Which Royal Tiara Will Meghan Choose?

We're getting down to the wire on the Royal Wedding that everyone's talking about.  There's so much curiosity and excitement swirling about the ceremony uniting Britain's Prince Harry and America's Meghan Markle that even I, a notorious layabed, will be up at 6 a.m. next Saturday to watch the ceremony.  (Today's New York Post printed recipes for scones to serve at your royal wedding breakfast party as well as the recipe for the Queen's favorite Chocolate Biscuit  Cake, and I'm very tempted to make it.)

One of the big questions about the ceremony is--not only what will the bridal gown look like, but also WHICH ROYAL TIARA will Meghan choose?  This inspired me to re-post some sections of two blog posts I wrote earlier this year, discussing the weddings of Queen Victoria, as well as Diana and Kate.  As you will see, Victoria was somewhat of a rebel, choosing a crown of orange blossoms instead of diamonds.  And Princess Diana, at the last moment, decided not to wear the tiara her future mother-in-law, the Queen, had loaned her, but instead to wear her own family's Spencer family crown.  Good thing we commoners don't have to make those tough decisions!

Can't wait till next Saturday when we learn about Meghan's tiara and dress, as well as the other big question:  how will Meghan's parents interact together, after all those years apart following a reportedly not-friendly divorce?

With Prince Harry’s engagement to American actress Meghan Markle set to climax in a wedding in St. George’s chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19^th and then Fergie’s daughter Princess Eugenie’s recent engagement to marry Jack Brooksbank in the same place in the Fall, royal brides seem to be much in the news lately.

 

Some of my antique wedding photos are of royal brides. One of them is this small carte de visite  (above) of Queen Victoria when she was a 19-year-old girl and ruler of Great Britain, marrying her first cousin, 20-year-old Prince Albert of Saxe Colburg and Gotha in Germany.

The carte-de-visite photograph is a process that was introduced in 1854 and became vastly popular until after the turn of the century.  the “CDV”s as they are called, were simply paper photographs mounted on a small piece of cardboard about the size of a calling card.  They were produced by the thousands and were very inexpensive and easy to make in multiples—unlike the previous processes. 

By the time of the Civil War in the U.S., just about everyone was collecting in albums the CDVs of their favorite actors, politicians, heroes, royals, entertainers, freaks (including Tom Thumb as well as Barnum’s other stars) and family and friends—both living and dead. Let’s face it, CDVs were our first selfies!

Queen Victoria and her family were among the most popular subjects for CDVs.  In 1860 John Maryall, an American working in England, published 60,000 sets of his Royal Family album of CDVs.   Victoria herself avidly collected the small photos and put them in albums. 

       

            Back to the CDV of Victoria and Albert as bride and groom.   I originally bought it because I was amused that someone acquired the CDV in the 1860’s and valued it so much that she cut a bit off the bottom and placed the photo in the kind of ornate frame and matte that was earlier used for cased images like daguerreotypes and ambrotypes.

            I took the photo apart from the frame and matte (which is something I always do, because you can find all sorts of things behind the image if it’s in a case:  locks of hair, written identifications, dates, love letters, poems). 

         By now you have realized, as I did when I took the thing apart—this is not a photograph!   It’s taken from an engraving of the royal pair. And the artist, whoever he is, made them look a teensy bit better than they did in real life.  And there’s one more thing wrong with the image—Victoria did not wear a real crown on her wedding day, but instead chose a simple crown of orange blossoms.  She also had bunches of orange blossoms attached to her gown. Wearing not a diamond crown but a headpiece of orange blossoms was a revolutionary step for Victoria to make at her wedding, as was wearing all white. 

         FYI, because I know you’re going to ask, Kate Middleton did wear a sort of crown at her wedding in April of 2011; a diamond halo-style coronet, which someone said was  “as understated as a headband of diamonds can be.”  It was an heirloom made by Cartier in 1936 and originally bought by King George VI for his wife—the Queen Mother.  It was loaned to Kate by Queen Elizabeth and includes 739 brilliant diamonds and 149 batons.

(The next paragraph was wrong, as I soon found out!)

