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Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom

The Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, originally the Crown Jewels of England, are a collection of royal ceremonial objects kept in the Jewel House at the Tower of London, which include the coronation regalia and vestments worn by British monarchs.

The coronation regalia are the only working set in Europe and the collection is the most historically complete of any regalia in the world. Objects used to invest and crown British monarchs variously denote their role as head of state of the United Kingdom and other countries of the Commonwealth, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and head of the British armed forces. They feature heraldic devices and national emblems of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Use of regalia by monarchs in England can be traced back to when the country was converted to Christianity in the Early Middle Ages. A permanent set of coronation regalia, once belonging to Edward the Confessor, was established after he was made a saint in the 12th century. These holy relics were kept at Westminster Abbey, the venue of coronations since 1066, and another set of regalia was reserved for religious feasts and State Openings of Parliament. Collectively, these objects came to be known as the Jewels of the Crown. Most of the collection dates from around 350 years ago when Charles II ascended the throne. The medieval and Tudor regalia had been sold or melted down after the monarchy was abolished in 1649 during the English Civil War. Only four original items predate the Restoration: a late 12th-century anointing spoon (the oldest object) and three early 17th-century swords. The regalia continued to be used by British monarchs after the kingdoms of England and Scotland merged in 1707.

The regalia contain 23,578 gemstones, among them Cullinan I (530 carat), the largest clear cut diamond in the world, set in the Sovereign's Sceptre with Cross. It was cut from the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found, the eponymous Cullinan, discovered in South Africa in 1905 and presented to Edward VII. On the Imperial State Crown are Cullinan II (317 carat), the Stuart Sapphire, St Edward's Sapphire, and the Black Prince's Ruby – a large red spinel. The Koh-i-Noor diamond (105 carat) was acquired by Queen Victoria from the Sikh Empire and has featured on three consort crowns. A small number of historical objects at the Tower are either empty or set with glass and crystal replicas.

At a coronation, the monarch is anointed using holy oil poured from an ampulla into the spoon, invested with robes and ornaments, and crowned with St Edward's Crown. Afterwards, it is exchanged for the lighter Imperial State Crown, which is also usually worn at State Openings of Parliament. Wives of kings, known as queens consort, are invested with a plainer set of regalia. Also regarded as crown jewels are state swords, trumpets, ceremonial maces, church plate, historical regalia, banqueting plate, and royal christening fonts. They are part of the Royal Collection and belong to the institution of monarchy, passing from one sovereign to the next. In the Jewel House they are seen by 2.5 million visitors every year.

Prehistory and Romans
The earliest known use of a crown in Britain was discovered by archaeologists in 1988 in Deal, Kent, and dates to between 200 and 150 BC. A sword, brooch, ceremonial shield, and decorated bronze crown with a single arch, which sat directly on the head of its wearer, were found inside the tomb of the Deal Warrior. At this point, crowns were symbols of authority worn by religious and military leaders. Priests continued to use crowns following the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD. A dig in a field at Hockwold cum Wilton, Norfolk, in the 1950s revealed a bronze crown with two arches and depictions of male faces, as well as two bronze diadems with an adjustable headband and repoussé silver embellishments, dating from the Roman period. One diadem features a plaque in the centre depicting a man holding a sphere and an object similar to a shepherd's crook, analogues of the orb and sceptre that evolved later as royal ornaments.

Anglo-Saxons

By the early 5th century, the Romans had withdrawn from Britain, and the Angles and the Saxons settled. A heptarchy of new kingdoms began to emerge. One method used by regional kings to solidify their authority was the use of ceremony and insignia. The tomb of an unknown king – evidence suggests Rædwald of East Anglia ((r. circa 599 – 624)) – at Sutton Hoo illustrates the regalia of a pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon monarch. Inside the early 7th-century tomb, discovered in 1939, was found the ornate Sutton Hoo helmet, consisting of an iron cap, a neck guard, and a face mask decorated with copper alloy images of animals and warriors set with garnets. He was also buried with a decorated sword; a ceremonial shield; and a heavy whetstone sceptre, on top of which is an iron ring surmounted by the figure of a stag.

In 597 CE, a Benedictine monk was sent by Pope Gregory I to start converting Pagan England to Christianity. The monk, Augustine, became the first archbishop of Canterbury. Within two centuries, the ritual of anointing monarchs with holy oil and crowning them (initially with helmets) in a Christian ceremony had been established, and regalia took on a religious identity. There was still no permanent set of coronation regalia; each monarch generally had a new set made, with which they were buried upon death. In 9th-century Europe, gold crowns in the Byzantine tradition were replacing bronze, and gold soon became the standard material for English royal crowns.

King Æthelstan ((r. 924 – 939)) united the various Anglo-Saxon realms to form the Kingdom of England. In the earliest known depiction of an English king wearing a crown he is shown presenting a copy of Bede's Life of St Cuthbert to the saint himself. Until his reign, kings were portrayed on coins wearing helmets and circlets, or wreath-like diadems in the style of Roman emperor Constantine the Great. Whether they actually wore such an item is not known. Edgar the Peaceful ((r. 959 – 975)) was the first English king to be crowned with an actual crown, and a sceptre was also introduced for his coronation. After crowns, sceptres were the most potent symbols of royal authority in medieval England.

Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor ((r. 1042 – 1066)) is depicted on a throne and wearing a crown while holding a sceptre in the first scene of the Bayeux Tapestry. Edward died without an heir, and William the Conqueror emerged as the first Norman king of England following his victory over the English at the Battle of Hastings. Wearing a crown became an important part of William I's efforts to assert authority over his new territory and subjects. At his death in 1087, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reported: "[William] kept great state … He wore his crown three times a year as often as he was in England … He was so stern and relentless … we must not forget the good order he kept in the land". Those crown-wearings were held on the religious festivals of Easter, Whitsun, and Christmas.

In 1161, Edward the Confessor was made a saint, and objects connected with his reign became holy relics. The monks at his burial place, Westminster Abbey, claimed that Edward had asked them to look after his regalia in perpetuity and that they were to be used at the coronations of all future kings. A note to this effect is contained in an inventory of precious relics drawn up by a monk at the abbey in 1450, recording a tunicle, dalmatic, pallium, and other vestments; a gold sceptre, two rods, a gold crown, comb, and spoon; a crown and two rods for the queen's coronation; and a chalice of onyx stone and a paten made of gold for the Holy Communion. Although the Abbey's claim is likely to have been an exercise in self-promotion, and some of the regalia had probably been taken from Edward's grave when he was reinterred there, it became accepted as fact, thereby establishing the first known set of hereditary coronation regalia in Europe. Westminster Abbey is owned by a monarch, and the regalia had always been royal property – the abbots were mere custodians. In the following centuries, some of these objects would fall out of use and the regalia would expand to include many others used or worn by monarchs and queens consort at coronations.

An object referred to as "St Edward's Crown" is first recorded as having been used for the coronation of Henry III ((r. 1216 – 1272)) and appears to be the same crown worn by Edward. Being crowned and invested with regalia owned by a previous monarch who was also a saint reinforced the king's legitimacy. It was also wrongly thought to have originally been owned by Alfred the Great ((r. 871 – 899)) because an inscription on the lid of its box, translated from Latin, read: "This is the chief crown of the two, with which were crowned Kings Alfred, Edward and others". The crown would be used in many subsequent coronations until its eventual destruction 400 years later. Few descriptions survive, although one 17th-century historian noted that it was "ancient Work with Flowers, adorn'd with Stones of somewhat a plain setting", and an inventory described it as "gold wire-work set with slight stones and two little bells", weighing 79.5 oz. It had arches and may have been decorated with filigree and cloisonné enamels. Also in the Royal Collection in this period was an item called a state crown, which together with other crowns, rings, and swords, constituted the monarch's state regalia that were mainly kept at royal palaces.

