Prehistory and Romans The earliest known use of a crown in Britain was discovered by archaeologists in 1988 in
Deal, Kent, and dates to between 200 and 150 BC. A sword, brooch, ceremonial shield, and decorated bronze crown with a single arch, which sat directly on the head of its wearer, were found inside the tomb of the
Deal Warrior. At this point, crowns were symbols of authority worn by religious and military leaders. Priests continued to use crowns following the
Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD. A dig in a field at
Hockwold cum Wilton, Norfolk, in the 1950s revealed a bronze crown with two arches and depictions of male faces, as well as two bronze
diadems with an adjustable headband and
repoussé silver embellishments, dating from the Roman period. One diadem features a plaque in the centre depicting a man holding a sphere and an object similar to a shepherd's crook, analogues of the orb and sceptre that evolved later as royal ornaments.
Anglo-Saxons , wearing a crown, presents an illuminated manuscript to
St Cuthbert, 930 By the early 5th century, the Romans had withdrawn from Britain, and the
Angles and the
Saxons settled. A
heptarchy of new kingdoms began to emerge. One method used by regional kings to solidify their authority was the use of ceremony and insignia. The tomb of an unknown king – evidence suggests
Rædwald of East Anglia () – at
Sutton Hoo illustrates the regalia of a pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon monarch. Inside the early 7th-century tomb, discovered in 1939, was found the ornate
Sutton Hoo helmet, consisting of an iron cap, a neck guard, and a face mask decorated with copper alloy images of animals and warriors set with
garnets. He was also buried with a decorated sword; a ceremonial shield; and a heavy
whetstone sceptre, on top of which is an iron ring surmounted by the figure of a stag. In 9th-century Europe, gold crowns in the
Byzantine tradition were replacing bronze, and gold soon became the standard material for English royal crowns.
King Æthelstan () united the various Anglo-Saxon realms to form the
Kingdom of England. In the earliest known depiction of an English king wearing a crown he is shown
presenting a copy of
Bede's
Life of St Cuthbert to the saint himself. Until his reign, kings were portrayed on coins wearing helmets and circlets, or wreath-like diadems in the style of Roman emperor
Constantine the Great. Whether they actually wore such an item is not known. After crowns, sceptres were the most potent symbols of royal authority in medieval England.
Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor () is depicted on a throne and wearing a crown while holding a sceptre in the first scene of the
Bayeux Tapestry. Edward died without an heir, and
William the Conqueror emerged as the first
Norman king of England following his victory over the English at the
Battle of Hastings. Wearing a crown became an important part of William I's efforts to assert authority over his new territory and subjects. At his death in 1087, the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reported: "[William] kept great state … He wore his crown three times a year as often as he was in England … He was so stern and relentless … we must not forget the good order he kept in the land". The crown-wearings took place at feasts held on Christmas Day in
Gloucester, Easter Day in
Winchester, and
Whitsun in
Westminster, where William had the crown placed on his head before the
royal council by the Archbishop or another high-ranking member of the clergy. of Edward the Confessor In 1161, Edward the Confessor was made a saint, and objects connected with his reign became holy relics. The monks at his burial place,
Westminster Abbey, claimed that Edward had asked them to look after his regalia in perpetuity and that they were to be used at the coronations of all future kings. Although the Abbey's claim is likely to have been an exercise in self-promotion, and some of the regalia had probably been taken from Edward's grave when he was reinterred there, it became accepted as fact, Westminster Abbey is owned by a monarch, and the regalia had always been royal property – the abbots were mere custodians. In the following centuries, some of these objects would fall out of use and the regalia would expand to include many others used or worn by monarchs and queens consort at coronations. In 1216,
King John of England supposedly
lost some of his jewels and plate after his baggage train was swamped by an incoming tide during the
First Barons War. Whether any coronation regalia were among his lost treasures is undetermined. An object referred to as "
St Edward's Crown" is first recorded as having been used for the coronation of John's eldest son
Henry III () and appears to be the same crown worn by Edward. Being crowned and invested with regalia owned by a previous monarch who was also a saint reinforced the king's legitimacy. The crown would be used in many subsequent coronations until its destruction in the 1600s. Few descriptions survive, although one 17th-century historian noted it was "ancient Work with Flowers, adorn'd with Stones of somewhat a plain setting", and an inventory described it as "gold wire-work set with slight stones and two little bells", weighing . Edward is thought to be the first English king who wore a crown with arches. Known as a 'closed' or
imperial crown, the arches and cross symbolised the king as an emperor of his own domain, subservient to no one but God, unlike some continental rulers who owed fealty to more powerful kings or the
Holy Roman emperor. Also in the Royal Collection was an item called a
state crown, which together with other crowns, rings, and swords, constituted the monarch's state regalia that were kept mainly at royal palaces, separate from the coronation regalia.
