Monday 2 May 2005

Spain's Enigmatic Royal Jewels

Burned to dust in a massive fire, hidden and ultimately lost in the walls of a royal palace, stolen by rival powers, sold off to support exiled royals, and otherwise whittled away to a mere shadow of its former glory. When all is said and done, what is left of Spain�s royal jewel collection may not hold a candle to those of other European monarchies, but the lore surrounding the erosion of the collection most certainly trumps the Spanish monarchy's more aureate counterparts. 

In most countries where a monarchy exists or once existed, it is fairly easy to locate or identify the historical jewels that have adorned members of the royal family and signified the power of the monarch. In Britain, the crown jewels are as recognizable as the Queen herself and far easier to see up close in person. Even Queen Elizabeth II�s personal jewel collection has been incredibly well-documented for the benefit of the awed public. The jewels of exiled royal houses are also frequently available for public admiration at museums, in pictures and, occasionally, on the venerable persons who've had either the luck or fortune to have inherited or purchased them. Many of these jewels go back several hundred years or more, while even more are exceptional in some way.  

In Spain, the jewels of the modern royal family are not particularly old, are relatively poorly documented (at least publicly), and very few individual pieces are exceptional as royal jewels go. In his book �Crown Jewels,� Prince Michael of Greece even goes so far as to call the Spanish regalia � consisting of a crown and scepter � �miserable.� It may be an accurate assessment considering that the crown is made of gilded silver and weighs about two pounds. So what happened to the riches of a country that at one time dominated an empire so massive that it was the first on which the sun never set? The answer is surprisingly complex, particularly since discerning truth from legend can be enigmatic.

Part of the problem comes down to simple semantics. The term �Crown jewels,� for instance, can be broadly interpreted. To some, the term might be understood as just the Crown regalia � the State crown, the scepter and, sometimes, the orb, which serve as the symbolic representations of the glory of the monarchy and are used in coronations and State events. More correctly, however, Crown jewels are those that belong to the Crown or the State. As Prince Michael puts it, �Handed down from ruler to ruler, from generation to generation to the head of the family, they were indivisible and incommunicable.� Therefore, Crown jewels might include everything from the regalia to swords, tiaras, rings and brooches. 

In the case of Spain, Prince Michael emphatically states that the monarchy �has no Crown Jewels.� But there are at least three separate theories of how the Spanish �Crown jewels� disappeared � and all of them contain at least some degree of truth. There�s also the little matter of the crown and scepter that have indeed been used in ceremonial events since 1775, not to mention a small collection (or so it appears) of more modern jewels that have been passed down from generation to generation � all of which have been referred to at one time or another as �Crown jewels.� Spain can also claim some historically significant jewels that, although they are not in use by the modern royal family, would certainly have been considered Crown jewels in their own day. 

Further complicating matters is the fact that information about the Spanish royal jewel collection is not always forthcoming. Unlike in Britain where the jewels of the royal family are largely publicly documented and discussed, the royal jewels of Spain are a far more private matter. Given this state of affairs, it's possible that only a portion of the jewels in the Spanish royal collection are actually worn by members of the family today, leaving us to wonder what historically important or otherwise spectacular pieces - if any - are hiding in a vault somewhere. Although public interest has certainly done much to encourage the wider availability of information about the Spanish royal jewels, there is still a dearth of published material focusing exclusively on the subject. One exception is the recently published Spanish book �Las joyas de las reinas de Espa�a� (�The jewels of the queens of Spain�) by Fernando Ray�n and Jos� Luis Sampedro, which does an excellent job of pulling together the many fragments of information into a single source. And while it clarifies a great deal and sheds some new light on the subject, it is not substantially more information than what has previously been available. Still, on the whole, what information is available is just enough to both fascinate and frustrate royal jewel lovers.

The Jewels of Empire

Some of the earliest Spanish royal jewels still in existence today are the votive crowns of the Visigoth kings who ruled on the Iberian Peninsula from the 5^th to 8^th centuries.¹ And the Royal Chapel of Granada is not only the final resting place of the �Catholic Kings� Isabella (Isabel) I of Castile and Ferdinand (Fernando) II of Aragon and V of Castile, but also of a crown and scepter that belonged to Isabella² and a sword that belonged to Ferdinand. Speaking of Isabella I, it�s interesting to note that although popular history has told us that she �pawned the Crown jewels� to finance Christopher Columbus� first expedition to the new world, most pragmatic modern historians agree that the actual story is far less sensational. According to Nancy Rubin in �Isabella of Castile�: 

�Isabella even offered to lend her jewels as collateral against Santangel�s [the keeper of the privy purse] loan�an offer the converso [a Jew who converted to Catholicism] financier deemed unnecessary, but one that later gave rise to the legend that the queen had, in fact, �pawned her jewels for Columbus�s expedition.�� 