          Princes Diana, at her wedding on July 29, 1981, wore a much more visible and dramatic crown—the Lover’s Knot tiara, which was made in 1914 using diamonds and pearls from the royal family’s collection.  It was given to Diana by Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding present. Kate has inherited it and has worn it on several occasions.

Royal Brides, Part II

         Last week I posted about Queen Victoria’s revolutionary wedding dress, which broke with tradition in 1840 by being white and featuring, not a diamond crown, but simply a wreath of orange blossoms in her hair. I also included two photos and comments about the crowns worn by modern royal brides Princess Diana and Kate Middleton.  I posted a photo of Diana and wrote:  “Princess Diana, at her wedding on July 29, 1981, wore a much more visible and dramatic crown—the Lover’s Knot tiara, which was made in 1914 using diamonds and pearls from the royal family’s collection.”

            Turns out I was completely wrong.  As my sharp-eyed daughter Eleni pointed out, that was not a photo of Diana in the Lovers Knot tiara at her wedding, although it did become her favorite crown and the Queen did loan it to her for the wedding.  But at the last minute Diana decided to get married in the Spencer Family crown, shown here.

         According to People Magazine, “Like all good royal pieces, the Spencer Tiara is actually made up of other pieces of jewelry... The current version – which is constructed with diamonds shaped into tulips and stars surrounded by attractive scrolls – was probably finalized sometime in the ’30s. It has become a popular wedding tiara for the Spencer family: Diana’s sisters – Lady Sarah and Jane, Baroness Fellowes – both wore the sparkler for their wedding days and Victoria Lockwood, who was the first wife of Diana’s brother Charles, the current Earl of Spencer, wore it when she married into the famed aristocratic family in 1989 (when little Prince Harry served as a pageboy). However, Diana’s mother, Frances, did not wear the tiara when she married into the Spencer family in 1954.”

(If you want to read my two "royal brides" posts in their entirety, here are the links:

http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2018/01/royal-brides-part-1-victoria-and-diana.html

http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2018/02/royal-brides-part-iidianas-tiara-and_6.html

Royal Brides Part 1--Victoria (and Diana and Kate)

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With Prince Harry’s engagement to American actress Meghan Markle set to climax in a wedding in St. George’s chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19^th and then Fergie’s daughter Princess Eugenie’s recent engagement to marry Jack Brooksbank in the same place in the Fall, royal brides seem to be much in the news lately.

Over my years of collecting antique photographs—dating from the beginning of photography in 1839 through 1918—I’ve accumulated close to 200 wedding photographs.  In the 19^th century, going to a photographer’s studio in your wedding clothes for a formal photograph after the wedding day was traditional-- almost a legal statement that “We are married.”  (And until Queen Victoria’s wedding in 1840, the bride was usually not wearing a white wedding dress, but usually the best dress from her wardrobe.)   Often this was the only photograph the bride and groom had taken of themselves in their lifetimes.

 

Some of my antique wedding photos are of royal brides. One of them is this small carte de visite  (above) of Queen Victoria when she was a 19-year-old girl and ruler of Great Britain, marrying her first cousin, 20-year-old Prince Albert of Saxe Colburg and Gotha in Germany.

The carte-de-visite photograph is a process that was introduced in 1854 and became vastly popular until after the turn of the century.  Unlike the earlier kinds of photographs--  daguerreotypes and ambrotypes, (which were housed in hard book-like cases for their protection) and then the tintype (sometimes in a case, sometimes not)-- the “CDV”s as they are called, were simply paper photographs mounted on a small piece of cardboard about the size of a calling card.  They were produced by the thousands and were very inexpensive and easy to make in multiples—unlike the previous processes. 

By the time of the Civil War in the U.S., just about everyone was collecting in albums the CDVs of their favorite actors, politicians, heroes, royals, entertainers, freaks (including Tom Thumb as well as Barnum’s other stars) and family and friends—both living and dead. If you called on someone who was not at home, you could leave a CDV of yourself, and you could fill albums with signed CDVs of your family and friends. Let’s face it, CDVs were our first selfies!

