7/9/2023 0 Comments Thelibrarian artefacts![]() "We were only children then but we didn't know anything.all the pictures disappeared and everything disappeared and one was never told anything. Queen Elizabeth then said that she was "told nothing." ![]() "Because he might have died in the middle ?"īruce then revealed that King George had been told of the plan. "Did he remember where he put them?" the queen responded. "The librarian gauged the principal stones out of the crown jewels and wrapped them up and put them into a jar and put them in a Bath Oliver tin, and hid them," Bruce explained. This included stones taken from their settings in the crowns and scepters that could be easily evacuated if the castle was under Nazi threat. Fox Photos/Getty Images/The Print Collector/Heritage Images via Getty Imagesīroadcasted by the BBC in 2018, the documentary shows royal expert Alastair Bruce informed the queen on camera that the jewels were kept in a strongroom cut into one of the castle's medieval tunnels. And Queen Elizabeth II photographed wearing the Imperial State Crown and holding the orb and sceptre of the crown jewels on the day of her coronation (R) June 2, 1953. King George VI photographed wearing the Imperial State Crown on the day of his coronation (L) May 12, 1937. Queen Elizabeth (then Princess Elizabeth) and her sister, Princess Margaret, were sent to live there during the war years, and though the paintings and priceless objects in the state rooms were evacuated, the crown jewels were hidden in the bedrock beneath them. The castle was first built as a fortress around 1070 and has since become a principle residence of the British royal family. Where the jewels were sent was top secret and was only made public in 2018 whereupon it was revealed that not even Queen Elizabeth II herself, who was 19 years old at the end of the war, had an idea of where they were kept.ĭiscovered as part of a 2018 documentary made about the queen's 1953 coronation in which she gave a rare interview discussing the day, papers in the Royal Archives revealed that the jewels were actually moved to another royal residence, Windsor Castle, just west of London. James and Kensington.Īmong the objects in the royal collection that were sent out of London were the crown jewels, expressly on the command of King George VI, King Charles' grandfather. This included artifacts from major London-based museums being moved into safe spaces in the countryside, and also treasures from the royal palaces such as Buckingham Palace, St. When Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 a number of institutions around England, Scotland and Wales prepared to move priceless objects from areas that could potentially be easily invaded or more likely be notable targets for aerial bombing. The crown jewels were evacuated from their safe house at the Tower of London during World War II. The Imperial State Crown, part of the British crown jewels, photographed September 14, 2022.
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