Late medieval period

The handing over of crowns symbolised the transfer of power between rulers. Following the defeat in 1282 of the Welsh prince Llewelyn ap Gruffydd by Edward I ((r. 1272 – 1307)), the Welsh regalia, including the crown of the legendary King Arthur, were surrendered to England. According to the Chronicle of Aberconwy Abbey, "and so the glory of Wales and the Welsh was handed over to the kings of England". After the invasion of Scotland in 1296, the Stone of Scone was sent to the Tower of London "in recognition of a kingdom surrendered and conquered". It was fitted into a wooden chair, which came to be used for the investiture of English kings and known as the Coronation Chair. The Scottish regalia were also taken to London and offered at the shrine of Edward the Confessor; Scotland eventually regained its independence. In the treasury of Edward II ((r. 1307 – 1327)) there were no fewer than 10 crowns. When Richard II ((r. 1377 – 1399)) was forced to abdicate, he symbolically handed St Edward's Crown over to his successor with the words "I present and give to you this crown … and all the rights dependent on it".

Monarchs often pledged items of state regalia as collateral for loans. Edward III ((r. 1327 – 1377)) pawned his magna corona to Baldwin of Luxembourg in 1339 for more than £16,650,. Three crowns and other jewels were held by the Bishop of London and the Earl of Arundel in the 1370s as security for £10,000. One crown was exchanged with the Corporation of London in 1386 for a £4,000 loan. Mayors, knights, peers, bankers, and other wealthy subjects sometimes released objects on a temporary basis for the royal family to use at state occasions. Monarchs also distributed plate and jewels to troops in lieu of money. At some point in the 14th century, all of the state regalia were moved to the White Tower at the Tower of London owing to a series of successful and attempted thefts in Westminster Abbey. The holy relics of the coronation regalia stayed behind intact at the Abbey.

Having fallen out of use in England in the 13th century, two arches topped with a monde and cross reappeared on the state crown during the reign of Henry V ((r. 1413 – 1422)), though arches did not feature on the Great Seal again until 1471. Known as a 'closed' or imperial crown, the arches and cross symbolised the king's pretensions of being an emperor of his own domain, subservient to no one but God, unlike some continental rulers who owed fealty to more powerful kings or to the Holy Roman emperor.

Tudors and early Stuarts
The traditions established in the medieval period continued later. By the mid 15th century, a crown was formally worn on six religious feasts every year: Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Whitsun, All Saints' Day, and one or both feasts of St Edward. A crown was displayed and worn at the annual State Opening of Parliament. Also around this time, three swords – symbols of kingship since ancient times – were being used in the coronation ceremony to represent the king's powers in the administration of justice: the Sword of Spiritual Justice, the Sword of Temporal Justice, and the blunt Sword of Mercy.

An emerging item of regalia was the orb, described in Tudor inventories as a gold ball with a cross, which underlined the monarch's sovereignty. Orbs had been pictorial emblems of royal authority in England since the early Middle Ages, but a real orb was probably not used at any English coronation until Henry VIII ((r. 1509 – 1547)). State regalia increasingly passed from one monarch to the next. The best example of this was the Tudor Crown, probably created at the beginning of the Tudor dynasty. It first appears in a royal inventory during Henry VIII's reign and was one of three used at the coronation of each of his next three successors, the other two being St Edward's Crown and a "rich crown" made specially for the new monarch. After the English Reformation, when England broke away from the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England denounced the veneration of medieval relics and downplayed the history of St Edward's regalia.

The concept of hereditary state regalia was enshrined in English law in 1606 when James I ((r. 1603 – 1625)), the first Stuart king to rule England, decreed a list of "Roiall and Princely ornaments and Jewells to be indyvidually and inseparably for ever hereafter annexed to the Kingdome of this Realme". After James died, his son, Charles I ((r. 1625 – 1649)) ascended the throne. Desperate for money, one of his first acts was to load 41 masterpieces from the Jewel House onto a ship bound for Amsterdam – the hub of Europe's jewel trade. This hoard of unique treasures, including the Mirror of Great Britain brooch, a 14th-century pendant called the Three Brothers, a 4.7 kg gold salt cellar known as the Morris Dance, and much fine Elizabethan plate, was expected to swell the king's coffers by £300,000, but fetched only £70,000.

Charles's many conflicts with Parliament, stemming from his belief in the divine right of kings and the many religious conflicts that pervaded his reign, triggered the English Civil War in 1642. Parliament deemed the regalia "Jewels of the Crown": their ownership was vested in the monarch by virtue of his public role as king and not owned by him personally. To avoid legal risk to his subjects, Charles asked his wife, Henrietta Maria, to smuggle the inalienable property of the Crown abroad and sell it on the Dutch jewellery market. Upon learning of the scheme, the House of Lords and House of Commons both declared anyone involved in trafficking the Crown Jewels to be enemies of the state. Henrietta succeeded in disposing of a small quantity of jewels, albeit at a heavy discount, and shipped guns and ammunition back to England for the royalist cause. Two years later, Parliament seized 187 kg of rare silver-gilt pieces from the Jewel House and used the proceeds to bankroll its own side of the war.

Interregnum

After six years of war, Charles was defeated and executed, and less than a week later, the Rump Parliament voted to abolish the monarchy. The newly created English Commonwealth found itself short of money. To raise funds, the Act for the Sale of the Goods and Personal Estate of the Late King, Queen and Prince was brought into law, and trustees were appointed to value the Jewels – then regarded by Oliver Cromwell as "symbolic of the detestable rule of kings" and "monuments of superstition and idolatry" – and sell them to the highest bidder. The most valuable object was Henry VIII's Crown, valued at £1,100. Their gemstones and pearls removed, most of the coronation and state regalia were melted down and struck into coins by the Mint.

Two nuptial crowns survived: the Crown of Margaret of York and the Crown of Princess Blanche had been taken out of England centuries before the Civil War when Margaret and Blanche married kings in continental Europe. Both crowns and the 9th-century Alfred Jewel give a sense of the character of royal jewellery in England in the Middle Ages. Another rare survivor is the 600-year-old Crystal Sceptre, a gift from Henry V to the Lord Mayor of London, who still bears it at coronations. Many pieces of English plate that monarchs had presented to visiting dignitaries before the interregnum can be seen in museums throughout Europe. Cromwell declined Parliament's invitations to be made king and became Lord Protector. It was marked by a ceremony in Westminster Hall in 1657 where he donned purple robes, sat on the Coronation Chair, and was invested with many traditional symbols of sovereignty, except a crown. A crown—probably made of gilded base metal—was placed beside Cromwell at his lying in state in 1660.

Restoration to present
The monarchy was restored after Cromwell's death. For the English coronation of Charles II ((r. 1660 – 1685)), who returned from exile abroad, new Jewels were made based on records of the lost items. They were supplied by the banker and royal goldsmith, Sir Robert Vyner, at a cost of £12,184 7s 2d – as much as three warships. It was decided to fashion the replicas like the medieval regalia and to use the original names. These 22-carat gold objects, made in 1660 and 1661, form the nucleus of the Crown Jewels: St Edward's Crown, two sceptres, an orb, an ampulla, a pair of spurs, a pair of armills or bracelets, and a staff. A medieval silver-gilt anointing spoon and three early Stuart swords had survived and were returned to the Crown, and the Dutch ambassador arranged the return of extant jewels pawned in Holland. The king also spent £11,800 acquiring 2270 kg of altar and banqueting plate, and he was presented with conciliatory gifts.

In 1669, the Jewels went on public display for the first time in the Jewel House at the Tower of London. The Deputy Keeper of the Jewel House took the regalia out of a cupboard and showed it to visitors for a small fee. This informal arrangement was ended two years later when Thomas Blood, an Irish-born army officer loyal to Parliament, attacked the 77-year-old and stole a crown, a sceptre, and an orb. Blood and his three accomplices were apprehended at the castle perimeter, but the crown had been flattened with a mallet in an attempt to conceal it, and there was a dent in the orb. He was pardoned by the king, who also gave him land and a pension; it has been suggested that Blood was treated leniently because he was a government spy. Ever since, the Jewels have been protected by armed guards.

Since the Restoration, there have been many additions and alterations to the regalia. A new set was commissioned in 1685 for Mary of Modena, the first queen consort to be crowned since the Restoration (Charles II was unmarried when he took the throne). Another, more elaborate set had to be made for Mary II ((r. 1689 – 1694)), who was crowned as joint sovereign with her husband William III ((r. 1689 – 1702)). After England and Scotland were united as one kingdom by the Acts of Union 1707, the Scottish regalia were locked away in a chest, and the English regalia continued to be used by British monarchs. Gemstones were hired for coronations – the fee typically being 4% of their value – and replaced with glass and crystals for display in the Jewel House, a practice that continued until the early 20th century.

