There is so much blood on the British Crown Jewels

When 15-year-old Duleep Singh stands before her, 35-year-old Queen Victoria sighs: «These eyes and these teeth are Unpleasant Nice!” Victoria deposed Duleep Singh, the last Sikh Maharaja and son of the “Lion of Punjab”, five years ago and imprisoned his mother, who handled state affairs for the minor.

She sent the boy into exile and left him in the hands of a fundamentally Christian British military doctor for re-education, annexed his kingdom, the Punjab, and seized the great symbol of Maharaja power, the Koh-i-Noor diamond . . Since then, the stone has been the embodiment of successful British expansion policy.

Still, Victoria has a vague pity for the “poor, impotent Indian prince,” as she calls him. During his visit in 1854, Franz Xaver Winterhalter, the favorite portraitist of all monarchs from Russia to Great Britain, had him painted in beautiful courtly fancy dress. In the picture, he wears a pearl jewelry with a portrait of the Empress of India. Victoria.

To comfort – or to humiliate him again – the victorious Queen Duleep Singh performs the Koh-i-Noor. The prince must have been shocked, because the stone, which for centuries weighed 186 carats (37.2 grams) and was set in a bracelet by his father, now weighs 108.93 carats (21.786 grams).

Like her colonies, Victoria cut the unusual stone, which even today tells the oldest documented story of a diamond. An irregularly shaped, sparkling and mythical jewel, first mentioned around 1300, has become an oval jewel trimmed in a “European” style. Victoria wears it as a brooch.

Like the Koh-i-Noor, Duleep Singh becomes an exotic jewel in the Queen’s court. He later marries a missionary, accumulates huge debts and remains unhappy for the rest of his life. His daughters become important suffragettes in England.

After Victoria’s death in 1901, the diamond was placed in the crown of Queen Alexandra, in 1911 in the crown of Queen Mary, and finally in 1937 in the crown of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, where it remains today . One of her last major appearances was the crown with the “mountain of light”, as the diamond is translated, on the Queen Mother’s coffin in 2002.

The value of the Koh-i-Noor cannot be determined. Estimates range from £140 million to £400 million.

Camilla should have worn the Queen Mother’s crown until the May 6 coronation, but India intervened, complaining that the display of the Koh-i-Noor (which over the decades has been variously owned by former owners India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and also the Taliban demanded back) would all too painfully point to the conflict-ridden common past. Camilla will therefore wear Queen Mary’s crown again, which was replaced with a diamond in 1937.

In India, Camilla’s evasive maneuver is seen as hypocrisy. A commentary in the “Indian Express” demanded that she carry the stone for all to see, as a sort of walk of shame. Britain would rather give back very different things that were destroyed under colonial rule: dignity, economy, infrastructure.

Even after Queen Victoria’s death, the Second Boer War (1899 – 1902) was being fought in Africa. It ends with the integration of the Boer states of the Transvaal and Orange Free State into Great Britain. Now that Britain is no longer allowed to enrich itself from the once lucrative slave trade, it wants to use the gold and diamond reserves of the two mineral-rich states for itself.

In 1905, the world’s largest diamond to date was found at the Premier Mine in South Africa, just nine meters below the earth’s surface. It weighs 3106 carats (621.2 grams) and is named Cullinan after the owner of the mine. At the time he was worth £150,000. Today his value would be around £380 million.

It will be exhibited for the first time in South Africa, after which Premier Mine will send it to England in the hope of finding a buyer. To camouflage the precious shipment, a worthless copy of the stone travels to England on a heavily guarded ship and amid much publicity. The real stone, meanwhile, is unobtrusively sent to London by regular mail. But no one cares, and the Transvaal government decides to present it to King Edward VII as a birthday gesture of submission to the new subjects.

The king thinks more is more and has the stone split into 105 pieces, 9 large and 96 small. The two largest become a brooch again, but it is much too heavy. In 1911, the largest – Cullinan I or Great Star of Africa – is added to the Royal Scepter of 1611. The second largest – Cullinan II or Lesser Star of Africa – becomes part of the Imperial State Crown, also created in 1611.

Working conditions in the African diamond mines are disastrous, the black miners are collectively considered criminals, subject to daily body searches and detained in barbed wire fenced camps, which they are not allowed to leave during their contract work. The white miners, on the other hand, enjoy a lot of freedom.

Both stones will be present at Charles’ coronation. He will wear the Imperial Crown of State on his head, with the scepter in his hand, except for the moment of the coronation ceremony when he will be crowned briefly with the 2.5 kilogram gold St. Edward’s Crown.

Incidentally, in 1845 the Imperial State Crown had to be patched up all over again: during the opening of parliament, he fell off his pillow, “it was all crushed and crushed like a pudding that had collapsed,” wrote Queen Victoria. Duleep Singh would certainly have liked to see this. But the last Maharaja was only seven years old.