but it is entirely undeserved. I recycled it from a quote about the Iliad and the Odyssey, ascribing them to Homer "or another Greek author of the same name". see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/06/AR2008030603279.html

Crowns do seem to cause their owners anxiety, especially at night. Priyanka Chopra, who had the unfortunate distinction of being crowned Miss World in 2000, had just the same problem as Henry IV.

When I became Miss World, I couldn't believe I had won it. I used to sleep with my crown because I was scared someone would steal it. In a minute, the world changed for me.


Exeunt all but PRINCE HENRY

Prince Henry: Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
O polish'd perturbation! golden care!
That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night! sleep with it now!
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
Snores out the watch of night.



Miss World.




Henry IV (couldn't find one of him in bed).

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

Thanks Paul - but it is entirely undeserved. I recycled it from a quote about the Iliad and the Odyssey, ascribing them to Homer "or another Greek author of the same name". see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/06/AR2008030603279.html

Gilgamesh,

but is there not a parallel...? Shakespeare from what I heard, but not sure...also been considered not as a the one author or even another or a collective...that was what I read about Homer too...

PS. To Temperance...welcome back...have something to say about South-Africa...read today in a scientifical montly about transferring a head from one person to another...they have already done tests with corpses...Gil mentioned a link, If I recall it well about a science- fiction novel in the "café" and after some thinking I said to him to better wait till you were back...remember our discussion about body-brain-mind, spirit, soul...
But first after my loss of yesterday I will try to finish my thread about Wilhelm II and the Sonderweg...

Kind regards to both from Paul.

Did anyone else see the Queen making snappy remark about crowns and coronations? To celebrate her coronation we had a family party for which  made a crown center piece - with purple jelly, much glace fruit, fruit gums and of course whipped cream. For the 4 cross bar bits I used royal icing set over milk bottles - and having lack of food colouring, painted  these with yellow curtain dye. Surely a bad, bad, bad, E number dye at that but the family all survived - I was quite a creative child but would not dream of doing anything as daft in my dotage.

I am fascinated by the Black Prince's Ruby:

The Black Prince's Ruby is a large, irregular cabochon red spinel weighing 170 carats (34 g) set in the cross pattée above the Cullinan II at the front of the Imperial State Crown of England. The spinel is one of the oldest parts of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, with a history dating back to the middle of the 14th century. It has been in the possession of England's rulers since it was given in 1367 to its namesake, Edward of Woodstock (the "Black Prince").

The stone is supposed to have been worn in the helmet of Henry V at Agincourt and by Richard III at Bosworth - but is this fact or merely romantic legend? The ruby is also supposed to be cursed, I believe - no doubt because we pinched it from someone.

As metonyms go, "the Crown" is a pretty evocative one - and these days always seems to refer to "the Crown" of the Sceptred Isle. It's even the title of an excellent boxed set which Her Majesty has apparently enjoyed. How odd to see your own life -  private and public - being acted out for all the world to gawp at and discuss, courtesy of Netflix.

It's actually all a bit blingy and vulgar, isn't it?

Fancy even having your very own soundtrack CD for your life. Most of us have to make do with Simon and Garfunkel.

The history of the so-called Black Prince's Ruby, ie that big spinel in the Imperial State Crown, is fairly well attested since the middle of the 14th century when it was in the possession of Abu Sa'id (Mohammed VI), the Moorish Prince of Grenada. According to historical accounts, Abu Sa'id wished to surrender to Don Pedro of Castille and although the conditions Don Pedro offered were unclear, what is certainly recorded that is that he greatly wanted to get his hands on Abu Sa'id's great wealth of gems and jewellery. When Abu Sa'id finally met with Don Pedro to come to terms (in 1362), the King had Abu Sa'id treacherously killed, and when the corpse was searched the spinel was found on his person and so was duly added to Don Pedro's possessions.

