Great George

Today is the feast of St George and a day in which in England teh order of the Garter come sto mind as a celebration of knightly virtues on the day of our national patron saint.

In recent months I have found these posts about insignia from the Order in the Royal Collection on Pinterest and thought they could be shared to mark the occasion.

The first is taken from the Royal Collection website and is about the Stuart insignia on display in Edinburgh Castle alongside the Honours of Scotland:

The back of the figure of St George and the Dragon

Image: Pinterest from Royal Collection Trust website

This magnificent Great George was supplied to Charles II in 1661 by the Royal goldsmith, Robert Vyner. It was described as ‘A v. large enamelled George set with 20 large diamonds and one hundred and odd lesser diamonds’. Charles II is depicted wearing it, together with the new coronation regalia, in John Michael Wright’s portrait of c.1670. The Great George was illustrated with Charles II’s other insignia in Ashmole’s History of the Garter, 1672. It has subsequently lost the flowing cloak worn by St George and the large diamond-set fleur-de-lis suspension loop with which it was attached to the collar. Some of the surviving stones are sixteenth century cuts and indicative of the reuse of stones following the Restoration. The oak leaves on the underside are, perhaps, an allusion to the Boscobel Oak in which Charles II hid to escape from Cromwell’s forces after the Battle of Worcester in 1651.

The Garter collar follows the style of collars produced after the Restoration. Its construction is significantly different from earlier seventeenth century collars and the finish of the reverse suggests hasty production. Collars made immediately after the Restoration included twenty-six roses and knots and weighed around 30 oz. This collar, with its twenty-one knots and weighing 33 oz 10 dwt, is therefore smaller in terms of knots and garters. The Jewel House began supplying heavier collars with twenty-one roses and knots in 1685 and it is therefore likely that this collar was made shortly after James II’s accession.

Both collar and George were taken by James II into exile in France in 1688. They appear as ‘A Collar of the order with a George to it of Diamonds’ valued at 6,000 livres in James II’s posthumous inventory drawn up at Saint-Germain on 20 July 1703. Prince James Edward Stuart is depicted wearing them in Francesco Trevisani’s portrait of c.1719-20.

The collar and George were not listed with other pieces bequeathed to the Prince of Wales by Henry Benedict, Cardinal York, in 1807. The Prince asked for their whereabouts to be investigated and in 1811 William Hill took up the task on the advice of General Mackenzie. Hill discovered that the collar and George, which were described as being ‘once in possession of Charles 2d’ had been given (by Cardinal York?) as security for debts. The whereabouts of the pieces was still unresolved at the time of the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and the topic was raised by the Prince Regent with Cardinal Consalvi when the two men met in July of that year. The Cardinal was able to inform the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, of the condition of the items when they met in Vienna in October 1815.

Although it is not known when the Prince received the collar and George they were certainly in his possession by 1825 when he wore the George at a Waterloo dinner at Carlton House: ‘He [George IV] ... acquainted his guests that the George which he reserved for his own wearing was the same which had been worn by Charles I, Charles II, and James II and was bequeathed by Henry IX, Cardinal of York to the present king’.

In 1830 the collar and George were deposited on loan by William IV in Edinburgh Castle where they remain on display with the Honours of Scotland.

Text adapted from Ancient and Modern Gems and Jewels in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London, 2008

The Royal Collection website has a series of detailed expandable photographs of the items here

This is a Lesser George  - worn on the riband of the Order - with diamonds and a ruby dated to 1693-4 and in the Green Vault in Dresden

Image: Pinterest

 

A Lesser George probably made for King George II before 1752 and  possibly remounted for King George III in 1765. It was altered for Queen Victoria in 1858 when the eight large diamonds were replaced and used in the Coronation necklace, and replaced in the badge by clusters of smaller stones

Image: Pinterest from the Royal Collection Trust

A Great George that belonged to King George III

Dated to 1775-1800

Image: Pinterest from the Royal Collection Trust

The reverse of the Great George 
 
Image: Pinterest from the Royal Collection Trust

One of the magnificent items bequeathed to the Queen Elizabeth from King George VI, was the

The Marlborough Great George
The Royal Collection

badge of the Marlborough Great George. This magnificent diamond and precious stone garter badge of St. George had been made for King George IV by an unknown jeweler, but has been altered by both Rundell, Bridge and Rundell as well as Garrard’s.

