A black tin box full of jewels. This was the pass to the eternity of the most astute Margaret Greville, the lady of the beautiful English world of the last century who in 1942 left the collection of priceless historical as well as economic value to her friend Elizabeth, then queen consort mother of the current Queen Elizabeth. A lover of gossip and a sorceress of intrigues, with her spirit she could have blessed before time the love story that more than others in casa Windsor withstood the shocks of time and protocol, the one between Carlo and Camilla, sealing the success of the operation with a quantity of diamonds that are rightly loved by Duchess of Cornwall.
To understand the fictional plot hatched by Mrs. Greville lost in the branches of various family trees we have to go to his birth certificate dated 1863. Registered as Margaret Helen Anderson, the socialite was actually the fruit of the relationship between her mother, Helen Anderson, and the owner of an Edinburgh brewery, the rich William McEwan. To stifle the scandal, tal William Murray Anderson, a McEwan employee who had the same surname as Helen, takes charge of the family for a while until in 1885 the two lovers get married and young Maggie can breathe a sigh of relief.
With his family status settled and his father’s money he can set out in search of a good match and climb the plans of the English aristocracy. Since ambition was certainly not lacking in the young lady, in 1891 she managed to marry the captain Ronald Greville, son of a baronet and a writer, later became a member of Parliament. Ronnie, as he was called in the environment, he was so well integrated into the tours that count as to be a close friend of the then Prince of Wales, son of Queen Victoria and future Edward VII. The couple lived in sumptuous mansions that hosted the best parties of the time and the guest rooms sometimes became alcoves for clandestine loves like that of King Edward VII, in fact, and Alice Keppel that is – twist! – Camilla’s great-grandmother.
Ronald Greville died aged 43 in 1908. After about a couple of years of mourning, the widow regained a leading role in society and immediately understood that to do so he had to start collecting royalty and jewels. It is said that his casket contained pieces that belonged to Maria Antonietta and Giuseppina Bonaparte and, it seems, also a Catherine the Great. He was loyal customer of Boucheron and Cartier and he loved to keep up with the jewelry trends of his day.
His ruthlessness was no mystery to anyone. The photographer Cecil Beaton he called her in his diaries “a greedy, snobbish old toad who did nothing for anyone unless they were rich” and it seems they were friends too. There is an anecdote about Margaret called Maggie that tells well both her stench under her nose and the size of her precious stones.
It is said that the host of one of his banquets lost the central diamond of his necklace. While all the guests were scrambling to feel the floor in search of the gem, she came into the room with a magnifying glass, merely saying with contempt: “Can you help?”. In fact, no one could compete with her in terms of carats.
Margaret and Ronald didn’t have time to have children. When the socialite passed away in 1942 she was delivered to the wife of King George VI, Elisabetta, the famous box with a laconic note that we could translate as follows: «With affection». The amount of that affection is still unknown. If Mrs. Greville had not given orders to burn all her documents upon death, perhaps we would know more (it is said that she did not want to be remembered with her alleged sympathies for Nazi Germany). What is known is that the content of the so-called “Greville legacy»Has never been disclosed but it should now include about sixty pieces even if the feeling is that the jewels of the collection can potentially never end.
There was a certain royal modesty in wearing such good fortune on the part of the then queen consort. A school of thought reports that King George VI was not too happy that his wife showed off a legacy that was the protagonist of the gossip of the time but it is more likely that it was more appropriate to manifest austerity in a period of war and reconstruction. However, in 1947 the embarrassment was dismissed and Margaret Greville’s jewels enter right into the collection of Elizabeth the mother and Elizabeth the daughter.
In that famous black tin box there are no trifles: everything that the lady had paid for under £ 100 in the jewelry shop left to the faithful waitress. From what is known, Elisabetta’s parents fished for her from the box of diamonds that they had comfortably at home the pair of ivy-shaped brooches from Cartier for the 21st birthday while for the wedding they solved the problem with a pair of chandelier earrings also by Cartier e a floral necklace with rubies signed Boucheron.
This last jewel adorned the queen’s neck until the 1980s: she thought about taking her out of oblivion Kate who borrowed it for a banquet with Spanish royalty in 2017 to reappear the following year again on Elizabeth’s neck at a dinner to celebrate the Commonwealth.
Among the younger generations, those who have drawn casually from the legacy, ignoring the background probably because in love with the style, has been Princess Eugenie. The queen’s granddaughter chose the platinum, diamond and emerald tiara commissioned from Boucheron by Mrs Greville in 1919 bringing it back to light after about a century of darkness.
Sure, Buckingham Palace contributed, perhaps in spite of himself, to fuel the legend around the legacy but in the years to come perhaps we will begin to unravel the precious skein thanks to Camilla. Her favorite tiara is a long-term loan from the queen with an estimated value of around £ 3 million. That splendid honeycomb-shaped tiara by Boucheron, subsequently modified by Cartier with the addition of some diamonds, was considered an original creation for the queen mother until 2012 when instead it came from the usual inheritance on which a dense still hangs mystery.
Many jewels that have appeared over the years may lack the correct attribution or someone has yet to debut on the real scene. Until December 11, 2019, no one had ever seen the showy emerald necklace around the neck of Queen Elizabeth and some have speculated that it could be a piece of the Greville collection.
Someone insinuates that too the engagement ring with which Carlo finally asked Camilla to marry him may have belonged to Margaret Greville. Although the news does not have a solid scientific basis it must be said that the choice would not make a turn.
The art deco ring dating back to the 1930s was liquidated by Clarence House as a “royal heirloom” that belonged to Carlo’s grandmother – the queen mother – but we do not know that Camilla was particularly fond of it. If instead we trace the ownership of the jewel to Maggie Greville, the accounts could romantically return. The socialite’s beloved goddaughter was just right Sonia Keppel in Cubbit, grandmother of the one who, after a thousand painful adventures (more for the others than for her), managed to marry the heir to the throne of England.
Read this way, Margaret Greville’s looks like a drawing planned almost a hundred years ago. Not only with diamonds had she managed to conquer an imperishable bond with Windsor but with her calculation skills – or perhaps her witch skills – she succeeded in the coup of almost becoming related to the British royals after more than half a century. More than generosity could ambition. We know well that certain loves make huge turns and then come back but if we can have learned a lesson from all this history it is that even jewels, if well managed, are not joking.
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