Don Pedro's avaricious glee at having gained the gem was short-lived for in 1366 his illegitimate brother, Henry of Trastámara, led a revolt against him. Lacking the power to put down the revolt unaided, Don Pedro made an alliance with Edward the Black Prince, the son of Edward III of England. The revolt was successfully put down and the Black Prince demanded the ruby in exchange for the valuable services he had rendered, and although Don Pedro greatly coveted the gem, he was in no position to decline the Black Prince's request. It can be assumed that the Black Prince took the Ruby back to England although it is absent from historical records until 1415 when it seems to have been in included in the the gem-encrusted diadem that encircled the helmet that Henry V is recorded as wearing at the battle of Agincourt. Having by then been obviously included into the royal battle crown it is supposed to also have been in the crown worn by Richard III at Bosworth, and thus famously passed to Henry VII via the intermediary of a thornbush. The specific gem itself is again mentioned in a 1521 inventory of Henry VIII's jewels by which time it had been included into another crown, that newly-made for Henry VII (or possibly for Henry VIII) .

What is slightly dodgey is how, when Cromwell flogged off all the Crown Jewels, the Black Prince's Ruby is not listed amongst those sold off, nor as retained ... but yet it somehow found its way back into the hands of Charles II in time for his coronation in 1660.

Interesting stuff, MM.  Sad that you are missing a BBC prog about the royal art collection and packaged with fascinating tales that were all new to me. Next week should be good when perhaps they might say how the art sold off by Cromwell to pay debts etc was brought back into the fold........ did the builder who got a Titian and £500 ponds for the £900 owed him sell it back?

Just when I thought and with  jaded eye - and at my age - that I knew much on this topic, it turns out I knew nothing. Hoping to live a bit longer to learn a bit more.

Re. the Black Prince's Ruby during the interregium ...

Cromwell had most of the Crown Jewels broken up and sold off to the highest bidder in 1649 but Charles I had partially pre-empted him in 1642 by getting some of the pieces transported to pawnbrokers or safe-houses in the Netherlands, a move that prompted both Houses of Parliament to declare all traffickers of the Crown Jewels to be enemies of the state. So it is possible that the Ruby was removed from the crown and transported abroard, while the crown itself remained in Britain before being broken up and the individual gems sold off.

The crown containing the Ruby was at that time the one constructed for either Henry VII or Henry VIII, and which is depicted in Elizabeth I's Armada portrait:



... and in this 1631 portrait of Charles I:



Here's the crown in close-up with the Black Prince's Ruby set at the front in a floral-type cluster setting (rather than the cross setting as it is in the current Imperial State Crown):



If the Black Prince's Ruby did spend the Civil War in an Amsterdam pawnbroker's shop, I wonder how much ready cash Charles got for it ... a few year's earlier in his reign it had been valued at just £4 - the equivalent of a paltry £500 at today's money.

Cromwell was actually a bit of a failure really, when you think about it. Couldn't get rid of crowns, Christmas or sex. He did try though.

Tiaras fascinate me. Several articles have been published recently following the announcement of the impending nuptials to be celebrated between HRH Prince Henry of Wales and Ms Meghan Markle (not to be confused with Ms Angela Merkel). Organs as diverse as the Daily Mirror and the Independent have offered us all useful advice, and have warned the princess-to-be that on no account should she show up anywhere (certainly not the Birmingham Arena) wearing a tiara - at least not until her actual wedding day. Unmarried ladies must not be seen in tiaras until wedded, or about to be wedded (ie actually in the church in front of the altar). Her Majesty often lends out a nice head decoration from her huge collection of tiaras to royal brides, although the aristocratic families in England usually have their own. Apparently Diana, Princess of Wales told the Queen to stuff her offer of a really posh royal tiara - she had her own Spencer one, thank you. Here it is (also Countess Spencer, Diana's sister-in-law, in the tiara on her wedding day):






Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother also decided she didn't want a royal tiara: she opted for a flowery headdress - no head-bling at all. Sarah, Duchess of York, had both: she arrived at Westminster Abbey to marry Prince Andrew with a veil covering her face and a large wreath of flowers on top. She departed the abbey as the Duchess of York, flowery headgear removed, to reveal a diamond tiara made of leafy diamond scrolls and diamond collets mounted in platinum. This had apparently been given to her (not merely loaned) by Her Majesty. It became a royal piece - "the York Diamond Tiara". I hope she gave it back after the divorce.

