The Heritage of a Necklace

It's amazing how people can forever change history by altering heirlooms. This is a piece of such a history. It's about a necklace and the desires of royalty.

For your delectation:

The story begins in December 1857 when, as a result of a claim initiated by George III's fifth son, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland (from 1837 King of Hanover), Queen Victoria lost to Hanover a significant part of the family jewels she had regarded as her own. Greatly chagrined, she ordered Garrards to replace the lost jewels by taking stones from 'swords and useless things'. For this necklace, twenty-eight stones were removed from two Garter badges and a sword hilt. At the same time, the central pendant of the 'Timur Ruby' necklace, known as the Lahore Diamond, was made detachable for use as the pendant on this necklace; and two of the smaller pendants from the same necklace, originally the side stones in the Indian setting of the Koh-i Nûr, were made detachable for use as earrings (with additional stones taken from an aigrette and a Garter star). The charge for making the necklace was £65 and for making up the earrings £23 10s.

That's some seriously bling Victorian jewelry! To read the full story of what happened to the necklace after Queen Victoria's remodeling, click on the title link.