THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH CROWN.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8091, 8 January 1903, Page 4

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH CROWN.

It. is likely enough that one of the first forms of actual diadem was a string of beads (writes the Builder). The earliest' ornament of any kind into which man put any constructive ability was most likely a necklace of naturally pierced shells. Indeed, the earliest known human skeleton —one found'in a cave near Mentone—actually had a necklace of -pierced shells and | teeth sticking to it. Whether first on some occasions such a necklace was made small for its recipient and stuck fast on his head with artistic effect; or whether, on the other hand, a diadem was made too big and slipped down accidentally on to the owner's shoulders, will never be known; but, however it arrived, it seems on the evidence of coins that our early kings actually wore coronets of a string of beads. No remains of such diadems now exist, so conjecture as to their actual construction cannot well be checked, but there is plenty of documentary evidence as ro head inlets of some soft, material having had a long reign as marks of authority, i Alexander the Great wore one with which he bound up a wounded friend. At a period in our English history somewhere about the tenth century, the beaded fillet certainly gave way to a solid circlet. This change was possibly due to the wish of kings to wear some distinct mark of their rank in battle. The beaded or soft fillet would neither look nor last well on a helmet, so v,'c find that on a penny of iEhelstan his helmet is adorned with" a solid circlet !>e:iri.'ic three, pearls on raised stems ; the entire coronet may be supposed to have four of these pearls. From this standpoint the growth of the ornamentation on our English crown can be followed with'some certainty. The nest coronet after that of .•Ehelstan to show any true development. is figured on the great" seal of William 1., where the single pearls on their stalks have become triplicated. This triple arrangement of separate pearls or dots is one which easily takes the more distinctly decorative form of a single trefoil, and into tliis sliajK: it soon falls, as may be seen I m the Great S*al of Henry I. 1