As we know, Columbus� expeditions greatly expanded the Spanish Empire and, by the time of Charles (Carlos) I of Spain � a.k.a. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V � the fortunes of Spain had also increased dramatically. And, naturally, so had the jewels. It�s not surprising then that a precious acquisition from this era sparked one of the most confusing episodes in the history of the Spanish royal jewels. In the early 16^th century, a giant pear-shaped pearl was discovered off the coast of Panama and was acquired by Charles� son, the future Philip (Felipe) II, who gave the pearl as a wedding gift to his second wife, Queen Mary I of England. After Mary�s death just four years later in 1558, the pearl was returned to Spain and worn by generations of Spanish royals until it fell into the hands of Joseph Bonaparte, who was placed on the Spanish throne by Napoleon in 1808. In the mid 19^th century, the pearl was acquired by the Marquis (later Duke) of Abercorn, who gave it to his wife. By the early 20^th century, the pearl had been bought and sold by at least two more owners, thoroughly living up to the name it goes by today � �La Peregrina� ("The Pilgrim" or "The Wanderer"). In 1968, La Peregrina was sold at auction for $37,000 to none other than Welsh actor Richard Burton, who gave it to his wife, Elizabeth Taylor. It is still in her magnificent jewelry collection today.³  

While the peregrinations of La Peregrina seem relatively straightforward, there has been a great deal of confusion surrounding the jewel thanks to the existence of another large pearl called �La Pelegrina� (�The Incomparable�) and to a modern case of mistaken identity. Just under 100 grains lighter than La Peregrina, La Pelegrina also belonged to the Spanish royal family until Philip IV of Spain gave it to his daughter Maria Th�r�se on her marriage to King Louis XIV of France in 1660. In 1826, the pearl was purchased by the fabulously wealthy Russian Princess Tatiana Youssoupov (or Yusupov) and was eventually passed to her grandson, Prince Felix Youssoupov � popularly remembered as the murderer of Rasputin. Whether led by confusion, misinformation or self-promotion, Prince Felix wrongly claimed that his pearl was La Peregrina. Wrong as it may have been, the assertion and the similarity of the two pearls� names still manages to confuse matters to this day. In 1987, La Pelegrina sold at auction for an astonishing $463,800. The modern case of mistaken identity occurred when yet another incomparable pearl in the possession of Spain�s royal family was mistaken for La Peregrina. It seems that Alfonso XIII gave the pearl set in a brooch to Queen Victoria Eug�nie � who apparently assumed it was La Peregrina � as a wedding gift in 1906. Around the time La Peregrina was auctioned, the Duke of Alba held a press conference claiming that the real La Peregrina was in the hands of the Spanish royal family, a claim that could not be substantiated.

The Higher the Rise, the Harder the Fall

Already substantial, the Spanish royal jewel collection was even further augmented after the arrival of the first Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V � son of the French Dauphin Louis �the Grand� � in 1700. Although, as with the Hapsburg dynasty, little or no jewelry from this time still exists in the Spanish royal family today, ample evidence of the grandeur of the jewels can be found in the many portraits of the Spanish Bourbons. Something that must be kept in mind, however, when considering the historic jewels of Spain is that there has never been a coronation per se in Spain. Even prior to the unification of the disparate Iberian kingdoms, coronations were used sparingly at best, and were more often replaced by something akin to a swearing-in ceremony. The unified country of Spain continued this tradition, performing only simple accession ceremonies and an oath-taking at the Cortes (Spanish parliament). As a result, the Crown regalia were never as elaborate as in countries with a full coronation ceremony, such as England. Regardless, when the Spanish regalia of the Habsburgs and Bourbons were destroyed by a massive fire at the old palace in Madrid on December 25, 1734, it was a major loss to history. It also appears to have been a bad omen since both the Spanish monarchy and the royal jewels just seemed to slowly disintegrate from that point onward.

In 1775, during the reign of Charles III, royal silversmith Fernando Velasco created a simple new closed arch crown of gilded silver with six heraldic devices representing the kingdoms of the Hispanic monarchy. This �miserable� crown, as Prince Michael refers to it, joined a scepter from the 17^th century as the sum total of the Spanish regalia.⁴ Just 33 years later, in early 1808, Napoleon�s army prepared to enter Spain, sparking the next episode in the saga of the Spanish royal jewels. The story goes that Charles IV, aware of the pilfering that would undoubtedly take place in the royal palace in Madrid during an occupation, apparently hid his clock collection behind a wall in one of the rooms, and then hid his jewel collection in a similar fashion in another room. To be sure that he could find the precious caches at a later date, he had a servant save samples from the draperies in each room. Of course, Napoleon�s army did enter Madrid and Napoleon put his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, but although Joseph did somehow manage to get a hold of La Peregrina and quite probably a number of other important Spanish jewels, he appears never to have discovered the hidden jewels in the palace walls. When Charles IV�s son, Ferdinand VII, was restored to the throne in 1813, he brought the drapery samples back to the palace in hopes of finding the clocks and jewels. Unfortunately, Joseph Bonaparte had done a bit redecorating in the palace and changed all the draperies, making it impossible for Ferdinand to find his treasures. According to Prince Michael in �Crown Jewels�:

�Faced with the choice of having all the walls of his 360-room palace ripped open or writing off his treasure, Ferdinand VII opted for the second solution. Over the years the story of the walled-up treasure became a legend in which no one really believed any more, until a few decades ago some plumbers working in the Royal Palace brought Charles IV�s collection of clocks to light. So the story had to be true. If the clocks were there, then the jewels too must be hidden somewhere. But how to find them? To this day no one has come up with an answer.� 

As downhill as things were going for the Spanish royals, they only got worse during the reign of Queen Isabella II, who proved to be disastrous not only to the monarchy, but also to the royal jewel collection. Ironically, the trouble for both the Crown and the jewels began long before Isabella was even capable of doing any intentional damage of her own. The mere idea of Isabella as heir to the throne of Spain in the very early 1830s was enough to spark the Carlist Wars. When Isabella�s father, Ferdinand VII died in 1833, leaving the throne to his 3-year-old daughter, the situation worsened. Ruling as Regent for her young daughter, Queen Maria Christina managed to bring the Spanish Court to chaos and went into exile in 1840, taking with her ��considerable jewelry and valuables,� according to John D. Bergamini in �The Spanish Bourbons.� Enough, Bergamini continues, �to buy Malmaison, the Empress Josephine�s old residence for 500,000 francs.� Isabella appears to have followed suit. After causing considerably more trouble for Spain and the monarchy, she too went into exile during the Revolution of 1868, although not before �sending for 42,000,000 reales� worth of jewelry� (Bergamini). Like her mother, Isabella chose France for her exile, settling in a palace in Paris that she renamed the Palacio de Castilla (Palace of Castile). She spent much of the rest of her life there, all the while selling many of the jewels she brought with her from Spain. In 1878, a substantial portion of the jewels were acquired by Charles L. Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Co., who likely reset them, making them all but unrecognizable. As a result, most � if not all � of Isabella�s jewels can only be seen today in portraits like the one at right, in which she is pictured standing near what appears to be the 18^th century crown and 17^th century scepter that make up the current Crown regalia.

Restorations and Renewal

The Second Restoration of the Spanish Bourbons in 1874 brought with it a new chance to rebuild the Spanish jewel collection. Three new queens infused empty vaults with a respectable collection of new and heirloom jewels. Most significantly, Queen Ena � born Princess Victoria Eug�nie of Battenberg � was showered with new jewels by her husband, King Alfonso XIII, before, during and after their 1906 wedding. Unfortunately, fate did not shower Alfonso and Ena with good fortune and Alfonso�s reign ended in 1931 in an eerily similar manner to that of his grandmother, Isabella II. Alfonso and Ena�s marriage had deteriorated badly by the time they went into exile and the couple eventually separated. Alfonso died in 1941, but Ena lived on as the family matriarch until her death in 1969. During her lifetime, Ena sold many of the jewels she had acquired before 1931, but kept a number of significant pieces. Some of these have made their way into the hands of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, including the beautiful collar de chatones (seen worn by Queen Sofia at left) � a diamond collet necklace that was one of Ena�s wedding gifts from Alfonso and was worn by her on her wedding day. The rest of Ena�s remaining jewels were inherited by her other descendents and can occasionally be spotted at important events. Her parure of exquisite Brazilian aquamarines (seen at right) � comprised of a tiara, necklace, brooch, earrings, bracelet and ring � were most recently spotted on two of Ena�s granddaughters at last year�s most important royal weddings. The tiara (or rather an altered version of it) and earrings were worn by Do�a Olimpia Weiller (n�e Torlonia) at the wedding of Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Mary Donaldson, while the earrings, necklace and ring were worn by her elder sister, Do�a Sandra Torlonia, Countess Lequio di Assaba, at the wedding of Prince Felipe and Letizia Ortiz just over a week later. Sandra and Olimpia are the daughters of the late Infanta Beatriz (Beatrice) � Ena and Alfonso�s eldest daughter � who married Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince of Civitella-Cessi, in 1935. Still more pieces have been inherited by other extended members of the Spanish royal family, but the entire collection left by Ena is a mere shadow of what it was in her glory days.