Queen Victoria and her family were among the most popular subjects for CDVs.  In 1860 John Maryall, an American working in England, published 60,000 sets of his Royal Family album of CDVs.   Victoria herself avidly collected the small photos and put them in albums. 

         Today, among photo collectors, CDVs of ordinary folk are so numerous that they are practically worthless, unless the subject is something rare. But I once saw a CDV of Abraham Lincoln’s dog, Fido, sell on E-Bay for several thousand dollars.  (And if you come across a CDV of Jesse James or Billy the Kid, drop me a line at joanpgage@yahoo.com.)

            Back to the CDV of Victoria and Albert as bride and groom.   I originally bought it because I was amused that someone acquired the CDV in the 1860’s and valued it so much that she cut a bit off the bottom and placed the photo in the kind of ornate frame and matte that was earlier used for cased images like daguerreotypes and ambrotypes.

            I took the photo apart from the frame and matte (which is something I always do, because you can find all sorts of things behind the image if it’s in a case:  locks of hair, written identifications, dates, love letters, poems).  I could see that the image had been carefully labeled as “Victoria and Albert of England” by someone named Elizabeth “Alleen” or “Allesen”, and that, judging from the pinholes, she had it pinned up several times before putting it in the fancy gold frame.

            By now you have realized, as I did when I took the thing apart—this is not a photograph!   It’s taken from an engraving of the royal pair. And the artist, whoever he is, made them look a teensy bit better than they did in real life.  And there’s one more thing wrong with the image—Victoria did not wear a real crown on her wedding day, but instead chose a simple crown of orange blossoms.  She also had bunches of orange blossoms attached to her gown.

         FYI, because I know you’re going to ask, Kate Middleton did wear a sort of crown at her wedding in April of 2011; a diamond halo-style coronet, which someone said was  “as understated as a headband of diamonds can be.”  It was an heirloom made by Cartier in 1936 and originally bought by King George VI for his wife—the Queen Mother.  It was loaned to Kate by Queen Elizabeth and includes 739 brilliant diamonds and 149 batons.

        Princes Diana, at her wedding on July 29, 1981, wore a much more visible and dramatic crown—the Lover’s Knot tiara, which was made in 1914 using diamonds and pearls from the royal family’s collection.  It was given to Diana by Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding present. Kate has inherited it and has worn it on several occasions.

         Wearing not a diamond crown but a headpiece of orange blossoms was a revolutionary step for Victoria to make at her wedding, as was wearing all white. At first I was disappointed that I couldn’t find an actual photograph of Victoria’s wedding, but then I realized—silly me!--that photography had only been announced to the world in August of 1839 by Daguerre in France, and in January of 1840, when Victoria got married, even if the daguerreotype process was available in England, it required going to a photographer’s studio on a day when there was ample sunlight and then sitting there with your head in a brace for a long time without moving or smiling—not the sort of thing that could be done at a wedding.

        But Victoria herself was quick to embrace the revolutionary new technology of photography.  She even specified which photographs of her loved ones would be buried with her in her casket.   In order to preserve her memories of her wedding day, she had a series of photographs taken by photographer Robert Fenton on May 1,1854—14 years after the real wedding. They were a re-enactment of the original ceremony, with both Victoria and Albert wearing their wedding outfits.  Above and below are two of the Fenton photos. You can see that the couple have aged a bit. I think what Albert has in his hand is a plumed hat.

          Victoria was in love with her wedding dress and wore it on numerous occasions, including for a portrait that she commissioned on her first anniversary from  the artist Franz Xaver Winterhalter, showing her as she looked on her wedding day.  

          The most notable part of the dress was a flounce made from a piece of Honiton lace worked in an antique style by ladies in Devon, England. Here’s how Victoria described her wedding dress in her journal:   “I wore a white satin gown, with a very deep flounce of Honiton lace, imitation of old. I wore my Turkish diamond necklace and earrings, and my Angel’s beautiful sapphire broach.”   The sapphire broach was a wedding gift from Albert and you can see it in the portrait she commissioned on her first anniversary, above. 

          Victoria also wore her wedding veil on many other occasions in her life, including for her Diamond Jubilee portrait when she was 78 years old—and when she died in Jan. 1901, she was buried with her wedding veil over her face.     

