The French state visit to Britain this week was a veritable cornucopia of glamour. All eyes, naturally, were on the Windsor Castle banquet on Tuesday, which saw Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, make her dazzling return to white-tie-and-tiara form, but might you have missed the second, though no less regal, gala dinner on Wednesday? Fresh from celebrating their wedding anniversary at Windsor, Prince Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, and Birgitte, Duchess of Gloucester, hosted President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, for an evening at the Guildhall in London.
Joined by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of London, Alastair King and Florence Walker, the Duchess of Gloucester wore jewels from the vast Gloucester collection, passed down by Princess Alice. One piece, the Gloucester Honeysuckle Tiara, was originally commissioned by Queen Mary after the succession of her husband, King George V, in 1910. The Gloucester Honeysuckle repurposed the diamonds previously used in Queen Mary’s wedding gifts, the Ladies of England Tiara and the Surrey Fringe Tiara. So significant was the tiara that it once bore the Cullinan V diamond, cut from the largest diamond ever found.
The Honeysuckle Tiara was passed on to the Gloucesters after the wedding of Queen Mary’s son, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, to Lady Alice Montague Douglas Scott in 1935. The new Duchess wore the piece for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and it became a fast favorite for Princess Alice until she passed away in 2004 as the oldest ever member of the royal family. Illustrious shoes to fill when it comes to a lifetime of royal duty, but a legacy that has been continued with grace by Birgitte, the Duchess of Gloucester, who has worn the Honeysuckle Tiara at numerous royal engagements, including the 1995 wedding of Princess Alexandra of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg to Count Jefferson von Pfeil und Klein-Ellguth, and that infamous American state visit in 2019.