As enemy planes targeted London during the Second World War, the Crown Jewels were secretly moved to Windsor Castle. The most valuable gemstones were taken out of their settings by James Mann, Master of the Armouries, and Sir Owen Morshead, the Royal Librarian. They were wrapped in cotton wool, placed in a tall glass preserving-jar, which was then sealed in a biscuit tin, and hidden in the castle's basement. Also placed in the jar was a note from the King, stating that he had personally directed that the gemstones be removed from their settings. As the Crown Jewels were bulky and thus difficult to transport without a vehicle, the idea was that if the Nazis invaded, the historic precious stones could easily be carried on someone's person without drawing suspicion and if necessary buried or sunk.

After the war, the Jewels were kept in a vault at the Bank of England for two years while the Jewel House was repaired; the Tower had been struck by a bomb. In May 2023, St Edward's Crown was placed on the head of Charles III ((r. 2022 – present)) in the only ceremony of its kind in Europe. Other European monarchies have abandoned coronations in favour of secular ceremonies. The Crown Jewels consist of approximately 140 objects, which are permanently set with 23,578 precious and semi-precious stones and are seen by around 2.5 million visitors every year.

Crowns
Crowns are the main symbols of royal authority. All crowns in the Tower are decorated with alternating crosses pattée and fleurs-de-lis, a pattern which first appears on the great seal of Richard III, and their arches are surmounted with a monde and cross pattée. Most of the crowns also have a red or purple velvet cap and an ermine border.

St Edward's Crown
The centrepiece of the coronation regalia is named after Edward the Confessor and is placed on the monarch's head at the moment of crowning. Made of gold and completed in 1661, St Edward's Crown is embellished with 444 stones, including amethysts, garnets, peridots, rubies, sapphires, topazes, tourmalines and zircons. This coronation crown closely resembles the medieval one, with a heavy gold base and clusters of semi-precious stones, but the disproportionately large arches are a Baroque affectation. It was long assumed to be the original as their weight is almost identical and an invoice produced in 1661 was for the addition of gold to an existing crown. In 2008, new research found that it had actually been made in 1660 and was enhanced the following year when Parliament increased the budget for Charles II's twice-delayed coronation. The crown is 30 cm tall and at a weight of 2.23 kg has been noted to be extremely heavy. After 1689, monarchs chose to be crowned with a lighter, bespoke coronation crown (e.g., that of George IV ) or their state crown, while St Edward's Crown rested on the high altar. At Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838 it was entirely absent from the ceremony. The tradition of using St Edward's Crown was revived in 1911 by George V and has continued ever since. In 1953 Elizabeth II opted for a stylised image of this crown to be used on coats of arms, badges, logos and various other insignia in the Commonwealth realms to symbolise her royal authority, replacing the image of a Tudor-style crown adopted in 1901 by Edward VII.

Imperial State Crown

A much lighter crown is worn by the monarch when leaving Westminster Abbey, and at the annual State Opening of Parliament. The current Imperial State Crown was made in 1937 for George VI and is a copy of the one made in 1838 for Queen Victoria, which had fallen into a poor state of repair, and had been made using gems from its own predecessor, the State Crown of George I. In 1953, the crown was resized to fit Elizabeth II, and the arches were lowered by 2.5 cm. The gold, silver and platinum crown is decorated with 2,868 diamonds, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds and 5 rubies. Among the largest stones are the 317 carat Cullinan II diamond, also known as the Second Star of Africa, added to the crown in 1909 (the larger Cullinan I is set in the Sovereign's Sceptre). The 170 carat Black Prince's Ruby, set in the front cross, is not actually a ruby but a large cabochon red spinel. According to legend it was given to Edward the Black Prince by the Spanish king Peter of Castile in 1367 and Henry V wore it at the Battle of Agincourt. How the stone found its way back into the Royal Collection after the Interregnum is unclear, but a substantial "ruby" was acquired for the Crown Jewels in 1661 at a cost of £400, and this may well have been the spinel. On the back of the crown is the 104 carat cabochon Stuart Sapphire, and in the top cross is St Edward's Sapphire, reputedly taken from the ring of the Confessor when his body was re-interred at the Abbey in 1163. Below the monde hang four pearls, three of which are often said to have belonged to Elizabeth I, but the association is almost certainly erroneous.

Consort crowns
After the Restoration, wives of kings – queens consort – traditionally wore the State Crown of Mary of Modena, who first wore it at her coronation in 1685. Originally set with 561 hired diamonds and 129 pearls, it was re-set with crystals and cultured pearls for display in the Jewel House along with a matching diadem that consorts wore in procession to the Abbey. The diadem once held 177 diamonds, 1 ruby, 1 sapphire, and 1 emerald. By the 19th century, that crown was judged to be too theatrical and in a poor state of repair, so in 1831 the Crown of Queen Adelaide was made for Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen using gemstones from her private jewellery.

Thus began a tradition of each queen consort having a custom-made crown. In 1902 the Crown of Queen Alexandra, a European-style crown – flatter and with eight half-arches instead of the typical four – was made for Alexandra of Denmark to wear at her coronation. Set with over 3,000 diamonds, it was the first consort crown to include the Koh-i-Noor diamond presented to Queen Victoria in 1850 following the British conquest of the Punjab. Originally 191 carat and set in an armlet, it was cut down to an oval brilliant weighing 105 carat, which Victoria mounted in a brooch and circlet. The second was the Crown of Queen Mary; also unusual for a British crown owing to its eight half-arches, it was made in 1911 for Mary of Teck. Mary purchased the Art Deco-inspired crown with her own money hoping it would become an heirloom used by future queens consort. Altogether, it is adorned with 2,200 diamonds, and once contained the 94.4 carat Cullinan III and 63.4 carat Cullinan IV diamonds. Its arches were made detachable in 1914 allowing it to be worn as an open crown or circlet.

After George V's death, Mary continued wearing the crown (without its arches) as a queen mother, so the Crown of Queen Elizabeth was created for Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later known as the Queen Mother, to wear at her coronation in 1937. It is the only British crown made entirely out of platinum, and was modelled on Queen Mary's Crown, but has four half-arches instead of eight. The crown is decorated with about 2,800 diamonds, with the Koh-i-Noor in the middle of the front cross. It also contains a replica of the 22.5 carat Lahore Diamond given to Queen Victoria by the East India Company in 1851, and a 17.3 carat diamond given to her by Abdülmecid I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, in 1856. The crown was laid on top of the Queen Mother's coffin in 2002 during her lying in state and funeral. The crowns of Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary feature crystal replicas of the Koh-i-Noor, which has been the subject of repeated controversy, with governments of both India and Pakistan claiming to be the diamond's rightful owners and demanding its return ever since gaining independence from the UK.

Queen Camilla was crowned using Queen Mary's Crown at her coronation with Charles III on 6 May 2023. Alterations included re-setting the crown with the original Cullinan diamonds and removing four of its eight half-arches. The Cullinan V brooch took the place of the Koh-i-Noor.

Prince of Wales coronets

A relatively modest gold coronet was made in 1728 for Frederick, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of George II. It takes the form laid down in a royal warrant issued by Charles II in 1677, which states "the Son & Heir apparent of the Crown for the time being shall use & bear his coronett composed of crosses & flowers de Lizs with one Arch & in the midst a Ball & Cross". The single arch denotes inferiority to the monarch while showing that the prince outranks other royal children, whose coronets have no arches. Frederick never wore his coronet; instead, it was placed on a cushion in front of him when he first took his seat in the House of Lords. It was subsequently used by George III, George IV, and Edward VII when they were Princes of Wales. Due to its age, a new silver-gilt coronet was made for the future George V to wear at Edward VII's coronation in 1902. In contrast to the earlier coronet, which has a depressed arch, the arch on this one is raised. At George's coronation in 1911 the coronet was worn by his eldest son, Edward, who was invested as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle a month later. The revival of this public ceremony, not performed since the early 17th century, was intended to boost the Royal family's profile in Wales. Princely regalia known as the Honours of Wales were designed for the occasion by Goscombe John, comprising a Welsh gold circlet with pearls, amethysts and engraved daffodils; a rod; a ring; a sword; and a robe with doublet and sash. After he became king in 1936, Edward VIII abdicated the same year and emigrated to France, where the 1902 coronet remained in his possession until his death in 1972. In its absence, a new coronet had to be created in 1969 for the investiture of the future Charles III, which is made from gold and platinum and is set with diamonds and emeralds. Both it and the rod were added to the Jewel House in 2020, joining the 1728 and 1902 coronets.

