The British royal family are known for possessing some of the most beautiful jewellery from around the world. Centuries of royal ancestry have seen Kings, Queens, and any manner of royal relations donning jewel-encrusted finery.
And while most offer eye-popping beauty, other pieces of regal history have gained an unfortunate reputation over the years. Here are the royal tiaras and crowns that have come to be seen as eerie omens throughout history.
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The Hesse Strawberry Leaf Tiara
The Hesse Strawberry Leaf Tiara is perhaps the most famous of all the reportedly haunted headwear.
The diadem was designed by Prince Albert in 1861 and is believed to have been a wedding gift for his daughter, Princess Alice, whom he shared with Queen Victoria.From the outside, the crown, featuring diamond foliage and strawberry leaves, appeared simply to be a beautiful accessory, but soon came to be associated with the deaths of several royals.
Prince Albert never made it to his daughter’s wedding, as he died of typhoid just before, and years later, his own daughter faced a tragic fate.
Alice, who shared four children with her husband, Louis IV, the Grand Duke of Hesse, tragically lost two of her babies.
Prince Frederich died at the age of three in 1873 after falling from a window, and later, Princess Marie died in 1878 of diphtheria. Shortly after, on 14 December of the same year, Alice died of the same disease.
The date of her death was exactly that of her own father, 17 years earlier.
The crown was passed on to Ernest, her eldest son, who lent it to his first wife, Grand Duchess Victoria Melita, for the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II.
It seemed as though the crown struck again when the couple’s only son later died of typhoid and the pair divorced.Ernest then got married a second time to Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich.
The couple’s daughter-in-law, Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark, was the next of the crown’s victims.
After wearing it to the coronation of King George VI, while on the way to a wedding, she went into labour prematurely, forcing the pilot to make an early landing.
The plane crashed into a factory chimney in dense fog in Belgium, killing everyone on board.
Miraculously, the only survivor was the Strawberry Crown. The supposedly cursed item now sits in the Foundation of the House of Hesse.
The Oriental Circlet Tiara
The Oriental Circlet Tiara is arguably one of the lesser cursed royal jewels and is responsible for far fewer tragedies.
Featuring lotus flowers and Mughal arches, it was originally designed in 1853 and set with 2,600 diamonds and dotted with opals.
Later, Queen Victoria’s daughter-in-law, Queen Alexandra of Denmark, inherited the piece and had the opals removed as she held the popular belief that they were a magnet for misfortune.
So, in 1902, all opals were replaced with a collection of Burmese rubies that also belonged to her mother-in-law.
According to a request made by Queen Victoria, the crown can only be worn by queens or future Queens. The Princess of Wales was the last person to wear the crown in December 2025.
The Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara
The Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara first belonged to Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the wife of the Russian Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich and the aunt of Tsar Nicholas II, who had the piece commissioned for her wedding.
However, the tiara would not, sadly, go on to serve the duchess well. In 1918, she was forced to flee Vladimir Palace after Tsar Nicholas was assassinated.
In her desperation to escape, she ended up leaving the tiara behind.Later, her son and a British art dealer returned to the palace to steal back the crown, bringing it to England with them.
The Grand Duchess, however, never saw the crown again, and it was eventually inherited by her daughter, Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna.
Elena, who was married to the financially bereft Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, sold it to the Queen Mother, who eventually passed it on to her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
Finally, in happy hands, the Queen made excellent use of the tiara, having it recommissioned to feature emeralds. The Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara was the last ever tiara worn by Elizabeth before her death in 2022.
The Koh-i-Noor Diamond
The Koh-i-Noor Diamond, also known as the “mountain of light” diamond, was a favourite of the Queen Mother.
Allegedly, the headwear was first discovered on the banks of the holy Krishna River in India 800 years ago but was then hidden inside a Hindu temple.
It was passed between the Persian, Afghan, Sikh, and Mughal empires before making its way to the British royal family.It was said that any man who wore the crown would later meet “grisly” deaths.
Women, though, were much more fortunate. Queen Victoria received the crown in 1849 as part of a treaty to mark the end of the Second Anglo-Sikh War.
Originally worn as a brooch, the piece was later remade into a crown and worn by the Queen Mother during her 1937 coronation and again at her daughter Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953.
The crown now sits on display in the Tower of London as part of the British Crown Jewels. However, India, Iran, and Afghanistan have all laid claim to the item.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