The same can be said of the overall Spanish jewel collection today. Of course, there's still the Crown regalia, which even today seem paltry compared to the regalia of other countries. But, in a way, the Spanish regalia are actually more appropriate to the sensibilities of a monarchy that continues to eschew both an elaborate coronation and religious ceremony for a more modest event, such as that of Juan Carlos I in 1975, which took place at the Spanish parliament in Madrid. During the informal ceremony, the crown was present, but never actually placed on the king�s head. Incidentally, perhaps one of the most interesting modern anecdotes surrounding a Spanish not-quite-coronation took place in 1902 when the brand new Madrid Football Club held the �Copa del Rey� (Cup of the King) in honor of Alfonso XIII coming into his own as king. In 1920, the king repaid the kindness when he granted the football club the honor of using Real (royal) before its name, making it Real Madrid.

Aside from the regalia, the public does get to see the fairly limited amount of jewels that are frequently worn by the royal family today. The most noticeable of these jewels are naturally the tiaras. Speculation ran high prior to the wedding of Felipe and Letizia over what tiara the former newsreader would wear on the day she was transformed into a princess. Two of Queen Sofia�s most frequently worn tiaras � a shell tiara and a diamond floral tiara � were top contenders. The shell tiara (seen at left) was designed by the French jewelry house Mellerio and was given by Isabella II in 1868 to her daughter, the Infanta Isabel, on the occasion of her wedding to Prince Gaetano of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. The tiara eventually made its way to King Juan Carlos� father, the Count of Barcelona, who gave it to the then Princess Sofia of Greece as a wedding gift in 1962. The diamond floral tiara � also designed by Mellerio � was another wedding gift given to Sofia, this time by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco on behalf of the people of Spain. The Infanta Cristina wore this tiara on her wedding day in 1997. Two tiaras that once belonged to Queen Ena were also contenders � a diamond and pearl tiara designed by Cartier (seen at the top of this article) and a spectacular Fleur-de-Lys tiara (seen at right) designed by the Spanish jewelry house Ansorena and worn by Ena on her wedding to Alfonso XIII. In the end, the final choice for Letizia was a tiara that has little to do with Spain, but was worn by Sofia on her wedding to Juan Carlos. Kaiser Wilhelm II gave the diamond and platinum tiara to his daughter, Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, when she married Prince Ernst August of Hanover in 1913. In 1938, Viktoria Luise�s daughter, Frederike, brought the tiara with her to Greece when she married King Paul, and then passed it to her daughter, Sofia.

While the tiara Letizia wore on her wedding day doesn�t have a long and significant association with the Spanish royal family, it is representative of the future of the still relatively newly restored monarchy. The presence of a new princess of Asturias will likely help the collection unfold and grow as she is lent or given familiar and unknown family pieces - such as the necklace of pearls and sapphires given to her by Felipe as a wedding gift - and as she receives new pieces like the beautiful diamond earrings she wore on her wedding day, which were a gift from the king and queen. Eventually, pieces that seem new or even foreign now will become Spanish heirloom pieces, and as long as the Spanish royal family continues to prosper, so the collection of jewels will continue to grow, although perhaps not at such a rapid rate as in years past or to the extent that it once existed. But even that reality is in line with newer concepts of what a monarchy should be � more streamlined and less extravagant. Just like that �miserable� crown.

Until next time, 

- Tori Van Orden Mart�nez

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¹ For an example of a Visigoth votive crown, go to http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/ujg/crown01.jpg.

² Isabella I's crown and scepter can be seen at http://homepage.mac.com/crowns/e/avreg.html (scroll down, top photo).

³ For a close-up of La Peregrina as it was worn by Queen Mary I of England, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2004_25_mon_03.shtml.

⁴ The Spanish royal crown can also be seen at http://homepage.mac.com/crowns/e/avreg.html (scroll down, bottom photo).

The Spanish national magazine �El Mundo� has a great online supplement entitled, "Joyas de Reinas y de Letizia" (�Jewels of Queens and of Letizia�) at http://www.el-mundo.es/magazine/2004/231/1077896913.html. The article is in Spanish, but includes a number of exceptional photos of various pieces of jewelry mentioned in this column.

For more on La Peregrina and the marriage of Queen Mary of England and King Philip II of Spain, read my column entitled, �The Greatest Pearl in the Kingdom.� For more on the wedding and the lives of Princess Victoria Eug�nie of Battenberg (Queen Ena) and Alfonso XIII in 1906, read �Britain�s Queen of Spain.�

All photos are courtesy of D�njel and can be found on his wonderful royal jewels site, Royalty Danjel, at http://groups.msn.com/RoyaltyDanjel/homew.msnw.