Non-coronation crowns
In the Jewel House there are two crowns that were never intended to be worn at a coronation. Queen Victoria's Small Diamond Crown is just 10 cm tall and was made in 1870 using 1,187 diamonds for Victoria to wear on top of her widow's cap. She often wore it at State Openings of Parliament in place of the much heavier Imperial State Crown. After the queen's death in 1901 the crown passed to her daughter-in-law Queen Alexandra and later Queen Mary. When George V attended the Delhi Durbar with Queen Mary in 1911 to be proclaimed (but not crowned) as Emperor of India, he wore the Imperial Crown of India. As the British constitution forbids coronation regalia to leave the United Kingdom, it was not possible for him to wear St Edward's Crown or the Imperial State Crown, so one had to be made specially for the event. It contains 6,170 diamonds, 9 emeralds, 4 rubies and 4 sapphires. The crown has not been used since and is considered a part of the Crown Jewels.

Processional objects
A coronation begins with the procession into Westminster Abbey.

Swords

The swords of state reflect a monarch's role as Head of the British Armed Forces and Defender of the Faith. Three are carried before the monarch into the Abbey: the blunt Sword of Mercy (also known as Curtana), the Sword of Spiritual Justice, and the Sword of Temporal Justice. All are believed to have been supplied at the time of James I between 1610 and 1620, probably by a member of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers, using blades created in the 1580s by Italian bladesmiths Giandonato and Andrea Ferrara. They were deposited with St Edward's regalia at the Abbey by Charles II. Before that point, new swords had been made for each coronation since the 15th century. Sold in the civil war, they were returned at the Restoration, and their use was first recorded at the coronation of James II in 1685.

The two-handed Sword of State, made in 1678, symbolises the monarch's authority and is also carried before the monarch at State Openings of Parliament. Its wooden sheath, made in 1689, is bound in crimson velvet decorated with silver-gilt emblems of England, Scotland and Ireland, fleurs-de-lis, and portcullises. The lion of England and unicorn of Scotland form the cross-piece to the sword's handle. The sword weighs 8 lb and is 4 ft long. During a coronation it must be held for much of the service pointing upwards without touching the body by the Lord President of the Privy Council.

Before the investiture, the unwieldy Sword of State is exchanged for the lighter Sword of Offering, which is described as "the one true coronation sword". Commissioned by George IV for his extravagant 1821 coronation, its gilded leather sheath is encrusted with 1,251 diamonds, 16 rubies, 2 sapphires and 2 turquoises. The sword has a partly blued and gilt steel blade, and its handle is set with 2,141 diamonds, 12 emeralds and 4 rubies. The stones are arranged to form roses, thistles, shamrocks, oak leaves and acorns. Two diamond lion heads, one at each end of the cross-piece, have ruby eyes. George paid more than £5,000 for the sword out of his own pocket in a radical change from the austere £2 swords used by his 18th-century predecessors. It remained in the Royal family's personal ownership until 1903 when it was deposited with the Crown Jewels and has been used at every coronation since 1911. A monarch is girded and blessed using the sword, which is returned to the Keeper of the Jewel House by the Abbey for a token sum of £5, and is borne unsheathed for the rest of the ceremony.

The 17th-century Irish Sword of State was held by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (a viceroy) prior to Ireland's independence from the UK in 1922 and has been displayed in the Jewel House since 1959. The handle takes the form of a lion and a unicorn and is decorated with a celtic harp. Each new viceroy was invested with the sword at Dublin Castle where it usually sat across the arms of a throne, representing the king or queen in their absence. It was borne in procession in front of monarchs during their official visits to Dublin. In June 1921 the sword was present at the official opening of the Parliament of Northern Ireland by George V. The sword was displayed at Dublin Castle in 2018 as part of the 'Making Majesty' exhibition – the first time it had been to Ireland in 95 years.

St Edward's Staff
St Edward's Staff is a 1.4 m ceremonial gold walking stick made for Charles II in 1661. It has a plain monde and cross at the top and a steel pike at the bottom. This object is almost certainly a copy of the long rod mentioned in the list of royal plate and jewels destroyed in 1649, although the pre-Interregnum version was gold and silver and topped by a dove. The staff's intended role in the coronation has been forgotten since medieval times, and so it is carried into the Abbey by a peer as a holy relic and laid on the altar, where it remains throughout the ceremony.

Trumpets

The Crown Jewels include 16 silver trumpets dating from between 1780 and 1848. Nine are draped with red silk damask banners embroidered with coats of arms in gold, originally made for Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838. They have not been used since the Corps of State Trumpeters was disbanded as a cost-cutting measure in the 19th century. The trumpeters' main job was to sound a fanfare at key points in the coronation, and they also played at the banquet afterwards in Westminster Hall. Today, the Band of the Household Cavalry and the Central Band of the Royal Air Force play their own trumpets at state occasions.

Maces
Beginning as lethal weapons of medieval knights, maces evolved into ceremonial objects carried by sergeants-at-arms that represent a monarch's authority. The House of Commons can only operate lawfully when the royal mace – dating from Charles II's reign – is present at the table. Two other maces dating from the reigns of Charles II and William III are used by the House of Lords, one of which is placed on the Woolsack before the house meets and is absent when a monarch is there in person delivering the King's or Queen's Speech. In the late 17th century there were 16 maces, but only 13 survive, 10 of which are on display at the Tower of London. Two of these are carried in the royal procession at State Openings of Parliament and coronations. Each mace is about 1.5 m long and weighs an average of 10 kg. They are silver-gilt and were made between 1660 and 1695.

Anointing objects
When a monarch is anointed, the Dean of Westminster first pours holy anointing oil from an ampulla into a spoon.

Ampulla

The Ampulla, 20.5 cm tall and weighing 660 g, is a hollow gold vessel made in 1661 and shaped like an eagle with outspread wings. Its head unscrews, enabling the vessel to be filled with oil, which exits via a hole in the beak. The original ampulla was a small stone phial, sometimes worn around the neck as a pendant by kings, and otherwise kept inside an eagle-shaped golden reliquary. According to 14th-century legend, the Virgin Mary appeared to Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until 1170, and presented him with a gold eagle and some oil for anointing English kings. This ampulla was first recorded as being used at Henry IV's coronation in 1399 and was deposited for safekeeping with St Edward's regalia at the Abbey by Richard III in 1483. Known as the Holy Oil of St Thomas, the same batch was used to anoint all subsequent kings and queens (except Mary I) until it eventually ran out in 1625. It is unclear why, after the Restoration, the vessel itself came to be reinterpreted as an eagle standing on a domed base. In terms of religious importance, the anointing objects are second only to St Edward's Crown, and in 2013 the ampulla stood beside the crown on the altar of Westminster Abbey at a service marking the 60th anniversary of Elizabeth II's coronation.

Coronation Spoon
The 27 cm Coronation Spoon, which dates from the late 12th century, is silver-gilt and set with four pearls added in the 17th century. A ridge divides the bowl in half, creating grooves into which the Archbishop of Canterbury dips two fingers and anoints the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Originally, it may have been used for mixing water and wine in a chalice. The spoon is first known to have been used to anoint a monarch at the English coronation of James I in 1603. It is the oldest surviving piece of the Crown Jewels (and the only surviving English royal goldsmith's work from the 1100s), first recorded in the Royal Collection in 1349 as "a spoon of ancient form", and was probably made for Henry II or Richard I. In 1649 the spoon was sold for 16 shillings to Clement Kynnersley, Yeoman of the Removing Wardrobe, who returned it to Charles II upon the restoration of the monarchy.

Robes and ornaments
The anointing is followed by investing with coronations robes and ornaments.

