Who Was Margaret Greville—the Socialite Who Left Her Jewels to the Royal Family?
Taking a deeper dive into the famed Greville bequest, which left the Windsors with such gems as Princess Eugenie's emerald wedding tiara and the Duchess of Cornwall's favorite diamond necklace.
Given the sheer volume of jewels that Queen Elizabeth has inherited, commissioned, and received as gifts throughout her near century-long life, it would be impossible for even the most zealous of royal observers to know the full scope of what lies in those Windsor vaults. Her majesty certainly has several tried and true favorites: Queen Mary's Girls of Great Britain & Ireland and Vladimir Tiaras, Queen Victoria's Prince Albert Brooch, her Burmese Rubies, her Cullinans. She is also generous when it comes to loaning precious heirlooms to members of her family. The Duchess of Cambridge is partial to the Cambridge Lover's Knot Tiara and Queen Mary's Diamond Bar Choker Bracelet. The Duchess of Cornwall, meanwhile, loves a Boucheron Tiara and a spectacular diamond festoon necklace that both belonged to the Queen Mother, who herself received the pieces—and dozens of others—from one legendary jewelry collector named Margaret Greville.
Born in 1863 to a brewery tycoon and his mistress, Greville began her ascent through the ranks of blue-blooded society when she married Ronald Greville, heir to a baronetcy and member of the Marlborough House set, a 19th-century version of the Turnip Toffs, if you will, that swirled around the court of Albert Edward, then the Prince of Wales (and by 1901, King Edward VII). Though her husband died of pneumonia in 1908 after just 17 years of marriage, Mrs. Greville, who never remarried, continued to cultivate her position as a notable socialite and hostess—and ingratiate herself with the royal family.
She was especially close to Alice Keppel, King Edward VII's favorite mistress, who also happened to be Camilla Parker Bowles's great-grandmother (Greville was the godmother to the Duchess of Cornwall's grandmother Sonia Keppel). She became good friends with Queen Mary and particularly adored Mary's daughter-in-law Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future consort to King George VI and later Queen Mother—when the couple married in 1923, Greville hosted them at Polesden Lacey, her grand country estate in Surrey, for their honeymoon.
Much like Queen Mary, Greville had an impeccable eye and voracious appetite for jewelry. She loved Boucheron and Cartier, and picked up gems from her travels around the world. And while Mary loved buying up Russian imperial jewels, Greville might have preferred the French—she supposedly had in her trove a necklace once owned by Marie Antoinette, and another that belonged to Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife. Given that the Grevilles never had children of their own, the entirety of her collection (the real ones only, of course—anything under £100 was given to the maid) was left to Elizabeth, "with my loving thoughts," when Greville died in 1942.
Some 60 bijoux are rumored to have been in the Greville bequest but the entirety of its contents will likely never be known to the public: only a handful of gems in this collection have ever seen the light of day over the past 79 years. Still, a select few have become fabulous mainstays in the House of Windsor jewelry repertoire. The Queen Mother made excellent use of possibly the two most valuable pieces: the Greville Tiara, created by Boucheron in 1921, and the five-strand diamond festoon necklace. (She also had the good sense not to debut them until the end of World War II and its subsequent period of austerity.)
Those showstoppers now adorn the Duchess of Cornwall, who have them on loan from the queen for important occasions. Other known treasures in the box include a pair of diamond ivy clips the Queen Mother gifted to her daughter Elizabeth for her 21st birthday; chandelier earrings the current monarch received as a wedding gift from mom; a diamond and pearl brooch the queen likes for low-key functions; a ruby and diamond floral necklace Kate Middleton borrowed for a state banquet in 2017; and the striking emerald kokoshnik tiara Princess Eugenie wore on her wedding day, marking the gem's first public debut since entering the Windsor coffers.
Below, 17 examples of the royal family in jewels from the famed Greville bequest.
Leena Kim is an editor at Town & Country, where she covers travel, jewelry, education, weddings, and culture.
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