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I have always been quite intrigued about how Queen Victoria’s emerald parure came to be owned by the Duke of Fife.

As I see it there are three routes:

i) It was inherited by her son Arthur, Duke of Connaught and passed to his son and/or grandson Alastair, who after his premature death it went to his mother Alexandra, Duchess of Fife, who on her death bequeathed it to her nephew the Duke of Fife. This is entirely possible when one thinks that Queen Victoria’s Turkish necklace, which we know was inherited by Arthur, Duke of Connaught would end up being auctioned by the Duke of Fife in the 1970s, so it must have passed this way;

ii) It was left by Queen Victoria to Edward VII as a personal item (i.e. it was not amongst the items she willed to the Crown). This is entirely possible, her sapphire tiara must have gone to Edward VII as a personal item as by 1922, his son and daughter-in-law King George V and Queen Mary gifted it to their daughter. Assuming this scenario is the one, it could have then either been gifted or bequeathed by Edward VII to his eldest daughter or it came into the possession of Queen Alexandra and at her death in 1925 it was amongst the items received by her eldest daughter Louise from her estate and then passed to her daughter Alexandra, Duchess of Fife and then to her nephew the Duke of Fife.

iii) Queen Victoria or King Edward VII gave it to Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife at some point – I find this the least likely scenario as it would be a remarkably generous gift (and Victoria really wasn’t that generous to her grandchildren in terms of wedding presents) and it isn’t documented amongst Louise’s wedding presents, the most obvious occasion for such a grand gift to be given.

Can anyone share any light/theories?
The division of Queen Victoria’s jewels and those of her son the Duke of Connaught have always intrigued me.

In terms of Queen Victoria’s jewels, based on what we know, it would certainly appear that Edward VII, Arthur and Beatrice received the most high-profile jewels associated with the Queen. I have never read anything of what her other children (or their heirs in the case of Alfred/Alice) received after her death. I accept of course, Victoria may have left them other assets.

Same with the Duke of Connaught. It is logical of course that Arthur left the bulk of his wealth to his grandson and heir and couldn’t have known he would die a year later childless. Let us pretend for a second that his grandson had died the year before him rather than after him and I suspect Princess Patricia and the children of Crown Princess Margaret would have inherited the family jewels – wouldn’t it have been great for example if the emerald parure had ended up in Sweden (inherited by Arthur’s oldest grandson) or Denmark (via the old Duke’s granddaughter Queen Ingrid)!

It has always struck me as odd that while we can identify significant pieces belonging to Arthur and his wife Louise being worn by their daughter Patricia in later life, as far as I am aware the children of their daughter Margaret, don’t appear to have inherited very much, if anything, in jewellery terms from the old Duke, although again I accept, they could have inherited other assets.