Beyond the Yalla Dog

6.8.11

On 1 September 1533 Catherine de Medici left her home city of Florence forever with a dowry big enough to buy her into the Royal Family of France and jewellery gifted from her uncle Pope Clement VII with an estimated value of 27,900 gold ecus – including a rope of “some of the largest pearls ever seen” which in this this portrait, attributed to Bronzino, Catherine is wearing around her waist.

On the wedding day of Mary Queen of Scots (aged 16) to Catherine rather weakly son Francis II (aged 15) – Catherine gave Mary a precious gift of a rope of her own pearls – still valued as being worth a kingdom.

After Francis died Mary was dispatched back to cold and gloomy Scotland and into her troubled life upsetting protestant John Knox with her vanity almost as much as her cousin Queen Elizabeth I of England with her threat to the throne of England.

Queen Elizabeth was known to adore pearls and was unable to resist appropriating the famous “Medici” pearls as her own once the head of her troublesome cousin had been detached from her body and she clearly had no further need of them!

Elizabeth is reputed to have worn Mary Queen of Scots pearls for the rest of her life – and some of them still form part of the Crown Jewels even to this day.