The Scottish crown is of course the real McCoy and not some mucked about parvenu. Its earliest history is a bit opaque but it was remodelled for Mary of Guise in 1540 from an earlier incarnation.




Pearls are so much more tasteful than big, flashy, knocked-off gems, aren't they?





However if I had to wear something show-offy on my head, I think I would go for something Macedonian like this,





I believe commemorative crown coins are still being produced, I have drawerful of coronation, Churchill and jubilee ones that I have been given over the years.

Here we are for a Friday afternoon; 4.9% ABV, from Oz:

Isn't the Iron Crown of Lombardy supposed to be around 1500 years old and thus puts all the ones from these isles to scorn - and none of them has a nail of the True Cross in it either.

The French can go one better - they have the actual Crown of Thorns (minus the thorns which were all flogged off over the years - Mary Queen of Scots buying one which has ended up in Stonyhurst, of all places, thereby proving the old adage that a fool and their money ends up owned by the Jesuits). Napoleon, having dumped all the other relics from Saint-Chapelle that had been sacked during the Revolution, decided he'd hold on to the crown but presumably didn't find it very comfy and gave it to the National Library. The perplexed librarians, correctly surmising there was little of literary value to the thing, opted to lend it to the Archbishop of Paris (not a great reader obviously) who, in true Christian with a big C fashion, "forgot" to return it.

It can still be viewed in his gaff, Notre Dame Cathedral, every Friday around 3pm. The fine on the thing when the library gets it back must be enormous by now. Almost enough to make a new one ... oh, wait ...

Temperance wrote:

Cromwell was actually a bit of a failure really, when you think about it. Couldn't get rid of crowns, Christmas or sex. He did try though.

Poor old Nol, maligned again! Whilst he may not have personally approved of Christmas, whether he wanted to ban its celebration for all is a debateable point, but not one for this thread. With nine children he can hardly be accused of wanting to get rid of sex! As for crowns, he seems to have been a monarchist at heart. He was excluded from the Committee which decided the 'settlement of the nation' following the execution of Charles I, and therefore cannot be held responsible for the abolition of the monarchy. He certainly didn't want the Crown himself, but he certainly didn't dismiss it out of hand. The fate of the Crown Jewels is an interesting issue. Roy Sherwood, in The Court of Oliver Cromwell, makes reference to a theory that the crown which adored Cromwell's funeral effigy was, in fact, the supposedly destroyed St Edward's Crown, subsequently refashioned for Charles II's coronation. Unfortunately he does not go into details, and I have not seen the theory anywhere else. It's an intriguing possibility.

Priscilla wrote:

Did anyone else see the Queen making snappy remark about crowns and coronations?

We recorded The Coronation program on the digibox where it languished along with other ‘will try and find time to watch’ programs. It was later joined by The Queen’s Green Planet the other week. So they ended up being viewed as a sort of double bill as it were:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2018/the-coronation

https://www.itv.com/hub/the-queens-green-planet/2a5383a0001

Both programs were illuminating each in its own way but they couldn’t have been more different as viewing experiences. The BBC’s Coronation program was stuffy and staid and even Her Majesty seemed bored and irritated by the oleaginous and sycophantic interviewer. ITV’s Green Planet, in contrast, was literally a breath of fresh air. The nonagenarian Sir David Attenborough was the perfect foil for the Queen. They are almost exact contemporaries (she’s about a fortnite older than he is) and their playful attempts to out-dodder each other was a joy to behold.