Robes

All the robes have priestly connotations and their form has changed little since the Middle Ages. A tradition of wearing St Edward's robes came to an end in 1547 after the English Reformation, but was revived in 1603 by James I to emphasise his belief in the divine nature of kingship. As well as robes, a monarch also wore cloth-of-gold buskins or sandals, depending on his or her foot size. These holy relics were destroyed along with royal crowns and ornaments in the Civil War. New robes were made for each monarch starting with Charles II, a practice that ended in 1911, when George V reused the 1902 Supertunica (a dalmatic), and the Imperial Mantle (a cope), fashioned for George IV in 1821. They were also worn by his successors George VI, Elizabeth II and Charles III. Together, the gold robes weigh approximately 10 kg. A new Stole Royal was made in 2023 for Charles III by the Royal School of Needlework, taking inspiration from the 1953 stole of his predecessor, Elizabeth II. It is adorned with emblems of the four countries of the United Kingdom, a dove representing the Holy Spirit, a Tudor-style crown, and a pattern based on the Cosmati Pavement in Westminster Abbey.

Spurs
Prick spurs remade for Charles II are presented to the monarch. They are made of solid gold, richly embossed with floral patterns and scrolls, and have crimson velvet straps embroidered in gold. Both necks terminate in a Tudor rose with a spike at its centre. Also known as St George's Spurs, they are emblems of knighthood and chivalry, and denote the sovereign's role as head of the armed forces. Gold spurs are first known to have been used in 1189 at the coronation of Richard I, though it is likely they were introduced for Henry the Young King in 1170, and this element of the service was probably inspired by the initiation ceremony of knights. A pair of mid 14th-century spurs were added to St Edward's regalia at the Abbey in 1399 and used at all coronations until their destruction in 1649. Historically, spurs were fastened to a monarch's feet, but since the Restoration they are simply presented to the monarch.

Armills
The Armills are gold bracelets of sincerity and wisdom. Like spurs, they were first used at English coronations in the 12th century. By the 17th century, armills were no longer delivered to the monarch, but simply carried at the coronation. A new pair had to be made in 1661; they are 4 cm wide, 7 cm in diameter, and champlevé enamelled on the surface with roses, thistles and harps (the national symbols of England, Scotland and Ireland) as well as fleurs-de-lis. For Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953, the tradition of wearing armills was revived, and a new set of plain 22-karat gold armills lined with crimson velvet presented to the Queen on behalf of various Commonwealth governments. Each bracelet is fitted with an invisible hinge and a clasp in the form of a Tudor rose. The hallmark includes a tiny portrait of the Queen, who continued to wear them upon leaving the Abbey and could be seen wearing them later, along with the Imperial State Crown and Sovereign's Ring, at her appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

Orbs

An orb, a type of globus cruciger, was first used at an English coronation by Henry VIII in 1509, and then by all subsequent monarchs apart from the early Stuart kings James I and Charles I, who opted for the medieval coronation order. The Tudor orb was deposited with St Edward's regalia at Westminster Abbey in 1625. Since 1661 the Sovereign's Orb is a hollow gold sphere about 16.5 cm in diameter and weighing 1.2 kg (more than twice as heavy as the original ) made for Charles II. A band of gems and pearls runs along the equator and there is a half-band on the top hemisphere. Atop the orb is an amethyst surmounted by a jewelled cross, symbolising the Christian world, with a sapphire on one side and an emerald on the other. Altogether, the orb is decorated with 375 pearls, 365 diamonds, 18 rubies, 9 emeralds, 9 sapphires, 1 amethyst and 1 piece of glass. It is handed to the sovereign during the investiture rite of the coronation, and is borne later in the left hand when leaving Westminster Abbey. A small version, originally set with hired gems, was made in 1689 for Mary II to hold at her coronation as joint sovereign with William III; it was never used again at a coronation and was re-set with imitation gems and cultured pearls. The orb is 14.6 cm in diameter and weighs 1.07 kg. Both orbs were laid on Queen Victoria's coffin at her state funeral in 1901. Officially, no reason was given for using Mary II's orb, but it may have been intended to reflect Victoria's position as Empress of India.

Rings
The Sovereign's Ring has been worn by monarchs at their coronation since William IV in 1831, with the exceptions of Queen Victoria, whose fingers were too small to retain it, and Charles III, who acknowledged the ring but did not wear it. In the centre is a large octagonal sapphire overlaid with rubies forming a cross, surrounded by 14 brilliant diamonds. The general design is intended to represent the red St George's Cross (England) on the blue background of St Andrew's Cross (Scotland). Rubies symbolise all the kingly virtues – such as humility, good morals, and charity – and have featured on coronation rings since the early Middle Ages. A small copy was made for Victoria, who wrote in a letter: "The Archbishop had (most awkwardly) put the ring on the wrong finger, and the consequence was that I had the greatest difficulty to take it off again, which I at last did with great pain" – her jewellers had measured the wrong finger. In 1919 both rings were deposited at the Tower along with the Queen Consort's Ring, which is similar in design and was made in 1831 for Queen Adelaide.

Before 1831, monarchs generally received a new ring symbolising their "marriage" to the nation, with perhaps two exceptions: Richard II offered Westminster Abbey a "solemn jewel, a gold ring set with a precious stone called a ruby, of no small value" to be worn by his successors. Evidence suggests it was later worn by Henry V. Another was the Stuart Coronation Ring, probably used at the English coronations of Charles I and Charles II, and certainly that of James II, who took it into exile with him in France after the Glorious Revolution in 1688. It was returned to the British monarchy 100 years later and belongs to the Royal Collection of Gems and Jewels. The ring has a large ruby etched with a St George's Cross and bordered by 26 diamonds. Since 1830 it has been on permanent loan from Windsor Castle to Edinburgh Castle where it is displayed with the Honours of Scotland. The coronation ring of Mary II survives in the Portland Collection at Welbeck Abbey.

Sceptres

The sceptre, a symbolic ornamental rod held by the monarch at a coronation, is derived from the shepherd's staff via the crozier of a bishop. Two gold sceptres made in 1661 are part of the coronation regalia. The Sovereign's Sceptre with Cross is a token of his or her temporal power as head of state. The whole object is 92 cm long, weighs around 1.17 kg, and is decorated with 333 diamonds, 31 rubies, 15 emeralds, 7 sapphires, 6 spinels, and 1 composite amethyst. In 1910, it was redesigned to incorporate Cullinan I, also known as the Great Star of Africa, which, at over 530 carat, is the largest clear cut diamond in the world. It was part of a rough diamond weighing 3106 carat found in South Africa in 1905, and was named after Thomas Cullinan, the chairman of the mining company. The gold clasps holding it can be opened and the stone removed to be worn as a pendant hanging from Cullinan II, which is set in the Imperial State Crown, to form a brooch – Queen Mary often wore it like this. Above the pear-shaped diamond is the amethyst surmounted by a cross pattée encrusted with an emerald and small diamonds.

The Sovereign's Sceptre with Dove, which has also been known as the Rod of Equity and Mercy, is emblematic of their spiritual role. It is slightly longer, at 1.1 m, but weighs about the same as the Sceptre with Cross. The sceptre is decorated with 285 gemstones, including 94 diamonds, 53 rubies, 10 emeralds, 4 sapphires and 3 spinels. Circling the rod are bands of precious stones. At the top is a gold monde set with diamonds and topped by a plain cross, upon which sits a white enamelled dove with its wings outspread, representing the Holy Ghost. A sceptre like this first appeared in the 11th century and was probably based on the German sceptre, which was topped by an Imperial Eagle. The Sceptre with Dove is the penultimate piece of regalia to be delivered. As the monarch holds both sceptres, they are crowned with St Edward's Crown.

The Crown Jewels include two sceptres made for Mary of Modena in 1685: a gold sceptre with a cross known as the Queen Consort's Sceptre with Cross, and another made of ivory topped by a dove known as the Queen Consort's Ivory Rod with Dove. Unlike the sovereign's dove, this one has folded wings and is relatively small. It was last used by Queen Elizabeth, later known as the Queen Mother, at her husband George VI's coronation in 1937. For the coronation of Mary II, the wife and joint sovereign of William III, a more elaborate gold sceptre with dove was commissioned in 1689. It has not been used since, and went missing for several decades, only to be found in 1814 at the back of a cupboard in the Tower of London.

Altar plate

In the Jewel House there is a collection of chalices, patens, flagons, candlesticks, and dishes – all silver-gilt except five gold communion vessels – that are displayed on the altars at Westminster Abbey during coronations. Some are also used at other times. Although not regalia, such items are considered to be Crown Jewels by virtue of their long association with the Jewel House.