Late medieval period in the
Coronation Chair at Westminster Abbey, 1859 The handing over of crowns symbolised the transfer of power between rulers. Following the
defeat in 1282 of the Welsh prince
Llewelyn ap Gruffydd by
Edward I (), the Welsh regalia, including the crown of the legendary
King Arthur, were surrendered to England. According to the
Chronicle of Aberconwy Abbey, "and so the glory of Wales and the Welsh was handed over to the kings of England". After the
invasion of Scotland in 1296, the
Stone of Scone was sent to the
Tower of London "in recognition of a kingdom surrendered and conquered". It was fitted into a wooden chair, which came to be used for the investiture of English kings and known as the
Coronation Chair. The Scottish regalia were also taken to London and offered at the shrine of Edward the Confessor; Scotland eventually regained its independence. In the treasury of
Edward II () there were no fewer than 10 crowns. When
Richard II () was forced to abdicate, he symbolically handed St Edward's Crown over to his successor with the words "I present and give to you this crown … and all the rights dependent on it". Monarchs often pledged items of state regalia as collateral for loans.
Edward III () pawned his
magna corona to
Baldwin of Luxembourg in 1339 for more than £16,650, . Three crowns and other jewels were held by the
Bishop of London and the
Earl of Arundel in the 1370s as security for £10,000. One crown was exchanged with the
Corporation of London in 1386 for a £4,000 loan. Mayors, knights, peers, bankers, and other wealthy subjects sometimes released objects on a temporary basis for the royal family to use at state occasions. Monarchs also distributed plate and jewels to troops in lieu of money. At some point in the 14th century, all of the state regalia were moved to the
White Tower at the Tower of London owing to a series of successful and attempted thefts in Westminster Abbey. The holy relics of the coronation regalia stayed behind intact at the Abbey. Having fallen out of use in England in the 13th century, two arches topped with a
monde and cross reappeared on the state crown during the reign of
Henry V (),
Tudors and early Stuarts The traditions established in the medieval period continued later. By the mid 15th century, a crown was formally worn on six religious feasts every year: Christmas,
Epiphany, Easter, Whitsun,
All Saints' Day, and one or both feasts of St Edward. A crown was displayed and worn at the annual
State Opening of Parliament. Also around this time, three swords – symbols of kingship since ancient times – were being used in the coronation ceremony to represent the king's powers in the administration of justice: the Sword of Spiritual Justice, the Sword of Temporal Justice, and the blunt
Sword of Mercy. (), the last Tudor monarch, in her coronation robes An emerging item of regalia was the orb, described in
Tudor inventories as a gold ball with a cross, which underlined the monarch's sovereignty. Orbs had been pictorial emblems of royal authority in England since the early Middle Ages, but a real orb was probably not used at any English coronation until
Henry VIII (). State regalia increasingly passed from one monarch to the next. The best example of this was the
Tudor Crown, probably created at the beginning of the Tudor dynasty. After the
English Reformation, when England broke away from the authority of the
Roman Catholic Church, the
Church of England denounced the veneration of medieval relics and downplayed the history of St Edward's regalia. The concept of hereditary state regalia was enshrined in English law in 1606 when
James I (), the first
Stuart king to rule England, decreed a list of "Roiall and Princely ornaments and Jewells to be indyvidually and inseparably for ever hereafter annexed to the Kingdome of this Realme". The Dutch proved reluctant to lend money on the jewels, considering that the
English Parliament might declare the transactions invalid, as James had annexed the jewels to the crown and they were not Charles's personal property. Charles's many conflicts with Parliament, stemming from his belief in the
divine right of kings and the many religious conflicts that pervaded his reign, triggered the
English Civil War in 1642. Parliament deemed the regalia "Jewels of
the Crown": their ownership was vested in the monarch by virtue of his public role as king and not owned by him personally. To avoid any legal risk to his subjects, Charles asked his wife,
Henrietta Maria, to smuggle the inalienable property of the Crown abroad and sell it on the Dutch jewellery market. Upon learning of the scheme, the
House of Lords and
House of Commons both declared anyone involved in trafficking the Crown Jewels to be enemies of the state. Henrietta succeeded in disposing of a small quantity of jewels, albeit at a heavy discount, and shipped munitions back to England for the royalist cause. Two years later, Parliament seized of rare silver-gilt pieces from the Jewel House and used the proceeds to bankroll its own side of the war.