Noteworthy was the stark contrast in speaking styles of Prince William and Prince Harry. The former was shown giving a written speech delivered in a monotone and scratchy voice. Prince Harry, by comparison, was much more relaxed and articulate when speaking to people engaged in the project. The program makers seemed to realise this which is why there was much more broadcast time devoted to sequences involving him.

The viewers also got to see a remarkably badly decorated Christmas tree in Windsor Castle. Blue lights and yellow lights and gold and silver tinsel and all run in horizontal lines – utterly hideous. The irony, of course, is that Windsor was the location of the introduction to the British Isles of the tradition of decorating conifers brought first by Queen Charlotte and later popularised by Prince Albert. One wonders when good taste was lost or was it ever thus.

But overall the Green Planet program is well worth seeing. If there is one thing which her realms will fondly remember the reign of Elizabeth II for, then the woodland canopy project is surely a contender. A truly meaningful legacy worthy of the Crown.

Having today applied online to renew my British passport, I noticed that the emblem of the crown on the government's website has changed, presumably because it is now Charles III's government and so the royal cypher has been updated. I hadn't realised that the stylised crown above the royal cypher - the symbol that appears on such things as government documents, court buildings and prisons, the uniforms of beefeaters and state trumpters, and on post boxes and mail vans etc. - was not a standard unchanging heraldic device but can actually differ between monarchs. Having looked more into this I now see that Queen Elizabeth used a depiction of St Edward's Crown for matters relating to England and Wales, and used a representation of the Scottish Crown for affairs north of the border.

   

King Charles III has retained the use of the Scottish Crown for matters relating to Scotland, but for everywhere else he has adopted a representation of what is called the Tudor Crown. In this he has followed the manner of Georges VI and V, Edwards VIII and VII, and of Victoria (which is as far back as I've looked).

         

   

The Tudor Crown motif is based on the crown that was originally made for either Henry VII or VIII and was last used by Charles I before being broken up by Cromwell, with the gold being melted down for coin and the jewels sold off. The Tudor Crown was a state crown - that is a crown of estate, an 'everyday' crown as it were, to demonstrate the monarch's estate or status, like the use of the current Imperial State Crown when opening Parliament - as opposed to the Coronation Crown, St Edward's Crown, which is only ever used for the coronation itself. The original St Edward's Crown had been in use from well before the Norman Conquest and was last used to crown Charles I, but then it too was scrapped by Cromwell along with nearly all the ancient regalia. The current St Edward's Crown was made to a completely new design and mostly with replacement jewels for the coronation of Charles II in 1661.


This is the original Tudor Crown as depicted in a 1631 painting of Charles I. I think one of the prominent red stones at the front might be the so-called Black Prince's Ruby (actually a spinel) which somehow survived the general sell-off by Cromwell (the Black Prince's Ruby is currently in the Imperial State Crown, made in 1937). This famous stone, plus the few other ancient gems that could be recovered, either from pawnbrokers or from royalists who had bought them in order to keep them safe until the Restoration, were put into the new regalia. However in 1661 most of the jewels, whether in the replacement St Edward's Crown or in Charles II's State Crown, were actually hired just for the occasion - albeit that many of these gems were eventually purchased outright.

Although Queen Elizabeth's coronation was before my time I seem to remember there was a bit of an uproar in Scotland when it was proposed to put the new queen's E II R cypher onto Scottish postboxes because of course she wasn't the second but only the first Elizabeth to reign in Scotland. If memory serves me right the GPO eventually gave up trying and all the mail boxes in Scotland just had the crown alone on them. King Charles is quite correctly the third Charley to reign in Scotland but nevertheless, given the movement for independence, I wouldn't be surprised if any new Scottish postboxes and post vans continued the practice of not displaying the sovereign's initials with their regnal number and just had a representation of the Crown of Scotland alone. In this area at least it would mean that nothing actually needed to be changed (although of course post boxes very rarely get changed and there are even some still bearing the VR cypher).

 
English and Scottish mail vans: the English one bears Elizabeth II's full cypher on the door, the Scottish one just has the Crown of Scotland.