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Following the death of George V in January 1936 royals and aristocrats flocked to Jacques Cartier to invest in jewellery for Edward VIII’s Coronation.
But now it can be revealed that the jeweller was also creating an engagement ring for Edward’s mistress Wallis Simpson, which would lead to his abdication.
An exhibition on the jeweller’s eponymous brand which opens today at the Victoria and Albert museum in London has revealed that Mr Cartier was one of the first people to know that Edward was planning to propose to the American divorcee.
Author Francesca Cartier Brickell, who is the great-granddaugther of the jeweller, said Edward would enter through the back of Mr Cartier’s London shop ‘without being noticed and be shown to a private room’.
She added: ‘It’s crazy that my great-grandfather probably realised that Edward VIII would choose love over duty before even the Royal Family knew.
‘Even the Duke of York, who had visited Cartier London around the same time to buy a tiara for his wife, presumably hadn’t known his brother’s full intentions.’
Edward informed prime minister Stanley Baldwin on November 16, 1936 of his intention to marry Ms Simpson.
But he seemingly did not tell George VI, who bought a tiara for his wife to wear to his brother’s Coronation just two days later. Edward abdicated on December 10.
Wallis Simpson, later the Duchess of Windsor, is seen wearing the Cartier engagement ring bought for her by her husband-to-be Edward VIII
Pictured: Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson on their wedding day. Edward had to abdicate the throne to marry his divorcee bride
The cabinet dedicated to the Duchess of Windsor at the Cartier exhibition
The Queen Mother gave her halo tiara to her daughter, then Princess Elizabeth on her 18th birthday.
Cartier has been called the King of jewellery, but it is very much the jeweller of kings, queens, empresses, maharajahs, princesses and almost everyone who is anyone in the aristocracy the world over.
Cartier London opened firstly on New Burlington Street, a diamond’s throw from its later home on New Bond Street which opened in 1909, where it remains to this day.
It was a very clever ploy by Cartier to open in London, after all the British Royal Family are the most famous in the world and where they go – others have always followed and ever since Queen Alexandra, the Royal Family have been firmly loyal in their affection to the brand.
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