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As first pointed out by David on the RJWMB, HH Princess Astrid of Norway gave her great-niece, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, a very special gift on her confirmation, on 31 August.



(© tv2.no)

It is Queen Maud's badge of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, mounted on a gold bangle. Princess Astrid has worn this bracelet rather frequently on gala occasions, but I am amazed to see that the white bow from which the Order was once worn has been preserved.



The Order was first awarded (as an unofficial decoration) on the occasion of the confirmation of HRH The Princess Royal (Victoria), in 1856. The profiles of the Queen and Prince Albert were taken from Wyon's medal of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Princess Alice received a similar badge on her own confirmation in 1859. It was not until the Prince Consort's death that the Order was provided with official statutes. Female descendants of QV were entitled to the Order after they had been confirmed within the Church of England.

In 1880 a major revision of the rules of the Order took place, which resulted in the introduction of a fourth class. By then confirmation was no longer a requirement.

Queen Maud was made a member of the First Class of the Order on 10 March 1888. She was the seventeenth of twenty-four Royal ladies to receive the First Class during QV's life.

At the 1901 State Opening of Parliament, while in mourning for QV, Maud wore the Order suspended from a large riband or sash, as permitted under a provision made by QV in 1888, to emulate other Orders for ladies which could often be worn from a sash.





(from Princess Victoria's Album, 1900-1901, RCIN 2925092)

After 1901 the obligation to return the badges of the Order was waived, and even though many are now with the RCT, some royal families have retained or sold insignia of the Order.

Queen Maud also received Queen Alexandra's "Family Order", and King Edward VII's and King George V's Family Order (both in size two).

Queen Maud appears to have worn very few insignia of Orders during her life, and the Order of V&A is no exception. In 1937, at the Coronation of her nephew, George VI, Maud appeared in the robes of a British princess, wearing only the Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, and the Family Orders of her mother and brother.

Princess Astrid herself holds the distinction of being the recipient of three Norwegian "Family Orders", those of her brother, father, and grandfather, an achievement only shared by her late sister Princess Ragnhild.