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

Thistle Chapel

Today is the feast of St Andrew, and a suitable day on which to blog about the Order of the Thistle, whose present Chapel in St Giles' Edinburgh is 105 years old this year.

 

The Queen attends the Order of the Thistle ceremony in Edinburgh earlier this year

 

Image: Andrew Milligan/PA/Daily Telegraph 

 

The Chapel Royal at Holyrood as laid out for the Order of the Thistle by King James VII in 1687

After Jan Wyck

Image: Andrew Cusack

I hunted this picture out a while ago for a friend who is a specialist in the life and reign of King James II and VII and think it worth sharing - so far as I know it is the only picture of the interior of the abbey at Holyrood before the vault collapsed in the eighteenth century.

There is a useful, illustrated account of the history, insignia and chapels of the Order, and a discussion of the oath taken by the Knights today at http://www.andrewcusack.com/2010/order-of-the-thistle/

The Order of the Thistle

Today being St Andrew's feast day seems an appropriate one on which to post something about the Most Noble and Most Ancient Order of the Thistle, founded in its present form in 1687.

There is a detailed and well referenced article here about the Order.

To that I would add the following reflections.

The ascription of the foundation of the Order to King James III (1460-88) appears to derive in particular from the presence in the inventory of his treasure made after his death at the battle of Sauchieburn in 1488 of a collar whose description matches that of the present Order. The design of links bearing the Thistle and sprigs of rue, said to be the floral emblem of the Picts looks to my eye like a typical late medieval punning rebus - Thistle and rue/Thistle Andrew.

St Andrew with King James III and the future King James IV.
From the Trinity Panels by Hugo van der Goes
Royal Collection on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland
Photo from Englishmonarchs.orm

I discussed these points with a Scottish academic at the last Fifteenth Century Conference to be held in Oxford. She had done her doctoral thesis on chivalric culture in late medieval Scotland, and was clear in her own mind that James III had not founded an Order such as the Thistle. Nonetheless he does seem to have at least produced the design of the collar, and indeed to have promoted the Thistle as a national emblem. Like his son King James IV and his grandson King James V he seems to have been keen to demonstrate the courtly and artistic claims of the Scottish monarchy.

King James V's claim to be the founder of the Order arises partly from the fact that he is depicted in contemporary as well as later paintings wearing a collar of Thistles - perhaps his grandfathers'.

Anonymous, probably contemporary, portrait of King James V
Photo from Wikipedia

It is at least likely that the KIng established an Order in about 1540, but that his death in 1542 caused it to founder during the minority of his daughter Queen Mary I. One reason for him founding his own chivalric order was that, courted by the great powers of the day he had received the Garter from King Henry VIII, the Golden Fleece from the Emperor Charles V and the St Michael from King Francis I, and wanted to show himself their equal in courtly display.

The restored carvings showing the arms of England, Scotland, Spain and France encircled by their chivalric Orders over the entrance to the Palace at Linlithgow, built by King James V circa 1540
Photo from Scottishramparts.com

Thereafter the Order appears to have disappeared, and indeed in other Protestant countries such as Denmark and Sweden late medieval chivalric orders went into abeyance until later centuries revived them.

When King James VII established the Order in 1687 I think I am correct in saying that I have seen it stated that he designated purple mantles for the knights, and that the choice of green dates from the further revival under Queen Anne in 1703 - no conferments having been made since her father's flight in 1688. In 1687-8 King James had athe St Andrew Jewel made- a cameo with the saltire and thstle surrounded by twelve diamonds. This was one of the jewels he took with him into exile, and they were bequeathed to King George III in 1807 by Cardinal York (the de jure King Henry IX and I). On December 8th 1830 King William IV orded that they be displayed with the Honours of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle.

King James VII also renovated the nave of Holyrood Abbey as a Chapel Royal, but this was sacked and the royal tombs desecrated in 1688 by the Edinburgh mob, and in 1768 the vault of the nave collapsed, leaving the ruin one sees today. The restoration of these remains of the abbey church has been proposed several times since the 18th century - in 1835 by the architect James Gillespie Graham as a meeting place for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and, in 1906, as a chapel for the Knights of the Thistle, but both proposals were rejected. In the case of the latter plan I think it rather a missed opportunity, although Sir Robert Lorimer did produce instead in 1911 the beautiful chapel of the Order at St Giles Cathedral.

The Queen and Prince Philip with the Officers of the Order of the Thistle outside St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh

Photo from shug17uk on Flickr

Blenheim Palace

This morning I led a small group from a summer school here in Oxford on a tour of Blenheim Palace. As it turned out today is the anniversary of the battle in 1704, so it was a very suitable day on which to make a visit.

It is a while since I had visited Blenheim, and the whole business of welcoming visitors has expanded, but what was on offer was very well done, and the Palace is impressive, if very much a self conscious national monument - indeed that fact lay at the root of many of the disputes over its construction. It is grand, but impersonal. When the ninth Duke commented about the way the monument of the first Duke dominates the chapel "Here we worship Churchills" he was not far wrong. Of course such a complex building has to be understood in terms of the social norms which dictated its plan, and how these have changes - the rooms were designed for rather different functions than those they present today. I enjoyed this visit more than my previous one - but I would still say there are many more appealing grand houses of families of similar prominence. Nonetheless worth saying you have seen it.

One thing I regret is that there is nothing left of Woodstock manor. Apparently Vanburgh wanted to preserve the remains, but the formidable Duchess Sarah insisted upon their removal. From what I have gleaned from the Victoria County History volume for Woodstock it was a substantial complex, and presumably with features from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. A great loss. I am surprised the site has never, so far as I know, been excavated.

Looking round houses such as Blenheim it is often the not so obvious things which stay in the mind. Yesterday these included family photographs of Winston Churchill and other members of the family sitting and talking on the steps of the great entrance circa 1901 - a reminder that this was (and is, I suppose) a family home. There were also the three sheets of the Letters Patent of Queen Victoria appointing the seventh Duke as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1876, all three bordered with the floral badges of the Monarch, and at the top the Royal Arms flanked by the English and Irish Royal Crests - the latter comprising the castle tower with the white hart emerging. Not as good heraldic art as you would get in the twentieth century, but a reminder of the ancient linkage of an undivided Ireland to the Crown.

Amongst the portraits two struck me - one of the first Duke's sister Arabella, mistress of the future King James II and VII and mother of, amongst others, the Jacobite Marshal Duke of Berwick, and the other, perhaps booty from the war which brought Marlborough to such prominence, a state portrait of King Louis XIV, seated in his robes of state and holding the royal sceptre and the Main de Justice. This is not the only portrait of the King at Blenheim - there seems to have been a pleasure in displaying images of the great adversary.