Queen Victoria's Regal Circlet & The Maltese Cross Tiara

From Allan Barton – the Antiquary

There's a crown in the Royal Collection that hasn't held a diamond in decades — a bare platinum frame, on display at the Museum of London until 2022, its stones long since removed and reset into other pieces of the Crown Jewels. It was made for Queen Victoria, who called it her Grand or Regal Circlet. Seven hundred miles away, in the vaults of the Norwegian royal family, sits its near-twin: a circlet made for Queen Alexandra, inherited by her daughter Maud on her marriage into the Norwegian royal house, and altered enough since that it's now known by an entirely different name. This video tells the story of both objects: the dispute with the King of Hanover that stripped Victoria's circlet of its diamonds within four years of its making, the interchangeable elements that let part of it survive today in an entirely different royal tiara, and the wartime flight of the Norwegian circlet from occupied Oslo to Sweden and eventually to Britain, before it came home to become the Maltese Circlet Tiara. 0:00 Introduction · 1:28 Victoria's Regal Circlet and the Cumberland Diamonds 7:53 The Hidden Anthemions 9:49 Alexandra's Diamond Circlet 11:13 Inherited by Norway 13:27 The Maltese Circlet Today 14:27 Conclusion