Interregnum standing beside Henry VIII's Crown, 1631 After nine years of war, Charles was defeated and executed, and less than a week later, the
Rump Parliament voted to abolish the monarchy. The newly created
English Commonwealth found itself short of money. To raise funds, the Act for the Sale of the Goods and Personal Estate of the Late King, Queen and Prince was brought into law, and trustees were appointed to value the Jewels – then regarded by
Oliver Cromwell as "symbolic of the detestable rule of kings" and "monuments of superstition and idolatry" – and sell them to the highest bidder. The most valuable object was Henry VIII's Crown, valued at £1,100. Their gemstones and pearls removed, most of the coronation and state regalia were melted down and struck into coins by
the Mint. Two
nuptial crowns survived: the
Crown of Margaret of York and the
Crown of Princess Blanche had been taken out of England centuries before the Civil War when Margaret and Blanche married kings in continental Europe. Both crowns and the 9th-century
Alfred Jewel give a sense of the character of royal jewellery in England in the Middle Ages. Another rare survivor is the 600-year-old
Crystal Sceptre, a gift from Henry V to the Lord Mayor of London, who still bears it at coronations. Many pieces of English plate that monarchs had presented to visiting dignitaries before the interregnum can be seen in museums throughout Europe. Cromwell declined Parliament's invitations to be made king and became
Lord Protector. It was marked by a ceremony in
Westminster Hall in 1657 where he donned purple robes, sat on the Coronation Chair, and was invested with many traditional symbols of sovereignty, except a crown. A crown—probably made of gilded base metal—was placed beside Cromwell at his lying in state in 1660.
Restoration to present The
monarchy was restored after Cromwell's death. For the English coronation of Charles II (), who returned from exile abroad, new Jewels were made based on records of the lost items. It was decided to fashion the replicas like the medieval regalia and to use the original names. These 22-carat gold objects, and the Dutch ambassador arranged the return of extant jewels pawned in Holland. The king also spent £11,800 acquiring of altar and banqueting plate, and he was presented with conciliatory gifts. and his accomplices attempting to steal the regalia, drawn 1793 In 1669, the Jewels went on public display for the first time in the
Jewel House at the Tower of London. The Deputy
Keeper of the Jewel House took the regalia out of a cupboard and showed it to visitors for a small fee. This informal arrangement was ended two years later when
Thomas Blood, an Irish-born army officer loyal to Parliament, attacked the 77-year-old deputy and stole a crown, a sceptre, and an orb. Blood and his three accomplices were apprehended at the castle perimeter, but the crown had been flattened with a mallet in an attempt to conceal it, and there was a dent in the orb. He was pardoned by the king, who also gave him land and a pension; it has been suggested that Blood was treated leniently because he was a government spy. Ever since, the Jewels have been protected by armed guards. Since the Restoration, there have been many additions and alterations to the regalia. A new set was commissioned in 1685 for
Mary of Modena, the first queen consort to be crowned since the Restoration (Charles II was unmarried when he took the throne). Another, more elaborate set had to be made for
Mary II (), who was crowned as
joint sovereign with her husband
William III (). and the English regalia continued to be used by
British monarchs. Gemstones were hired for coronations – the fee typically being 4% of their value – and replaced with glass and crystals for display in the Jewel House, a practice that continued until the early 20th century. The most valuable gemstones were taken out of their settings by
James Mann,
Master of the Armouries, and Sir
Owen Morshead, the Royal Librarian. They were wrapped in cotton wool, placed in a tall glass preserving-jar, which was then sealed in a biscuit tin, and hidden in the castle's basement. Also placed in the jar was a note from the King, stating that he had personally directed that the gemstones be removed from their settings. As the Crown Jewels were bulky and thus difficult to transport without a vehicle, the idea was that if the Nazis invaded, the historic precious stones could easily be carried on someone's person without drawing suspicion and, if necessary, buried or sunk. After the war, the Jewels were kept in a vault at the
Bank of England for two years while bomb damage to the Jewel House was repaired. In May 2023, St Edward's Crown was placed on the head of
Charles III () in the only ceremony of its kind in Europe. Other European monarchies have abandoned coronations in favour of secular ceremonies. The Crown Jewels consist of approximately 140 objects, ==Crowns==