Coming Next:  Royal Brides Part II- After Victoria

Revisiting Guilt About Motherhood and Princesses

 (I had forgotten that on this day, six years ago, I posted on the subject of guilt, motherhood and Kate Middleton's royal wedding which was the following day.  But my post was really a reprint of the essay daughter Eleni had written on her blog about these topics, plus Disney princesses.  I think it's one of her most brilliant and funny essays.  She wrote it four months before Amalia was born, but now that Amalia is approaching six years old --and Nico is two-- Eleni is still fighting the good fight against her kids wearing Disney characters on their clothes and battling the inevitable guilt felt by all mothers.)

Daughter Eleni, who studied Folk Lore and Mythology  at Harvard, recently launched her blog “The Liminal Stage”. (As she explains: “Liminal stages are psychological thresholds, times of transition when we stand ‘betwixt and between’ one state and another. The biggies are birth, marriage, death.”)


 Yesterday she posted about the Royal Wedding under the title “Will Kate Middleton Eat My Daughter?” (She was riffing on the current best seller “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” by Peggy Orenstein.)  From the topic of the Royal Wedding, she segued into pregnancy and motherhood and how  guilt is an inevitable ingredient in these major liminal stages—especially in the United States, where everyone is so uptight about what a pregnant woman should or should not do.

 Eleni began her post with the story of how I apologized to her for not watching Diana and Charles’ wedding with her 30 years ago, and maybe that's why  I found her essay hilarious while at the same time very wise and insightful about what a guilt-ridden state is motherhood these days.

So I got her permission to reprint her post today on “A Rolling Crone”. 

Now you’ll know why we’re not getting up at five a.m. tomorrow to drink tea and eat scones together, although we both  hope—along with every other woman waiting to see The Dress, that Kate will find her marriage guilt- and worry-free, unburdened by all the expectations and complications that Princess Diana dragged down the aisle along with her 25-foot train three decades ago.

Will Kate Middleton Eat My Daughter?

April 27th, 2011

That Royal Wedding, July 29, 1981, Getty Images / Fox Photos / Hulton Archive (borrowed from an about.com page on Princess Diana's wedding photos).

This morning my mother apologized. It’s a rare occurrence, but what was even more remarkable was the topic about which she felt guilty. “I was reading somewhere a woman remembering her mother waking her up to watch Princess Diana get married 30 years ago, and now the writer is going to wake up her own daughters to watch the Royal Wedding on Friday,” she reported. “And I felt sort of bad I didn’t wake you girls up.”

I told Joanie not to worry, that I actually thought it was a good move not to teach her five-year-old daughter (not to mention my then two-year-old sister) to fetishize a 19-year-old girl marrying a laconic older man who was in love with someone else.  I didn’t watch that royal wedding and I didn’t grow up expecting to marry a prince, ride around in Cinderella carriages and grace the covers of magazines.

In fact, in light of the current culture of princess parties, and Disney domination (its darker sides are discussed in Peggy Orenstein’s bestselling book Cinderella Ate My Daughter) and the fact that I’m due to give birth to a baby girl on August 19^th, I’ve decided to try to keep my daughter in the dark about Disney princesses for as long as possible. I don’t want her wearing clothing or diapers that advertise a film franchise if I can help it, and I’m guessing that I’ll still be in charge of what she wears until she’s about three.

Does that sound naïve? Defensive? Hypocritical, given the fact that the bandaids in our house already have Elmo on them, in anticipation of the baby’s birth?

Portrait of Amalia of Greece, by Joseph Karl Stieler

The truth is, I have no issue with princesses, real or fictional. The name we’ve picked for our daughter, Amalia, was the name of the first queen of Greece. (I’m not a Royalist, I just like the way the name sounds, that you can say it in Greek, English and Spanish—Amalia’s key cultures–and I have very positive associations with the name, as it also belongs to a dear friend of mine.)

Baby aside, and back to Kate Middleton, I’m taking advantage of a local spa’s Royal Wedding special—half price manicure/pedicures all day, plus they’re serving tea and crumpets! And I am excited to see what Kate wears—I hope it will put to rest the 15 year tyranny of the strapless wedding dress, and offer future brides more interesting options.

