The Crown Jewels

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KEAY: Well, it’s usually a pretty practical reason. Well, two. One is to do with money, and one is to do with the scale of your court. Henry VIII famously, by the time of his death, had something like 60 palaces. That was partly funded, of course, by the dissolution of the monasteries, which involved the state raking in huge amounts of money, which meant you could build and acquire on a huge scale. Secondly, he had a big family and a big court. That means that when William the Conquerer became the first of now 40 monarchs to be crowned at Westminster Abbey almost a century later, he was already following an old-fashioned ritual, and “by the time of, say, Henry VIII, it was incredibly ancient,” says Keay, who is director of the Landmark Trust. “The objects with which the king was being invested would have seemed very, very archaic even then. He adds, “There will be about 2,000 guests instead of the 8,000 there were at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. I don’t think hereditary peers will be there, but I’m sure there will be a representative group of peers and they will probably wear parliamentary robes. Read More Related Articles But of course, it had only been in the hall, which is where it was taken from for — I can’t remember how long there, but decades — and had been taken before then by Ranjit Singh, who’s the Maharaja, from somebody that he had conquered, who had previously taken it. It had been through Persia, it had been to the Mongols, been through Pakistan. I think it’s good to have a bit of humility in considering these decisions because people don’t go around wantonly trying to destroy the environment. They think that they’re doing the right thing.

COWEN: Is it socioeconomic status that, in essence, stops your renters from trashing the places? Because if Airbnb had no star system, I would be quite worried. Whereas presumably, you have a narrower set of renters, if not higher in income, higher in education or historic understanding. Keay worked for English Heritage from 2002–2012, including seven years as Assistant Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces, [8] responsible for Hampton Court, the Banqueting House, Whitehall, and the Tower of London. [2] As its Director of Properties Presentation, she was involved in the restoration of the Elizabethan Garden at Kenilworth Castle, which featured in a 2009 BBC television series about English Heritage. [9] Massie, Allan (2 August 2008). "The kingly touch of Charles II". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 6 November 2014. Review Robert Boyle had been brought up — he was the son of an Irish nobleman — in great comfort and grandeur in Ireland. Silver spoon in his mouth and silks to wear. William Petty had been born the son of a very poor clothier in a town on the southeast coast of England. They met both in Oxford and in Ireland in the mid-17th century. Following this, the Queen donned a gold tunic and was invested with a variety of objects that are related to knightly virtues, including the Spurs of Chivalry. Dr Keay explains in her book, “English kings had been invested with spurs at their coronations since at least the inauguration of Richard the Lionheart in 1189.”KEAY: Well, I think this is such a good question because this is, to me, what the study of history is all about, which is, you have to think about what it was like for that generation. You have to think of what it was like for people in the 1950s and ’60s, who had experienced, either firsthand or very close at hand, not just one but two catastrophic world wars in which numbers had been killed, places had been destroyed. The whole human cost of that time was so colossal, and the idea for that generation that something really fundamental had to change if we were going to be a society that wasn’t going to be killing one another at all time. You have to create this sense that somehow it isn’t just about you and your body, and when you are dead, it’s over. There’s some continuity. There’s some kind of heredity that carries your aura and power and ability to command down through the generations. Anointing is part of this, which is a big thing. This is a business of a holy endorsement of your line — but also the passing on of all these objects, which, when you breathe your last on your deathbed, are still there, and attention can be drawn to them. Then they’re put on the head of your successor, and your aura passes to him or her.

