Origin of the crown Some older sources date the crown to the reign of
Alfred the Great. In 853
Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, sent Alfred, his youngest son, to Rome when he was five years old. According to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred was blessed by
Pope Leo IV. Later accounts in the 13th-century
Flores Historiarum suggest that he returned to England with regalia presented to him during the ceremony. In around 1270 the historian
Robert of Gloucester connected the King of England's crown with Alfred's visit to Rome, writing, "The pope Leo him blessed when he thither came and the king's crown of this land, that in this land yet is".
A biography of Alfred written by the Welsh monk
Asser in and printed in 1574 and 1603 perpetuated the claims that Alfred had been crowned and anointed by the pope. Consequently, it was widely believed that Alfred had been anointed and crowned by the pope in anticipation of his eventual succession to the throne of Wessex and that St Edward's Crown was, in fact, the crown worn by Alfred, which descended to Edward and all succeeding monarchs. According to the 12th-century historian
William of Malmesbury, Edward wore his crown on Easter Day 1065 and again on Christmas Day of that year (
William the Conqueror later extended this custom to
Whitsunday as well as Easter and Christmas). It is thought Edward was the first English king to wear a crown with arches, known as an imperial or "closed crown", symbolising subservience to no one but God, in the tradition of
Byzantine emperors. Few descriptions survive and there are no certain visual records of it. and an inventory described it as "gold wire-work set with slight stones and two little bells", weighing .
Canonisation of Edward to the early 17th century , wearing a crown similar in appearance to St Edward's, which was not surmounted by a cross. In 1161, Edward the Confessor was made a saint, and possessions from his reign became holy relics. The monks at his burial place,
Westminster Abbey, claimed that Edward had asked them to use his regalia for the coronations of all future kings. A note to this effect is contained in an inventory drawn up by a monk at the abbey in 1450. Although the Abbey's claim is likely to have been untrue, and some of the regalia were probably taken from Edward's grave when his remains were reinterred, it became accepted as fact, An object referred to as "St Edward's Crown" is first recorded as having been used at a coronation for
Henry III in 1216. Wearing a crown owned by a previous monarch who was now also a saint reinforced the king's legitimacy. On Henry III's expedition to
Brittany in 1230, the nobles and the
abbot of Westminster refused to allow St Edward's Crown to leave the kingdom with Henry, a tradition which has continued. When Henry III created a new treasury at the
Tower of London to hold his state regalia, the holy relics of St Edward remained at Westminster Abbey. Sometime between 1359 and the mid 1450s a crown for the coronation of a queen was added to the regalia and was named Queen Edith's Crown after Edward's spouse,
Edith of Wessex.
Henry VII or his son and successor
Henry VIII commissioned an elaborate crown, now known as the
Tudor Crown, which is first described in detail in an inventory of royal jewels in 1521. After the
English Reformation, the
Church of England denounced the veneration of medieval relics and, starting with the coronation of
Edward VI in 1547, the significance of Edward the Confessor's crown was downplayed. Both
Edward VI and
Mary I were crowned with three crowns in succession: first St Edward's Crown, second the Tudor Crown (termed the 'Imperiall crowne' in contemporary accounts) and finally in 'very rich' crowns made specifically for each of their coronations. Three crowns were also present at the coronation of
Elizabeth I, and she was probably crowned in the same fashion as her predecessors.
Destruction During the
English Civil War and following
Charles I's flight from London in 1642, rumours circulated in London (which held some truth) that the king was attempting to sell the crown jewels in Holland in order to fund a war against parliament. Parliament declared that anyone trafficking the crown jewels—which were the property of
the Crown and not the king personally—was an enemy of the state. In 1643, suspicions arose in parliament that the coronation regalia had been taken from Westminster Abbey to York by the royalist
Dean of Westminster,
John Williams. When the sub-dean refused to allow access for the regalia to be checked, a motion was brought before parliament to force the opening of the abbey treasury. The first motion failed, but a second motion passed which ordered the locks to be opened, an inventory made, and the locks changed. The inventory was taken by
Henry Marten and
George Wither, who were reported by
Peter Heylyn to have mocked the regalia, with Marten having dressed Wither in St Edward's Crown and robes, who then, 'marched about the room with stately garb and afterwards with a Thousand Apish and Ridiculous Actions exposed these sacred ornaments to contempt and laughter'. Following the
execution of Charles I in 1649, the regalia were removed from the abbey and taken to join the rest of the Crown Jewels and plate at the Tower of London. Parliament ordered that the regalia, then under the supervision of Sir
Henry Mildmay,
Master of the Jewel Office, 'be totally broken, and that they melt down all the gold and silver and sell all the jewels to the best advantage of
the Commonwealth.' Henry Mildmay stayed away, but his nephew and Clerk of the Jewel House,
Carew Mildmay, returned the instructions 'not obeyed', for which he was jailed at
Fleet Prison. Nonetheless, an inventory and valuation was taken, and the reglia was broken up and sold or turned into coinage. St Edward's Crown was described in the inventory as, 'King Alfred's Crown of gold wire-work set with slight stones and two little bells', weighing , valued at £3 per ounce, total value
£248 10s 0d.
Restoration in 1685, by the engraver
William Sherwin The monarchy was
restored in 1660, and in preparation for the coronation of
Charles II, who had been living in exile abroad, a new St Edward's Crown and
a new state crown were ordered from the Royal Goldsmith, Sir
Robert Vyner. The new St Edward's Crown was fashioned to closely resemble the medieval crown, with a heavy gold base and clusters of semi-precious stones, but the arches are decidedly
Baroque. In the late 20th century, it was assumed to incorporate gold from the original St Edward's Crown, as they are almost identical in weight, and an invoice was produced in 1661 for the addition of gold to an existing crown. A crown had also been displayed at the
lying in state of
Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England from 1653 until 1658. On the weight of this evidence, writer and court historian Martin Holmes, in a 1959 paper for
Archaeologia, concluded that in the time of the
Interregnum St Edward's Crown was saved from the melting pot and that it was enhanced at the Restoration. His theory became
accepted wisdom, and many books, including official guidebooks for the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London, repeated his claim as fact. In 2008, new research found that a
coronation crown was made in 1660 in anticipation of an early coronation, which had to be delayed several times. This crown was enhanced with additional gold in 1661 after Parliament increased the budget as a token of their appreciation for the king. The crown at Cromwell's lying in state was probably made of gilded base metal such as tin or copper, as was usual in 17th-century England; for example, a crown displayed at the funeral of
James I had cost only £5 and was decorated with fake jewels. After the coronation of William III in 1689, monarchs chose to be crowned with a lighter, bespoke
coronation crown (e.g., the
Coronation Crown of George IV) or their state crown, while St Edward's Crown usually rested on the high altar.
20th and 21st centuries with St Edward's Crown Edward VII intended to revive the tradition of being crowned with St Edward's Crown in 1902, but on coronation day he was still recovering from an operation for
appendicitis, and instead he wore the lighter
Imperial State Crown. Jewels were hired for use in the crown and removed after the coronation until 1911, when it was permanently set with 444 precious and semi-precious stones. Imitation pearls on the arches and base were replaced with gold beads which at the time were platinum-plated. Its band was also made smaller to fit
George V, the first monarch to be crowned with St Edward's Crown in over 200 years, reducing the crown's overall weight from to . In December 2022, the crown was removed from the Tower of London to be resized ahead of its use in the
coronation of Charles III on 6 May 2023. Its circumference was enlarged by sawing the base into four pieces and welding -wide strips of gold into the gaps. Eight new gold beads were then added to the rim. ==Description==