One of the most striking pieces is a large dish 95 cm across and weighing 13 kg, in the centre of which is a relief depiction of the Last Supper. Around the edge are four engravings of biblical scenes: the Washing of the Feet, the Walk to Emmaus, the Coming of the Holy Ghost, and Christ's Commission to the Apostles. Made in 1664 for James, Duke of York, and later acquired by Charles II, it stands on the high altar during a coronation ceremony. At each end of the altar stands a 3 ft tall candlestick made in the 17th century, which is engraved all over with scrolls, leaves and flowers.

An altar dish and flagon were made in 1691 for the royal Church of St Peter ad Vincula at the Tower of London. The dish measures 70 cm across and depicts the Last Supper above the coat of arms of co-monarchs William III and Mary II. The flagon stands 42.5 cm tall. Both pieces are still used in the chapel on Easter, Whitsun and Christmas, and they were first displayed at a coronation in 1821. Another dish still in regular use is the Maundy Dish – one of six used by the King at Royal Maundy for handing out alms to elderly people in recognition of their service to the church and local community. The ceremony, which takes place in a different cathedral every year, entirely replaced the ancient custom of washing the feet of the poor in 1730, and the dish, though it bears the royal cypher of William and Mary, dates from the reign of Charles II. Two purses containing specially minted coins are taken from the dish and presented to each recipient.

Banqueting plate
The last coronation banquet held at Westminster Hall took place in 1821 for George IV. Silverware used at those banquets include the Plymouth Fountain, a wine fountain made around 1640 by a German goldsmith and presented to Charles II by the city of Plymouth. Gilded for George II in 1726, it is 77.5 cm tall and decorated with flowers, fruit, dolphins, mermaids and sea monsters. The nautical theme is continued in the silver-gilt Wine Cistern, also known as the Grand Punch Bowl, which is cast as a giant oyster shell. It weighs 257 kg, measures 0.76 x 1.38 x 1.01 m, and can hold 144 bottles of wine on ice. It was commissioned in 1829 by George IV but not completed until after his death. It is the heaviest surviving piece of English banqueting plate. In 1841, the cistern was re-purposed as a punch bowl, with the addition of a large ivory-stemmed ladle, which has a silver-gilt bowl in the form of a nautilus shell.

The Exeter Salt is a 45 cm tall salt cellar in the form of a castle on a rocky outcrop. Each of its four main compartments held about 29 g of salt, while smaller ones held pepper and other spices. It was made c. 1630 in Germany and is set with 73 gems probably added later. The Salt was bought in Hamburg in 1657 by the city's British Resident as a peace offering to the Russian court, which had cut all ties with Britain during the Interregnum. He was turned away at the Russian border and eventually took it home to London. In 1660, it was acquired from a private dealer for £700 by the city of Exeter and presented to Charles II.

Eleven smaller salts named after St George were originally made for a St George's Day banquet of the Knights of the Garter in the late 17th century. A twelfth, the Queen Elizabeth Salt, was made in 1572 during the reign of Elizabeth I for a member of the aristocracy; it was later acquired by Charles II. Twelve spoons made for George IV in 1820 complement these salts.

Baptismal plate

Three silver-gilt objects (comprising a total of six parts) associated with royal christenings are displayed in the Jewel House. Charles II's 95 cm tall font was created in 1661 and stood on a basin to catch any spills. Surmounting the font's domed lid is a figure of Philip the Evangelist baptising the Ethiopian eunuch. While Charles's marriage to Catherine of Braganza produced no heir, the font may have been used to secretly baptise some of his 13 illegitimate children. In 1688, James Francis Edward Stuart, son of James II and Mary of Modena, was the first royal baby to be christened using this object.

A ewer and basin of French design made in 1735 were only used at two christenings. The 46 cm tall ewer's handle is topped by a figure of Hercules slaying the Hydra, an unlikely motif for baptismal plate, suggesting it originally had an alternate purpose. Indeed, it was first used in 1738 at the impromptu christening of a "very ill" future George III only hours after his birth. His father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was banished from the royal court and forbidden to use the Charles II font. An inscription on the ewer records its presence at the 1780 christening of George III's youngest son, Prince Alfred.

The Lily Font was made in 1840 for the christening of Victoria, Princess Royal, the first child of Queen Victoria, who declined to use the Charles II font because of its unseemly history. The 1661 font was recycled as a plinth (pictured) and its basin found a new role as an altar dish. The Lily Font stands 43 cm tall and weighs approximately 10 kg. It is decorated with water lilies, symbolising purity and new life, and cherubs plucking lyres. The object has been used for the christenings of all of Elizabeth II's children and grandchildren (except Princess Eugenie) with holy water brought from the River Jordan.

Ownership, management and value
The Crown Jewels are part of the Royal Collection. As with Royal palaces, ownership is regarded as inalienable and passes from one monarch to the next in perpetuity. However, a 17th-century ruling by Sir Edward Coke, which states "the ancient jewels of the crown are heirloomes and shall descend to the next successor and are not devisable by testament", contains an exception allowing the monarch to dispose of objects via letters patent during their lifetime under the Great Seal or Privy Seal. In 1995, Iain Sproat, then Secretary of State for National Heritage, confirmed that the disposal of the Royal Collection was "entirely a matter for the Queen". Their potential value is generally not included in estimates of the monarch's wealth because in practice it is unlikely the Crown Jewels will ever be sold, nor are they insured against loss, and are officially described as priceless. Maintenance, alteration and repair falls to the Crown Jeweller, a member of the Royal Household who cleans them after visiting hours at the Tower of London each January and accompanies the regalia and plate whenever they leave the Tower for use at royal ceremonies. Older items have been conserved by experts from the British Museum. The Royal Collection Trust keeps an inventory of the jewels, and Historic Royal Palaces is responsible for their display.

title: Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom


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Lee McGeorge Durrell

Lee McGeorge Durrell (née McGeorge; born September 7, 1949) is an American naturalist, author, zookeeper, and television presenter. She is best known for her work at the Jersey Zoological Park in the British Channel Island of Jersey with her late husband, Gerald Durrell, and for co-authoring books with him.

Biography
Lee was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and showed an interest in wildlife as a child. She studied philosophy at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia before enrolling in 1971 for a graduate programme at Duke University, to study animal behaviour. She conducted research for her PhD on the calls of mammals and birds in Madagascar. She met Gerald Durrell when he gave a lecture at Duke University in 1977, and married him in 1979.

Lee Durrell moved to Jersey and became involved with the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (then the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust). She accompanied Durrell on his last three conservation missions:
 * Mauritius, other Mascarene Islands and Madagascar (1982) (account in Gerald Durrell's Ark on the Move)
 * Russia (1986) (account in Durrell in Russia, co-authored with Gerald Durrell)
 * Madagascar (1990) (account in Gerald Durrell's The Aye-Aye and I)

She became the honorary director of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust after the death of her husband in 1995. She was instrumental in getting the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust renamed after Gerald Durrell, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Jersey Zoo. She is also a member of various expert groups on conservation, and is fondly called "Mother Tortoise" in certain areas of Madagascar due to her work with the ploughshare tortoise.

In December 2005, Lee Durrell handed over a large collection of dead animals (which had originally been collected and bred by her husband Gerald Durrell) to the National Museums of Scotland to aid genetic research of the critically rare species.

Lee acted as consultant for The Durrells, a 2016 ITV six-part dramatisation of My Family and Other Animals.

Honours
Nactus serpeninsula durrelli, or Durrell's night gecko, is the Round Island race of the Serpent Island gecko, named after Gerald and Lee Durrell for their contribution to saving the gecko and Round Island fauna in general. Mauritius released a stamp depicting Durrell's night gecko.

Lee Durrell was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2011 Birthday Honours.

Filmography

 * The Amateur Naturalist, TV series, CBC (Canada) / Channel 4 (UK) (1982)
 * Ourselves & Other Animals, TV series, Primetime Television (1987)
 * Durrell in Russia, TV series, Channel 4 (UK) (1986)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Lee McGeorge Durrell


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Roland Deschain

Roland Deschain of Gilead is a fictional character and the protagonist of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. He is the son of Steven and Gabrielle Deschain and is descended from a long line of "gunslingers", peacekeepers and diplomats of Roland's society.

