Things to know about St.Edward's Crown of King Charles III
World
Things to know about St.Edward’s Crown of King Charles III
(Web Desk) King Charles III was crowned as King on May 6 with the St Edward's Crown. Charles’s crown—St. Edward’s Crown, which was last used in 1953 to crown his mother, Elizabeth II—is more than 360 years old, stands one foot tall and weighs nearly five pounds.
ST. EDWARD’S CROWN
St. Edward’s Crown is made of 22-carat gold and 444 precious and semiprecious stones, including 345 rose-cut aquamarines, 37 white topaz, 27 tourmalines, 12 rubies, seven amethysts, six sapphires, two jargoons, one garnet, one spinel and one carbuncle.
Key facts about St Edward's Crown include:
• The solid gold frame weighs 2.23kg (nearly 5lbs) and is adorned with semi-precious stones. It has a velvet cap with an ermine band.
• St Edward's Crown was made for the coronation of Charles II to replace the medieval crown melted down by parliamentarians in 1649, after the execution of King Charles I.
• This lost medieval crown was said to have belonged to the 11th-century royal saint, King Edward the Confessor.
QUEEN MARY’S CROWN—AND THE KOH-I-NOOR DIAMOND
Camilla will use Queen Mary’s crown—which has a gold-lined
silver frame and 2,200 diamonds—and will carry a controversial scepter made of ivory. Camilla’s crown will not feature an infamous gem, the Koh-i-Noor diamond, a 105.6-carat stone mined in India with a long, disputed history that is seen as a symbol of the United Kingdom’s colonial history. Queen Mary’s crown will instead be fitted with Elizabeth II’s Cullinan III, IV and V diamonds, which are 94.4, 63.6 and 18.8 metric carats
respectively—though these gems have also faced criticism and calls to be returned to South Africa where the large Cullinan diamond was mined in 1905.
