A Gift from a Society Hostess: The Greville Tiara

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the Duchess of Cornwall. Image from Marie Claire

In 1942, the renowned society hostess Dame Margaret Helen Greville, the Hon. Mrs. Greville, passed away. The matron had earned the reputation for being “a snob” and gossipy lady. Cecil Beaton also described her as a “galumphing, greedy, snobbish old toad who watered her chops at the sight of royalty and the Prince of Wales’s set, and did nothing for anybody except the rich."  An extremely wealthy lady deprived of having children of her own, she bequeathed her fabulous jewelry collection to Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). She also left £20,000 to Princess Margaret, and £25,000 to Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain. Her house and estate at Polesden Lacey was willed to the National Trust in memory of her father, the brewery millionaire William McEwan.

The future queen mother hit the jackpot. She obtained, among others, a diamond necklace which was said to have been owned by Marie Antoinette, a pair of diamond chandelier earrings and selection of tiaras and a ruby necklace by Boucheron, all of which remain in the possession of the British royal family. The extent of Mrs. Greville’s bequest, though, remains unknown. The jewellery was presented in a black tin box and upon receiving her gift, Queen Elizabeth wrote to Queen Mary, praising Mrs. Greville for being "so shrewd, so kind and so amusingly unkind, so sharp, such fun, so naughty; altogether a real person, a character…”

The emerald kokoshnik tiara worn by Princess Eugenie during her wedding in 2018 was one of Mrs. Greville’s tiara.  But it would be another of tiara that Queen Elizabeth loved the most - the honeycomb-patterned diamond tiara. The royal jewelry historian Lauren Kiehna wrote: “The diamond and platinum tiara was made for Mrs. Greville in 1921 by Lucien Hirtz, the chief designer for Boucheron in Paris. Clever Mrs. Greville saved money on the new diadem by having another, older Boucheron tiara from her collection broken up so that the diamonds could be reused in the creation of this more modern tiara.

A closer look at the tiara reveals how the metal was fashioned to make it seem like they were tiny grains, thus, making it more sparkly. The Queen Mother did make some alterations to the piece. She asked Cartier to reconfigure the five diamond sections right at the top centre and the original diamonds were shifted from a graduated line to a more triangular shape. Five diamonds were added to the piece - four round brilliants, taken from a dismantled brooch, and a single marquise diamond seen at the tiara’s apex.

When the Queen Mother died, the tiara was inherited by Queen Elizabeth II, herself the possessor of an already-stupendous jewelry collection, loaned it to Duchess of Cornwall. The tiara is now closely associated with her, gracing state banquets and formal gatherings with this sparkler.