About The Crown Jewels
A single jewel in the Tower of London has seen the rise and fall of more empires, caused more bad luck, and been more prized than any other precious stone on Earth. The Kohinoor is the most famous – and infamous – diamond in the world, but it’s only one of tens of thousands of jewels and numerous crowns that make up Britain’s most valuable treasure – the Crown Jewels. Now, to mark the Queen’s historic Platinum Jubilee, 70 years on the throne, Clive Myrie explores the objects that symbolize her authority.
Collected over centuries by British Kings and Queens, these objects are now used on ceremonial State occasions including the Coronation where they announce the arrival of every new Monarch. With unprecedented access and the latest technology, Clive Myrie reveals the magnificent, astonishing, complicated thousand-year history buried within The Crown Jewels.
Courtesy of unique access to film the Crown Jewels and with the help of special macro photography techniques, Clive reveals these world famous objects, and the diamonds and other precious jewels that adorn them, in a level of detail that no one has ever seen before.
With such unprecedented access and with special macro photograph techniques, Clive reveals the jewels in such exquisite detail that no one has ever seen before. This footage adds depth to the stories we hear the Queen recount of the origin of the jewels, revealing whether or not these legends prove true.
At the Collins family workshop, official jewellers to the Queen, Clive learns the value of our national treasures: it is not only weight, cut and colour and rarity that add value. The provenance and history of the Crown Jewels collection render them beyond price. This astonishing craftsmanship is clear as we get a glimpse of the jewellers at work.
Using cutting-edge filming techniques never-previously applied to the Jewels, Clive discovers the craftsmanship that confirms the age of the Coronation Spoon: 900 years old. Another ancient piece is the emerald that sits atop St Edward’s Crown which was originally removed from a ring buried with King Edward the Confessor in 1066. St Edward’s Crown, like other Crowns, is so sacred it cannot be filmed or even observed from above.
Clive investigates the controversy surrounding some of these treasured items. The fabled Kohinoor diamond, received by the Crown as a spoil of war in 1846, after the British annexation of the Punjab, symbolizes the legacy of Empire. Author Anita Anand explores its complicated history.
These Jewels reveal the story for good or ill of our island over the last thousand years. It is a complicated history, but it is one illuminated by some of the most beautiful objects ever crafted. Seventy years after some of them were last used, are they merely relics of a bygone era? Or are they valuable symbols of heritage?
