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Image licensed to The Court Jeweller; do not reproduce |
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Image licensed to The Court Jeweller; do not reproduce |
![]() |
Image licensed to The Court Jeweller; do not reproduce |
This color photograph from the evening shows a bit of the glitter of the Plunket Tiara's diamonds. The Queen, who was escorted by Prime Minister Edward Heath, didn't just face tiara problems on her way to the gala; news reports note that she and Heath were booed by protestors as they arrived at the opera house.
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Image licensed to The Court Jeweller; do not reproduce |
The tiara loan is just one small anecdote from the Queen's fascinating, lifelong friendship with Lord Plunket. In 1974, she made him a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (perhaps partly as thanks for the tiara help?). Sadly, Plunket died of cancer in 1975, but even in death, his importance to the Queen was underscored. He was buried in the royal family's private grounds at Frogmore, and the Queen commissioned an impressive memorial in his honor in Windsor Great Park.
(Oh, and one more tiara-related sidenote re: Lord Plunket. He was an accomplished art collector who had an excellent eye. In 1959, he was the person who found out about the sale of the Poltimore Tiara and advised Princess Margaret to buy it. In the literature from the Christie's auction of the tiara in 2006, the piece is even referred to as "Patrick's tiara," suggesting that Margaret herself called it by that name.)
One question remains, though: which of the Queen's tiaras was damaged on the way to Covent Garden that night? We don't know for sure, but thanks to the Queen's tendency to repeat favorite combinations of gala jewels, we can make a pretty good guess. She also wore the Gloucester Pendant Earrings and Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee Necklace for the gala, and the tiara that she usually paired with those jewels in the early 1970s was the mighty Vladimir Tiara.
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David Cairns/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images |
We also know that the Vlad, which was nearly a century old at this point, was showing its age significantly. It had already been significantly repaired once by Garrard (in 1924, following damage incurred when it was smuggled out of Russia), and in 1988, the frame of the tiara had to be completely rebuilt. I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were breaks and repairs along the way -- including perhaps on this occasion.