Background
Roland becomes a gunslinger at the unheard-of age of 14 after being manipulated into taking the "trial of manhood" by Marten Broadcloak, his father's adviser and alias of Randall Flagg. Marten has an affair with Roland's mother and makes sure Roland finds out about it, prompting Roland to request his trial in order to gain his guns and exact revenge on Marten. In the trial, Roland must defeat his teacher, Cort, using a weapon of his choosing. He chooses a hawk named David and defeats Cort. Roland sacrifices David to win the fight, setting the tone for Roland's future choices in life. Despite Roland's victory, Cort and Roland's father convince Roland to bide his time before seeking retribution.

Not long after, Roland's father sends him on a mission to the town of Hambry in the Outer Barony of Mejis with his friends Alain Johns and Cuthbert Allgood, who will form the basis of his first ka-tet. While there, he meets Susan Delgado, whom he falls in love with. He also comes into the possession of a pink crystal ball, one of 13 magical artifacts referred to as "Maerlyn's Rainbow." It was while looking into this artifact that Roland first discovered his destiny to quest for the Dark Tower.

Roland is a 30th-generation descendant of his world's version of King Arthur, referred to in the series as Arthur Eld. In Wizard and Glass, during a flashback to Roland's time in the Barony of Mejis, a letter from his father identifies Steven Deschain as a 29th-generation descendant of Arthur Eld from a side lineage (that is to say, from one of Arthur's many "gillies," or concubines). Even his guns were originally made of the melted-down metal from the legendary Excalibur sword. It is hinted that one must possess this sword, or another sign of the Eld (the line of Arthur Eld) in order to open the door at the foot of the Tower. According to a supplemental prose story by Robin Furth included in The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born (issues #7 & #2, respectively), Roland's ancestry traces back to Arthur Eld and Emmanuelle Deschain, the daughter of his seneschal, Kay Deschain, while the Crimson King's ancestry traces back to an affair between Arthur and the Crimson Queen.

Quest for the Dark Tower

Roland is alone at the beginning of the series, following the way of ka, a variant of destiny. The term ka-tet is used for a group of people who are deeply bonded to one another through ka. The eight-book series is about Roland's acquisition of a new ka-tet and the completion of his quest. Roland is the last surviving gunslinger and is possessed (or, as he describes it himself, "addicted") by a quest to reach The Dark Tower, the axis upon which infinite numbers of parallel worlds rotate. (Eddie Dean, an ex-heroin addict and member of Roland's ka-tet, calls Roland a "Tower junkie.") The Dark Tower is under assault by the Crimson King, Lord of Discordia, a Satanic figure bent on destroying the Dark Tower by undermining the "Beams" that support it.

In the first novel, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, Roland's original desire is simply to climb to the Dark Tower's top to question whatever god dwells there, but ka has greater plans for him. The ka-tet he acquires during the series bears many resemblances to his childhood ka-tet, who were all killed trying to help Roland on his quest. How he treats his new ka-tet when faced with decisions between their lives and his quest is a key component of the novels. Ultimately, his ka-tet represents a chance for redemption and a means by which he can ultimately change his own ka.

At the end of the seventh novel, it is revealed that he is trapped in a repetitive reincarnation, his "damnation" for his crimes and killings (similar to Stephen King's short story "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French", in which he expresses that his idea of hell is repetition.) However, it is also suggested that this eternal repetition is not quite eternal; after his rebirth at the end of the novel, it is revealed that in this particular reiteration of his journey, he possesses the Horn of Eld which in his previous pilgrimages he had lost in the final stand at Jericho Hill, the one major element which was discrepant from his approach to the tower and Childe Roland's approach in Robert Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came ("Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set...").

Characteristics
Physically, Roland is described by most of his ka'tet as "old long, tall, and ugly" with "blue, bombadier's eyes." He is described as tall and lanky, with a problematic hip that frequently troubled him yet doesn't mention to his travel companions. Emotionally, Roland at times appears detached or unsympathetic, often reacting with seeming indifference or anger at signs of cowardice or self-pity, yet he possesses a strong sense of heroism, often attempting to help those in need. He is shown to be emotionally scarred from the deaths of all his friends and family, often thinking about their words and actions, and he is said (on more than one occasion by himself) to lack imagination. He describes this trait as being "not very good in thinking around corners". He is nevertheless highly intelligent and perceptive, exemplified by his interest in riddles; though he enjoys hearing them, he usually overcomplicates the solution. Cuthbert, Roland's childhood best friend, once said the gears in Roland's head turn slow, but grind extremely well. Roland is impatient, especially when he is under stress, and often makes a rotating gesture with his hand, which means 'go on, hurry, move on' in conversations. Similarly, he prefers not to over-plan his actions, trusting in his instinct and skill at improvising according to the situation. He is also shown not to have a great sense of humor; despite his love for riddles, he rarely jokes and is visibly irritated at times when Eddie (and in the past, Cuthbert) joke around.

In The Waste Lands, Susannah compares Roland first to Marshal Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke, but later comes to believe he is more like John F. Kennedy. While she acknowledges that Roland lacks the president's imagination, both men have similar levels of charisma, cunning, and romance. King often notes Roland's strong sense of romance in his narrations, but describes this aspect of the gunslinger's character as being usually hidden by his more dominant sense of pragmatism.

Roland is also shown to care a great deal for his Ka-Tet, or "Companions in fate", and often puts himself at risk to save or assist them. When confronted with the choice between saving one of them or getting one step closer to the fabled Dark Tower of legend, Roland often, but not always, feels inclined to choose the Tower; however, many members of his Ka-Tets, both old and new, make the choice for him, suggesting the enormity of his quest.

Roland carries a pair of revolvers, sometimes referred to as "the big guns" by other characters. They are described as long and heavy, with blued steel (originally from his world's Excalibur) and sandalwood grips. These guns are a major sigil, as they are recognized throughout Mid-World and are used as an identifier of Roland. During the search for more ammunition in New York City in The Drawing of the Three, the guns are revealed to be chambered close enough to .45 or the .45 Long Colt to use commercially available cartridges. In The Gunslinger Roland exhibits a technique for reloading his weapons at blinding speed, though it causes burns to his fingertips when done repeatedly in a short time. He loses this ability at the start of The Drawing of the Three when the first two fingers of his right hand are bitten off. Even after being crippled, he possesses almost superhuman accuracy and he can draw his guns faster than any other character. Roland is noted as being able to shoot equally well with both hands.

In addition to being a master gunslinger, Roland is an experienced traveler, able to hunt, make his own clothes from the skins of animals, and navigate via the stars. Roland can speak five languages, including the High Speech and the Low Speech. He also possess a great deal of knowledge about ka and the nature of the world. Roland is also a skilled leader, diplomat, and teacher.

There is a point during the second book at which Roland psychically bonds himself with a murderer named Jack Mort; the combination of the two personages is said to resemble the mannerisms of Arnold Schwarzenegger as he appeared in The Terminator. Eddie Dean sees Stephen King as a young man and recognizes that he and Roland share many of the same physical features, saying that Roland could be King's father.

Some of his hair is grey or white, but some remains black. His facial features are described as rough (although Susannah once compared them to that of a tired poet; Eddie frequently refers to him as "old long tall and ugly"), and he has light blue eyes, often referred to by characters and Stephen King as "bombardier's eyes." Roland lost his right big toe and his right index and middle fingers, which is problematic as he is right-handed in everything other than shooting. He is a strong and disciplined man, capable of working through injuries and illnesses that would have killed or incapacitated another man. Roland is also unusually tall; at 14, he stood taller than the 16-year-old Susan, and, as an adult, his height exceeds that of his father. In The Dark Tower he is described as having reached an adult height of roughly 6'3".

In the last novel, it is implied that the gunslinger's mostly cold, ruthless nature is alleviated slightly every time he reaches the Dark Tower and begins his journey again—Whilst his memories are erased, his personality changes in the reflection of the experiences of each quest. This is symbolised by his re-acquisition of the Horn of Eld after the version covered in the Dark Tower series, implying that he has learned some of the true values of family and love (and patience); he has clearly taken the horn from Cuthbert Allgood's body as he wished rather than leaving it there as he did before.

Adaptations

 * In Frank Darabont's 2007 film adaptation of King's novella The Mist, the main character, David Drayton, can be seen painting a movie poster with Roland in the center, standing in front of a trans-dimensional Ironwood door, with a rose and the dark tower to each side.
 * Idris Elba portrays Roland in the 2017 film The Dark Tower. Actors Javier Bardem and Russell Crowe were previously considered for the role.
 * Sam Strike was cast as young Roland in the Amazon Prime adaptation of the series, The Dark Tower.

title: Roland Deschain


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Union Cycliste Internationale

The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI; ; International Cycling Union ) is the world governing body for sports cycling and oversees international competitive cycling events. The UCI is based in Aigle, Switzerland.

