The Palatine Crown or Bohemian Crown is the oldest surviving crown of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It was produced from gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

, enamel

Enamel

Enamel may refer to:* Tooth enamel, the hard mineralized surface of teeth* Vitreous enamel, a smooth, durable coating made of melted and fused glass powder-See also:* Enamel organ, a cellular aggregation that functions in the formation of tooth enamel...

, sapphire

Sapphire

Sapphire is a gemstone variety of the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide , when it is a color other than red or dark pink; in which case the gem would instead be called a ruby, considered to be a different gemstone. Trace amounts of other elements such as iron, titanium, or chromium can give...

s, rubie

Ruby

A ruby is a pink to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum . The red color is caused mainly by the presence of the element chromium. Its name comes from ruber, Latin for red. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapphires...

s, emerald

Emerald

Emerald is a variety of the mineral beryl colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the 10 point Mohs scale of mineral hardness...

s, diamond

Diamond

In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

s and pearl

Pearl

A pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other...

s (height 18 cm, diam. 18 cm).

History

The English Queen's crown was likely produced about 1370 and has been associated with Queen Anne of Bohemia

Anne of Bohemia

Anne of Bohemia was Queen of England as the first wife of King Richard II. A member of the House of Luxembourg, she was the eldest daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Elizabeth of Pomerania....

, the consort of King Richard II of England

Richard II of England

Richard II was King of England, a member of the House of Plantagenet and the last of its main-line kings. He ruled from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard was a son of Edward, the Black Prince, and was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III...

. The crown came to the Palatinian line of the house of Wittelsbach

Wittelsbach

The Wittelsbach family is a European royal family and a German dynasty from Bavaria.Members of the family served as Dukes, Electors and Kings of Bavaria , Counts Palatine of the Rhine , Margraves of Brandenburg , Counts of Holland, Hainaut and Zeeland , Elector-Archbishops of Cologne , Dukes of...

 as dowry of Blanche of England

Blanche of England

Blanche of England, LG , also known as Blanche of Lancaster and Blanche Plantagenet, was an English princess of the House of Lancaster....

, a daughter of King Henry IV of England

Henry IV of England

Henry IV was King of England and Lord of Ireland . He was the ninth King of England of the House of Plantagenet and also asserted his grandfather's claim to the title King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence his other name, Henry Bolingbroke...

. After his ascension to the English throne, King Henry IV wanted to make important alliances in order to maintain and legitimize his rule. One needed ally was the Wittelsbach King Rupert of Germany

Rupert of Germany

Rupert of Germany from the House of Wittelsbach was Elector Palatine from 1398 and German King from 1400 until his death...

, who also took the German throne after the deposition of King Wenceslaus

Wenceslaus, King of the Romans

Wenceslaus ) was, by election, German King from 1376 and, by inheritance, King of Bohemia from 1378. He was the third Bohemian and second German monarch of the Luxembourg dynasty...

: a marriage between Rupert's eldest surviving son Louis

Louis III, Elector Palatine

Louis III, Count Palatine of the Rhine , was an Elector Palatine of the Rhine from the house of Wittelsbach in 1410–1436....

 and Henry IV's eldest daughter Blanche was soon arranged. The marriage contract was signed on 7 March 1401 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

; the bride's dowry was fixed in the amount of 40,000 Nobeln.

The crown is today displayed in the treasury of the Munich Residenz, where it has been kept since 1782.

External links

• Treasury in the Munich Residenz