This badge was worn by King George VI in 1937 and was later worn by Queen Elizabeth II at her coronation in 1953. Her Majesty always wears it on Garter Day and at the State Opening of Parliament. The creation of the badge came about when King George IV noticed one worn by the Duke og Malborough and ordered a copy of the piece made for himself.

The badge was recently on display at Buckingham Palace as part of the 2010 “Queen’s Year” exhibition which gave citizens of Britain a chance to view objects in use by the Queen throughout her daily life in a year.

Adapted from stalkingthebelleepoque.blogspot.co.uk

Jacobite commemoration

Yesterday was the 250th anniversary of the funeral of the Stuart claimant King James III and VIII in St Peter's in Rome, and to commemorate the events of his death and burial H.M. Ambassador to the Holy See laid a wreath at his tomb. The ceremony, which was ecumenical in spirit, is described by the Ambassador on his blog, and I am very grateful to the friend who forwarded the link to it to me. The post, together with a photograph of the wreath laying, can be seen at
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/nigelbaker/2016/01/08/history-and-healing-remembering-the-stuarts/

The Special Correspondent also sent me a Jacobite link yesterday, and I am similarly grateful to him. In my post about the death of King James III and VIII I quoted the fact that from January 14th 1766 the Papacy recognised King George III as the British monarch. The Holy See never extended to the cliamant King Charles III and King Henry IX the formal recognition as monarch it had extended to their father. However it was not, apparently, until 1792 that that implicit recognition was given formal and explicit form in a Papal brief, and was responded to by the claimant who styled himself in Rome 'Cardinal Henry called Duke of York' (i.e. saying by implication  that despite being called Duke of York he was King incognito ) in a protest against Pope Pius VI's decision. It can be read at http://www.jacobite.ca/documents/17921104.htm

'Cardinal Henry called Duke of York'

A portrait at Blairs Museum, Aberdeen

Image:bbc.co.uk 

Conference on the Stuarts in Exile - June 11th

I was alerted by an advertisement in the latest edition of the Birmingham Archdiocesan newspaper Catholic Today to this forthcoming conference at Oscott College. It promises to be a very interesting day:

Nationality, Religion and Music:  the Stuarts in exile

Thursday 11th June 2015

Cardinal York - King Henry IX

10.30 Arrivals and coffee
11.00 – 12.30 Lecture: Dr Gabriel Glickman, University of Warwick, author of The English Catholic Community 1688-1745 :

               Jacobitism and Catholics in the Three British Kingdoms

12.45 Lunch
Special Exhibition open. College chapel and museum open to visitors.

 
2.00 – 3.30 Lecture: Dr Edward Corp, University of Toulouse, author of The Stuarts in Italy 1719-66: a Royal Court in permanent exile, and other works on the exiled Stuarts:
 

      Religion, Nationality and Music at the exiled Stuart Courts

3.30 – 4.00 Tea 

 
4.30-5.30 Abbot Geoffrey Scott (Douai Abbey), co-editor of Catholic Gentry in English Society: the Throckmortons of Coughton, and author of Gothic Rage Undone: English Monks in the Age of Enlightenment:

         Illustrated Lecture: ‘Stuart images and a Chapel in exile’ (the private chapel of Queen Maria Clementina in Rome)

6.00 Buffet Supper

 
7.30  Concert by Cappella Fede and Harmonia Sacra directed by Peter Leech:

     The Cardinal King: rediscovered music composed for Henry Benedict Stuart in Rome 1740-90

Various booking packages available for the day and/or evening. For all further information and bookings, please contact Mrs Maggie Wilson.

Tel: 0121 321 5026  Email: maggie.wilson@oscott.org                                                                                                                                                        

Jacobite Heraldry

Thanks to the friend who sent me the original post about Fr Elvins and the former Slains Pursuivant I republished earlier I can now also give the link to the splendid display of the heraldic ancestry of the Jacobite claimants King Charles III and King Henry IX and I. This was commissioned by Peter Drummond Murray, and as a Scots Herald, not surpringly, he displays the Royal Arms in their Scottish form rather than the English version. The display can be seen here.