During the Second World War, the British royal family resorted to extraordinary measures to protect the most precious diamonds of Windsor Castle, reveals a new documentary film.
A BBC documentary on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II reveals a secret operation to hide the Crown Jewels in a cookie tin from the Nazis in Berkshire County, England.
The information was discovered in the “confidential correspondence” of the British royal family.
Crown jewelry expert Alastair Bruce discovered letters from Royal Librarian Sir Owen Morshead to Queen Mary, George VI’s mother. The match indicated where the diamonds were hidden, according to The Times.
The details of the operation were so secret that even Queen Elizabeth II did not know where the family diamonds were.
“We were not told anything. We were then only children,” said the queen in the documentary The Coronation, quoted by Town and Country magazine.
The expert allegedly shared the secret with the queen, noting that her father had placed the precious jewels in an empty “Bath Oliver” cookie tin while London was bombed relentlessly by the Nazi air force.
“I wanted to bring back the crown jewels, which are the best-known but least understood symbols of the nation, in the consciousness of people,” said Mr.Bruce. “These are objects that guarantee certain freedoms that we take for granted.”
Exclusive in tomorrow's Times: how the Crown Jewels were hidden in a biscuit tin underneath Windsor Castle during the Second World War. Credit goes to pic.twitter.com/UXipP9JmVl
— Valentine Low (@valentinelow)
The most precious jewels – the Black Prince’s Ruby and St Edward’s Sapphire – were removed from the imperial ceremonial crown and kept separately in a box of biscuits “in case of emergency”.
On the sequences of the documentary, the queen also told other piquant details concerning the coronation process. Elizabeth II confessed that the crown was so heavy that she was perfectly able to “break the neck” to the wearer.
Recall that the coronation of Elizabeth II took place on June 2, 1953 when she was 27 years old.