But the whole Royal Wedding brouhaha, and my mother’s guilt over opting out of the first one, has got me thinking about motherhood, and how a mom starts feeling guilt and fear before the baby is even born. Part of this is biological I think….I can’t read a People magazine without worrying about bringing a child into a world filled with tsunamis and wars and sex traffickers.

But I think part of the motherhood guilt is cultural, given the way American doctors tell us not to let anyone know we’re pregnant for the first trimester (if something were to go wrong, I’d be devastated either way, plus I’d want the support of my family and close friends–so whose feelings was I safeguarding by staying mum?).  In my first trimester I was painfully aware that something could go wrong at any moment—and then I realized that I will never again be free of that fear—at 96 I’ll be worrying about my 60–year–old baby.

Then, there’s the American culture of blame when it comes to every single thing you put in your mouth. In England, Kate Middleton will be glad to know, food safety is so good pregnant women get to eat sushi and smoked salmon and turkey, whereas here undercooked fish and smoked or cured fish or meats are strictly off limits. A Greek friend’s doctor told her she should drink a glass of red wine a day for the antioxidants, whereas here we’re not even supposed to have feta cheese, much less booze. I think all these US rules are overcautious, Puritanical and just plain wrong (for all our rules, the US has a higher infant mortality rate than most industrialized countries), but of course I’m following them—I couldn’t handle the guilt if I didn’t and something went awry.

Pomegranate--a lucky fruit--from www.flowers.vg

But I remember years ago, an Indian friend’s mother told me she ate a certain fruit or spice during each of her pregnancies, to ensure that her first child be handsome, her second joyful, her third brilliant. And I can’t help but think that is such a healthier, more positive attitude for mothers and babies—believing that by carefully choosing what you eat you can give your child blessings before they even greet the world, rather than fearing that if you put the wrong hors d’oeuvres in your mouth you are dooming your child to a lifetime of failure.

Once the baby’s born there’s the culture of competition—the race to the smuggest, to see who can feed (or diaper) their child more organically, shoe their baby’s tiny toes with the smallest carbon footprint. Before that there are so many loaded conversations about birth itself…I’m the only person in my prenatal pilates class giving birth in a hospital, and I have to admit that fact makes me feel wimpy.

The mother of Amalia the elder (not the Greek queen, but my BFF) likes to say that being a mom means being a punching bag—it’s part of the job description. And while right now I feel that quite literally—Amalia II likes to kick my hand off my stomach if I rest it there while watching TV—she means it figuratively; whatever choices you make as a mom, some of them will disappoint or hurt your children, and they’re sure to blame you. Just look at the first two lines of this blog for an example.

In the end, all you can do, I guess, is try to make the sanest, most loving choices possible, and forgive yourself for the times you fall short. And try not to judge other moms for not seeing parenting exactly as you do.

My non-royal, but rather princess-y carriage

So Joanie, thanks for not raising me expecting to become Princess Diana; it turns out she had a pretty hard row to hoe, despite the lovely tiara. And even though at 19 I was busily pursuing my degree in Folklore and Mythology and blaming my mom for making me wait until I was 13 to get my ears pierced, although my younger sister got hers pierced the exact same day—what’s that about?—I’ve had plenty of princess moments in my day.  I did marry a prince among men, eventually.  And I rode to the first of our two wedding ceremonies in a horse-drawn carriage, because we wed on the island of Corfu and that’s how they roll.

As a commoner without a title (until she’s married), Kate Middleton will ride to Westminster Abbey in a Rolls Royce (although she gets to leave in a carriage). Nevertheless, I hope she is surrounded by just as much love and laughter on her wedding day as I was on mine. I hope the little girls who get up early to watch her wed never forget doing so, and that those who sleep right through it have pleasant dreams of futures that don’t depend on the man they will marry, even if those dreams involve them turning into mermaids or having mice and bluebirds or seven little dwarves sew them fabulous couture gowns—and even if those gowns are strapless. Maybe Kate will have a daughter less than a year after her wedding, too. And when our daughters grow up and blog about us—and they will—I hope they will be kind.