Queen Elizabeth let her granddaughter, Princess Beatrice, borrow a tiara for her wedding to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and it, apparently, made their small, scaled-back wedding quite the big deal.
One royal historian said that it may have been the most "royal" wedding of them all because, apparently, Queen Elizabeth had a story to tell the world about the diamond headpiece.
Vincent Meylan detailed, in an Instagram post, that the wedding tiara Queen Elizabeth lent to Princess Beatrice has such a fascinating history. It belonged to Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth's grandmother, who inherited it from Queen Alexandra, her mother-in-law. She, in turn, inherited the jewelry from her mother-in-law, the legendary Queen Victoria, in the 1800s.
In the early 1900s, Queen Mary, originally, wore the jewelry as a necklace and a hair piece until Her Majesty's mother, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, had it made into a tiara. Simply put, this heirloom piece, in its old and current form, was worn by strong and special women in history -- Queen Victoria, Queen Alexandra, Queen Mary, the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth.
Queen Elizabeth wore the diamond tiara on her wedding to Prince Philip in 1947. Her Majesty, then, lent the tiara to Princess Anne, her daughter, for her first wedding to Mark Phillips in 1973.
The next time the Queen would lend the tiara was for Princess Beatrice's wedding. According to People, Her Majesty specifically saved this tiara for Prince Andrew's eldest daughter.
According to Town & Country, Queen Elizabeth knew that the jewelry, with a wealth of family history, could tell a very important story amid Princess Beatrice's scaled-down wedding. Marred by both the coronavirus pandemic and her father's sex scandal, it seemed Queen Elizabeth intended for the tiara to show that, despite what's going on, the royal family is solid, strong and enduring.
It has been said that Queen Elizabeth loves to use jewelry to tell a narrative. Hence, royal experts believe that the choice to let Princess Beatrice wear such a significant tiara was carefully thought out and planned.
The Queen apparently didn't want to diminish Princess Beatrice on her low-key wedding day just because of the circumstance surrounding her life's biggest event. By letting her wear the jewelry, worn by strong women who have survived many tribulations, Queen Elizabeth, made sure that her granddaughter would be connected to these women in a big way.
