The ownership of this tiara is rather mysterious. As a jewel transmitted from Queen (Mary) to Queen (Elizabeth II), it should now be a part of the Royal Collection (which is the copyright mentioned by Geoffrey Munn in his book Tiaras, A History of Splendour, page 134), and not a private property of the Queen.
But when she presented the Lovers Knot tiara to Diana as a wedding gift in 1981, the Queen could not foresee that the Royal Family would be plagued, a decade later, by so many divorces. A royal marriage was supposed to last for life: so it made sense, at that time, that gifts were fully given, and not only "loaned", as it is now the case. Therefore, it would be a logical deduction that William (or Harry) inherited the tiara at their mother's death. But that would not be coherent with the tiara being part of the Royal Collection.
Another possibility could be that the Lovers Knot tiara was a "gift for life" to Diana - a kind of intermediary position between a gift in full property and a mere loan. That would imply that the tiara reverted back to the Queen after Diana's death (or even after her divorce). That would also be coherent with an information posted by our well-informed (and much-missed) poster Boffer in 2011 indicating that "most of the historic royal jewels that Princess Margaret was gifted by her mother and sister during her lifetime were only gifts-for-life and thus reverted back to the Queen upon her death".
We can notice that Hugh Roberts, in The Queen's Diamonds (page 182), remains silent about the ownership issue: "the tiara was inherited by The Queen from her grandmother in 1953 and was worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, following her marriage in 1981". But he does not disclose if the tiara had been given or loaned, and if the tiara went to the Queen or to Prince William (or to Prince Harry) after Diana's death.
Note that the words used in the documentary on Youtube should not be taken for a granted and sure truth. Actually, there seems to be some errors in this documentary. For example, a few minutes after the passage about the Lovers Knot tiara, the authors of the documentary discuss Queen Alexandra's wedding gift parure, and erroneously mention that the brooch of the parure had remained with the Queen-Mother (whereas we know that it was bequeathed by Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth II).
Anyway, I hope we will not have to wait for decades before we can see this beautiful Lovers Knot tiara again! It is both delicate and majestic, and I am sure it would look great on the Duchess of Cambridge!
--Previous Message-- : Thanks for the link to this documentary ! : : --Previous Message-- : I found this documentary while looking for : something else. Its on the British Royal : Jewelry, talks about the Queen, Queen Mary : and Princess Diana. The True Lovers Knot : Tiara is mention on 31:15 as one of two : pieces of Royal jewelry owned outright by : Diana and is the hands of her sons as her : legacy. I don't know how true this is and I : know this was talked about before. This is : my two cents on the subject. : PJ : British Jewels Doc : : : :
on October 8, 2014, 6:50 am, in reply to "