Tracy Borman, author of Crown & Sceptre, says it sends out a clear message that it “represents both the resilience and the continuity of the monarchy”. Keay married fellow historian Simon Thurley in 2008. The couple have fraternal twins, Arthur and Maude, born in 2009. [2] [4] They live in London and Norfolk. [8] Awards and honours [ edit ] century monarchy’, introductory essay for State Papers On-line 1603-1714, Prof John Miller, ed., 2010. http://gale.cengage.co.uk/state-papers-online-15091714/part-iii.aspxKEAY: Well, you don’t miss something that’s not there. I think it’d be pretty hard to convince me that any Christopher Wren church wasn’t worth hanging on to. But your point is right, which is to say that not everything that was ever built is worth retaining. There are things which are clearly of much less interest or were poorly built, which are not serving a purpose anymore in a way that they need to. To me, it’s all about assessing what matters, what we care about. During the 1953 ceremony, Queen Elizabeth II was shielded by a canopy of the cloth of gold, which was held over her head by the four Knights of the Garter, as the choir sang Handel’s Zadok the Priest and the Archbishop anointed her. The Coronation Spoon used for the anointing is the oldest surviving item of the Coronation Regalia (see p27). COWEN: Sure. It could be a scepter. There are many different symbols of status you could invoke. Why a crown?

KEAY: Yes. Prosperity was in the Middle Ages, and then it essentially disappeared from the league table of affluence in the UK, as the industrial towns of the north, which is where big-scale cotton production and so on really took off. As a consequence, as a part of the UK, it is very, very beautiful. It’s not very wealthy at all, and it’s very unurbanized because it essentially still has its kind of medieval and early modern landscape, both in terms of buildings and topography. Deft, confident, deeply learned and provocative, underpinned by an extraordinary sense of the landscape and the architecture within which events occurred – alert to the strange echoes and coincidences of history contained in those spaces – Anna Keay traces with fierce intelligence the remarkable and restless lives of a restless republic’ COWEN: You’re director of Landmark Trust. How should we as outsiders think about where the revenue comes from? How does it work financially? a b c d e f g h i j k l Lister-Kaye, Hermione (13 June 2014). "Anna Keay on India, motherhood and the Duke of Monmouth". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 7 April 2017.Obviously, also long past now, but the skeleton, if you like, of a monarchy which was once an empire that stretched around the world still has connections and associations that make the British monarchy of interest in places where the Swedish monarchy might not be, as it were. But it happens to have come to pass that, actually, that seems to be quite a satisfying separation. There’s something about the apolitical nature of the monarchy, and how incredibly careful they have to be about that in a world where everything seems to endlessly be in turmoil in terms of electoral politics and so on, to have a certain sense of reassurance about it. The shadow of a king?: the exile of Charles II of Great Britain’, in Torsten Riotte, ed., Monarchy in Exile. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 Which is why, in this country, we have this thing called the listing system, where there’s a process of identifying buildings which are important, and what’s called listing them — putting them on a list — which means that if you own them, you can’t change them without getting permission, which is a way of ensuring that things which you as an owner or I as an owner might not treat with scorn, that the interest of generations to come are represented in that. KEAY: Shaky, I would say. [laughs] He composes wonderful court music, which I love because that’s great. It’s an area that I’ve worked on.

I think, if Oliver Cromwell had lived longer or named a better successor than his son, Richard, it could have endured. Fundamentally, it was before its time, I would say, and it was not sufficiently deeply rooted. Fundamentally, the people didn’t want a republic even though one was brought about. That meant it was always fragile. Anna Keay brings to life the warm, courageous and handsome Duke of Monmouth, a man who by his own admission ‘lived a very dissolute and irregular life’, but who was ultimately prepared to risk everything for honour and justice. His life, culminating in his fateful invasion, provides a sweeping history of the turbulent decades in which England as we know it was forged. I think that it’s very important for all of us who care about this stuff to remind ourselves and remind each other about the things you can do that enable you to keep your beautiful windows, but also to make sure that you are not wasting energy. It’s incredibly important to remember how you have to try and take the long view because if you let things go, you cannot later retrieve them. We look at the decisions that were made in the past about things that we really care about that were demolished — wonderful country houses, we’ve mentioned. It’s fantastic, for example, Euston Station, one of the great stations of the world, built in the middle of the 19th century, demolished in the ’60s, regretted forever since.The crown has 444 jewels and gemstones – including expensive sapphires, rubies, amethysts and topaz, although most are light blue and or bluish green aquamarines. They are set in enamel and gold mounts.