Today marks the 310th Anniversary of Death of Queen Anne, who died on this day in 1714! The three-centuries old Queen Anne and Queen Caroline Pearl Necklaces are among the oldest heirlooms of the Crown, which were given as a wedding gift to the late Queen from her father in 1947!
The first necklace, of forty-six pearls, belonged to Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart monarchs. Horace Walpole wrote in his diary:
Queen Anne had but few jewels and those indifferent, except one pearl necklace given her by Prince George.’
The longer necklace, of fifty pearls, come from Queen Caroline, the wife of King George II, which was created from the four very fine pearl necklaces she wore at her Coronation in 1727.
These two strands of large, lustrous, graduated pearls, each with pearl clasps, are always worn together and were left to the Crown by Queen Victoria, who listed in her 1896 inventory that the smaller necklace belonged to Queen Anne and that the longer necklace belonged to Queen Caroline.
In 1947, the Queen Anne and Queen Caroline Pearl Necklaces were among the Wedding Gifts presented by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to their daughter, the then Princess Elizabeth, and were among the Jewels displayed at St James’s Palace.
On the morning of her Wedding Day, the Princess made a last minute decision to wear the Queen Anne and Queen Caroline Pearl Necklaces with Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara, which had to be hastily fetched from the display by her Private Secretary on the morning of the wedding, who had to commandeer the King of Norway’s car to return them to the Palace in the midst of the Crowds.:
John Colville had recently been appointed her Private Secretary, and was to travel to Westminster Abbey in her carriage procession. Half an hour before they were scheduled to leave Buckingham Palace he was summoned did they allow him to remove the pearls. to her second-floor sitting room. The pearl necklaces had been left on display with all the other wedding gifts at St James’s Palace.
He rushed down the seemingly endless red-carpeted corridor, hurtled down the Grand Staircase, and ended up in the quadrangle, where he commandeered King Haakon VII of Norway’s large Daimler. Although traffic had been stopped since early morning, the crowds were so deeply packed that the car, even flying its royal flag, had to halt while he fought his way through on foot. When he arrived at the Friary Court entrance to the State Apartments, there was only an elderly janitor to listen to his odd story, but he finally allowed Colville upstairs to explain his mission to those charged with guarding the thousands of presents. If they accepted his story and he turned out to be a clever thief; but if they refused to let him have the necklaces and it all turned out to be true, they were equally in trouble. In the end the Princess got to wear her pearls.
While the Queen usually wore her Three-Strand Pearl Necklace, the Queen Anne and Queen Caroline Pearl Necklaces made a handful of notable appearances over the years, like in Australia in 1954, in India in 1961, for her Silver Jubilee in 1977, at the Wedding of Prince Edward in 1999, and the Wedding of Peter Phillips in 2008.
More recently, the late Queen wore the Queen Anne and Queen Caroline Pearl Necklaces for her Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace in 2012. While the Three-Strand Pearl Necklace has been worn by Princess Anne, we have yet to see the historic Pearl Necklaces reappear!
