British and Belgian Pearls of Remembrance in Ypres for Princess Anne and Princess Claire

Before the French state visit last week, the Princess Royal headed to the continent for another important moment: the reopening of the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres.

The Princess Royal, who is the president of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, was joined by her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, and Princess Claire of Belgium at a ceremony for the official reopening of the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres.

The memorial is a triumphal arch etched with the names of more than 54,000 Commonwealth soldiers who died fighting in and around Ypres during World War I, and whose bodies were never recovered. The memorial is located on the edge of the walled town, in a place where many Commonwealth soldiers marched on their way to the front during the war.

Here’s a photograph of the memorial, which was designed by the British architect Sir Reginald Blomfield. The memorial was built by the Imperial War Graves Commission, which is now known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Underneath the lion on the top of the memorial, which represents the lions of both Britain and Flanders, is the following inscription: “To the armies of the British Empire who stood here from 1914 to 1918 and to those of their dead who have no known grave.”

The memorial was unveiled on July 24, 1927, by Field Marshal Lord Plumer in the presence of King Albert I of Belgium. The King delivered remarks, saying, “Truly, for 50 months Ypres was the threshold of the Empire, and its name would stand through the centuries as the symbol of British heroism and endurance.”

Lord Plumer added, “The hearts of the people throughout the Empire went out to them, and it was resolved that here at Ypres, where so many of the missing are known to have fallen, there should be erected a memorial worthy of them which should give expression to the nation’s gratitude for their sacrifice and their sympathy with those who mourned them,” adding, “A memorial has been erected which, in its simple grandeur, fulfils this object, and now it can be said of each one in whose honour we are assembled here today, ‘He is not missing; he is here.'”

King George V also sent a message to King Albert, thanking him for his presence at the memorial unveiling. “Our hearts are touched that you should thus honour those of the armies of the British Empire, thousands of whose graves are unknown, who one and all made the supreme sacrifice in the immortal defence of the Ypres salient,” he wrote.

For the rededication of the memorial after an extensive recent renovation project, Princess Anne wore a gray and teal ensemble with jewelry that has been part of her collection for decades.

She wore her double pearl drop earrings, her three-row pearl choker necklace, and her gold and diamond ribbon brooch for the occasion. Also pinned to her coat was the badge she wears in her role as president of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which still maintains the memorial.

Beside her, Princess Claire, who is the British-born sister-in-law of the present King of the Belgians, wore a dove gray jacket and a patterned skirt, also paired with pearls.

Here’s a closer look at Claire’s double strand of pearls and her pearl clip earrings. Belgian royal watchers noted that the jacket worn by Claire for the ceremony was borrowed from the wardrobe archive of her mother-in-law, Queen Paola.