The 1661 St Edward’s Crown — Refurbished, Recycled or Replaced?

Abstract

Since the 1950’s two rival theories have existed to explain the origins of the present St Edward’s Crown. On the one hand, there is the traditional view that it was newly created for Charles II after the Restoration. On the other, there has been the revisionist theory promoted by Martin Holmes and H. D. W Sitwell. They claimed that the old St Edward’s Crown was not destroyed in 1649, that it was the crown worn by Oliver Cromwell’s funeral effigy in 1658 and that it then formed the basis for Charles II’s coronation crown. All those claims can however be shown to be unlikely. Moreover, the anomaly on which Holmes and Sitwell based their theory can be explained in other ways once new evidence concerning the commissioning of Charles II’s crown is considered. The traditional view is therefore reasserted in a slightly modified form.