Catherine de Medicis’ Black Pearls
The Amboise Thistle, The Great Hall, Château Royal d'Amboise
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was brought up in Château Amboise with Catherine de Medicis many children.
On Mary’s marriage to Catherine’s son Francis (II), Catherine gave her a rope of precious black pearls*, part of the set she herself was given on the occasion of her own wedding. Mary is wearing them in her hair and around her neck in the couple’s official wedding portrait.
The pearls entered the history books when an impoverished Francis I, king of France, agreed with Catherine’s uncle Pope Clement VII that she could marry his second son, Henry. The contract said, more or less, that the Pope would provide Catherine with a dowry large enough to fill the hole in France’s bare coffers.
Francis was desperate to acquire new Crown Jewels. He had been forced to hand over the originals (which dated back to the 1300s) to Charles V of Hapsburg, as a ransom payment.
As part of her dowry, Clement VII gave Catherine six ropes of huge black pearls and twenty-five pear shaped pendant drop pearls. There is an official portrait of the young Catherine wearing a rope of black pearls around her waist.
When Francis (II) died Mary, Queen of Scots returned to Scotland to rule the unruly, the pearls were in her luggage.
In Scotland, things went from bad to worse for Mary. Scots hated her and she hated them right back. When her half brother, the earl of Moray, advised her to abdicate in favour of her son James, Mary trusted him with her jewels for safe keeping.
Moray, was, on the face of it, her greatest ally. He went with Mary to France when she was a child and remained with her. All that time he was paid by William Cecil, chief advisor to Elizabeth I, to spy on her because Mary had a strong claim to England’s throne. Both she and Elizabeth I were grand-daughters of Henry VII. Elizabeth and Cecil were determined Mary would never rule England.
Moray shamelessly sold her black pearls to her mortal enemy Elizabeth I who, after ordering Mary’s execution, shamelessly wore them.
The French Ambassador to her Court said some were as big as nutmegs. Rarer than diamonds, they were said to be ‘worth a kingdom’.
When Elizabeth died, Catherine’s pearls went to Mary’s son James Stuart crowned James I of England. When his daughter Elizabeth got married he gave her the pearls.
In 1549, when Cromwell murdered Elizabeth’s brother Charles I, he sold or melted down England’s Crown Jewels. The pearls were not among them. They were in Europe.
During the French Revolution, a copycat re-run of the murder of Charles I, the Crown Jewels of France were broken up sold off and scattered throughout the world. Catherine’s pearls were never part of the Crown Jewels.
Elizabeth gave them to her daughter, Sophia on her marriage to the Elector of Hanover after which they were known as The Hanover Pearls. They, in turn, came down to Sophia’s son, George I, the reluctant king of England.
They were passed to Queens of Europe until they returned to England on the accession of William IV. On his death the pearls passed to his niece Queen Victoria. Her husband Prince Albert said they were the finest in Europe.
When Victoria’s uncle became Elector of Hanover he demanded she return the pearls. She refused. This led to a court case which lasted for twenty years. It was eventually settled in favour of Hanover but the pearls were not returned.
Victoria gave some to her five daughters. She also gave some to her daughter-in-law at her coronation as Queen Alexandra in 1902. Four pearls ended up in Victoria’s Imperial State Crown.
The present State Crown was modelled on Victoria's Crown. Hanging from each of the four arches, is a large pear shaped pearl. According to the Royal Collection Trust, these are the same ones Pope Clement VII gave to his niece Catherine Medicis on her wedding day in 1533, the same ones Catherine gave to Mary, Queen of Scots on her wedding day in 1558.
* The pearls had a tinge similar to that of of purple/black muscat grapes.
Post by Pamela Shields BA History of Art. Photography by Mark Playle.
Read more about Catherine in these blog posts:
Read more about Catherine, Mary and the other women of Royal Chateau Amboise.
Out of the Shadows
The Ladies of Royal Chateau Amboise
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