Yesterday marked the 10th Anniversary of the Death of Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, who passed away in 2014! The youngest of the infamous Mitford sisters who married 12th Duke of Devonshire and made Chatsworth into a glorious tourist destination, the Duchess possessed some spectacular Heirlooms of the Cavendish Family, which was highlighted by the Devonshire Diamond Palmette Tiara!

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Made for Louise, Duchess of Devonshire (also known as the Double Duchess) in 1893, the Devonshire Diamond Palmette Tiara is composed of 13 palmette motifs separated by lotus motifs, set on a base of three rows of diamonds, by jeweller A.E. Skinner.

The Tiara was supplied by A.E. Skinner of Orchard Street, consisting of ‘twelve honeysuckle ornaments with fourteen between pieces resting on a two-row bandeau with collets between’. It was set with 1,907 diamonds, $1,041 belonging to his Grace broken from old ornaments and, as had been the case with the Londonderry diamonds, all were listed by number and weight.

The Diamond Palmette Tiara was only pictured on the Duchess on a handful of occasions, but the design proved to be popular as an almost identical Diamond Palmette Tiara was created for Duchess Louise’s daughter, the Countess of Derby.

The Tiara was worn by Evelyn, the next Duchess of Devonshire at the 1911 Coronation of King George V, when she was Mistress of the Robes to Queen Mary, as Duchess Debo wrote in her autobiography:

My grandmother-in-law, Evelyn Duchess of Devonshire, was Mistress of the Robes to Queen Mary for forty-three years from 1910. Together they weathered long hours of tiara’d evenings, including those during the fabulous Indian Durbar in Delhi in 1911. The magically beautiful but relentless program, carried out in torrid heat, was exhausting for all concerned, and after one particularly lengthy evening Granny Evie was heard to say, ‘The Queen has been complaining about the weight of her Tiara…The Queen doesn’t know what a heavy tiara is.’  Evelyn knew what she was talking about. The larger of the two Devonshire diamond tiaras in indeed a whopper.”

Duchess Evelyn wore the Diamond Palmette Tiara for official portraits and galas during her husband’s tenure as Governor General of Canada, as well as the Coronation of King George VI in 1937.

While Mary, the next Duchess of Devonshire wore the Diamond Palmette Tiara during her husband’s tenure as the 10th Duke of Devonshire, she was notably pictured wearing the Tiara for a series of portraits taken by Cecil Beaton ahead of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. A few years earlier, the Duchess had been described at the State Opening of Parliament in 1938:

the honours were all Moucher Devonshire’s, who sat there for the first time. She looked extraordinarily imposing in black with the Devonshire Tiara …

The Dowager Duchess wore the Diamond Palmette Tiara during the Coronation Ceremony for Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey in 1953, paired with her Opal Necklace, as Duchess Debo recalled:

My mother-in-law, Mary Devonshire, was Mistress of the Robes to the Queen from 1953 to 1967.  Tall and beautiful, she looked magnificent when dressed for a grand occasion.  The big tiara suited her perfectly and anyone who saw her in close attendance on the young Queen at the coronation in 1953 will remember the perfection of her bearing on that famous day.

As the Mistress of the Robes, the Dowager Duchess wore the Diamond Palmette Tiara to various State Openings of Parliament in the 1950 and 60s among numerous State Occasions until she retired as Mistress of the Robes in 1965.

In the course of her duties, which included formal banquets for visiting heads of state and other ceremonial occasions, she used to fetch the jewels from the bank stowed in a Marks & Spencer carrier bag.

The Diamond Palmette Tiara was also worn by the Dowager Duchess on State Visits to Sweden and The Netherlands, usually paired with her Opal Necklace (which could also be worn as a Tiara).

While Duchess Debo wasn’t pictured wearing the Diamond Palmette Tiara during the early years of her tenure as the Duchess, she describes occasions when she wore it in her autobiography:

I remember going to…an entertainment in London in the early 1960’s, by myself as Andrew had an engagement elsewhere. With…confidence I wore the big tiara…When I ran out of partners and wanted to go home, I went out to look for a taxi. It never occurred to me that it might not be a good idea to stand alone in the street, long after midnight, with a load of diamonds around my neck and 1,900 more glittering above my head.

Another memorable evening we were staying at Windsor Castle for a dance given by the Queen. I came down to dinner, got up as I thought our hostess and the other guests would be, the big tiara firmly in place. To my horror none of the other women wore theirs. It is far worse to be overdressed than underdressed a I sat through dinner wishing I was anywhere else. When the dancing began, I took it off, put it under a chair and enjoyed myself enormously. I suppose Windsor Castle in the only house where you could be sure of finding the blessed thing still there at bedtime.”

The Duchess also wore the Diamond Palmettes as Brooches on some occasions, most notably for the Wedding of her only son, the Marquess of Hartington, to Amanda Heywood-Lonsdale in 1967.

However, Duchess Debo was pictured wearing the Diamond  Palmette Tiara in 2000, at her 80th Birthday Party, when she also wore Duchess Louise’s dress worn to the famous 1897 Diamond Jubilee Ball.

Suddenly Andrew and I were eighty. It was also the year of the millennium: two reasons for a party. Up went another huge tent and a revolving stage on which John Hyatt, the husband of Tristram Holland who edited four of my books, performed a wonderful rendition of Elvis. The invitation said ‘fancy dress’, and there were plenty of other Elvises, men in gold lamé suits whom I never thought to see in anything so uninhibited and shiny.

I wore the gown designed by Worth of Paris for Louise, Duchess of Devonshire to wear at the Devonshire House Ball in 1897. It is made of green and gold shot-silk gauze, with a velvet train embroidered with jewels, metalwork and gold and silver thread, and weighs a ton. The original headdress had disappeared so I wore the largest of the three family tiaras, adorned with ostrich feathers for added impact.”

After the Duke’s death in 2004, the Diamond Palmette Tiara was among the jewels passed on from Duchess Deborah to the current Duchess:

After Andrew’s death, I handed the family jewellery on to my daughter-in-law, Amanda. It was not mine, just as it had not been Moucher’s: it belongs to Chatsworth, to be worn by the wife of the Duke of Devonshire.”

Most recently, the Diamond Palmette Tiara and the Cavendish Tiara both went on display at ‘Power & Image: Royal & Aristocratic Tiaras’ at Sotheby’s in London in 2022. Let’s hope we see the Tiara worn again soon!

Diamond Palmette Tiara | Devonshire Diamond Rivière | Devonshire Parure | Ruby Clasp | Craven Brooch | Insect Brooches | Aquamarine Brooch | Duchess of Devonshire’s Tiaras 

Devonshire Diamond Palmette Tiara

Duchess of Devonshire’s Tiaras

Devonshire Diamond Rivière

Devonshire Parure

Ruby Clasp

Craven Brooch

Insect Brooches

Devonshire Tiara

Devonshire Diamond Rivière

Ruby Clasp

Wellington Tiara

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Bagration Spinel Tiara