The UCI issues racing licenses to riders and enforces disciplinary rules, such as in matters of doping. The UCI also manages the classification of races and the points ranking system in various cycling disciplines including road and track cycling, mountain biking and BMX, for both men and women, amateur and professional. It also oversees the World Championships.

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UCI said that Russian and Belarusian teams were forbidden from competing in international events. It also stripped both Russia and Belarus of scheduled events.

History
UCI was founded in 1900 in Paris by the national cycling sports organisations of Belgium, the United States, France, Italy, and Switzerland. It replaced the International Cycling Association (ICA) by setting up in opposition in a row over whether Great Britain should be allowed just one team at the world Championships or separate teams representing England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Britain found itself outflanked, and it was not able to join the UCI – under the conditions the UCI had imposed – until 1903.

There were originally 30 countries affiliated to the union. They did not have equal voting power and some had no vote at all. Votes were distributed by the number of tracks, or velodromes, that each nation claimed. France had 18 votes, the highest number, and Germany and Italy 14 each. Britain had eight, a number the writer Bill Mills said was acquired "by including many rather doubtful grass tracks."

In 1965, under the pressure of the IOC (the Olympics was then an amateur event), the UCI created two subsidiary bodies, the International Amateur Cycling Federation (Fédération Internationale Amateur de Cyclisme or FIAC) and the International Professional Cycling Federation (Fédération Internationale de Cyclisme Professionnel or FICP). The UCI assumed a role coordinating both bodies.

The FIAC was based in Rome, the FICP in Luxembourg, and the UCI in Geneva.

The FIAC was the bigger of the two organisations, with 127 member federations across all five continents. It was dominated by the countries of the Eastern Bloc which were amateur. The FIAC arranged representation of cycling at the Olympic Games, and FIAC cyclists competed against FICP members on only rare occasions. In 1992, the UCI reunified the FIAC and FICP, and merged them back into the UCI. The combined organisation then relocated to Aigle, close to the IOC in Lausanne.

In 2004, the UCI constructed a 200-metre velodrome at the new World Cycling Centre adjacent to its headquarters.

In September 2007 the UCI announced that it had decided to award ProTour status for the first time ever to an event outside of Europe; the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, Australia. The announcement followed negotiations between UCI President Pat McQuaid and South Australian Premier Mike Rann.

In 2013 Tracey Gaudry became the first woman appointed as vice president of the UCI.

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UCI said that Russian and Belarusian teams are forbidden from competing in international events. It also stripped both Russia and Belarus of scheduled events.

World championships
The UCI organises cycling's world championships, administration of which it gives to member nations. The first championships were on the road and on the track. They were allocated originally to member nations in turn, on condition the country was deemed competent and that it could guarantee ticket sales. A nation given a championship or series of championships was required to pay the UCI 30 per cent of ticket receipts from the track and 10 per cent from the road. Of this, the UCI kept 30 per cent and gave the rest to competing nations in proportion to the number of events in which it competed. The highest gate money in this pre-war era was 600 000 francs in Paris in 1903.

There were originally five championships: amateur and professional sprint, amateur and professional road race, and professional Motor-paced racing. The road race was traditionally a massed start but did not have to be: Britain organised its road championship before the war as a time trial, the National Cyclists Union believing it best to run races against the clock, and without publicity before the start, to avoid police attention. Continental European organisers generally preferred massed races on circuits, fenced throughout or along the finish to charge for entry.

Records
The original records were on the track: unpaced, human-paced and mechanically paced. They were promoted for three classes of bicycle: solos, tandems and unusual machines such as what are now known as recumbents, on which the rider lies horizontal. Distances were imperial and metric, from 440 yards and 500 metres to 24 hours. The UCI banned recumbents in competitions and in record attempts on 1 April 1934. Later changes included restrictions on riding positions of the sort that affected Graeme Obree in the 1990s and the banning in 2000 of all frames that did not have a seat tube.

Rainbow jersey
The winner of a UCI World Championship title is awarded a rainbow jersey, white with five coloured bands on the chest. This jersey can be worn in only the discipline, specialty and category of competition in which it was awarded, and expires on the day before the following world championship event. Former champions are permitted to wear rainbow piping on the cuffs and collar of their clothing.

Helmet use in road racing
For decades, professional road cyclists refused to wear helmets. The first serious attempt by the UCI to introduce compulsory helmet use was the 1991 Paris–Nice race, which resulted in a riders' strike, and the UCI abandoned the idea.

After the death of Andrei Kivilev in the 2003 Paris–Nice, new rules were introduced on 5 May 2003, with the 2003 Giro d'Italia being the first major race affected. The 2003 rules allowed for discarding the helmets during final climbs of at least 5 kilometres in length; subsequent revisions made helmet use mandatory at all times.

Bribery and doping
The UCI was accused of accepting a bribe in the 1990s to introduce the keirin, a track cycling race, into the Olympics. An investigation by the BBC claims that the UCI was paid approximately $3,000,000 by Japanese sources to add the race to the Olympic programme, something denied by the UCI.

When Floyd Landis confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career in May 2010, he alleged that the UCI had accepted a bribe from Lance Armstrong to cover up an EPO positive after the 2001 Tour de Suisse.

Discussing doping in 2012, UCI president Pat McQuaid emphasised the fact that his organisation was "the first entity to introduce blood tests, the first sport to introduce the test for EPO".

Doping and defamation lawsuits
The UCI has sued or threatened to sue several cyclists, journalists, and writers for defamation after they accused it of corruption or other misdeeds related to doping. Many, though not all, of these suits are heard in the Est Vaudois district court of Vevey, Switzerland

In 2002 UCI sued Festina soigneur Willy Voet over claims in his book Breaking the Chain. In 2004 the UCI won the case, and in 2006 won the appeal. Voet had made various claims about UCI and Verbruggen's behavior related to the Laurent Brochard Lidocaine case at the 1997 UCI Road World Championships.

In 2006, according to Cycling News, the UCI contacted Greg LeMond after an interview he did in 2006 with L'Equipe, and threatened to sue him for defamation. LeMond mentioned the UCI-commissioned Vrijman report, as well as Operacion Puerto, and called the body "corrupt".

Another lawsuit was by Hein Verbruggen against WADA Chief Dick Pound in Swiss court regarding his comments about doping and the UCI. The lawsuit was settled by the parties in 2009.

In 2011, the UCI sued Floyd Landis in Switzerland after Landis accused the body of several misdeeds, including the aforementioned alleged coverup involving Lance Armstrong and the 2001 Tour de Suisse. In 2012 Cycling News reported that a District Court had ruled for UCI against Landis.

In 2012 UCI president Pat McQuaid and former president Hein Verbruggen, as well as the UCI itself, sued journalist Paul Kimmage in Switzerland for defamation. In 2013, the President of Cycling Federation of Russia called the UCI Ethics Committee to investigate Pat McQuaid actions after the UCI Licence Commission denied team Katusha a place in the 2013 WorldTour – the action which was promptly reversed. Kimmage had been a racer and had a long history of investigating doping in the sport, including a book and, more recent to the suit, articles for the Sunday Times and L'Equipe which discussed doping and UCI. Greg LeMond, David Walsh and others voiced their support for Kimmage and a legal defense fund was set up to assist him.

Sufferance of an international law violation
Under approval of the UCI, the Free Rate Downhill Race took place in May 2015 on Crimea, an internationally recognised Ukrainian territory that was annexed by the Russian Federation in March 2014. By officially overseeing an international competition with Russian license on the Ukrainian peninsula, the UCI was the first and only international sports governing body which undermined the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Yet, in the aftermath of this "scandal of sports and international law" the UCI negotiated with the Cycling Federation of Ukraine and, in November 2015, announced to remove the Free Rate Downhill Race officially from the UCI international calendar.

Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan's authoritarian leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was awarded the highest award of the Union Cycliste Internationale for his country's commitment to the sport.

Men
The UCI organize the Road World Championships (road race first held in 1921, time trial first held in 1994), as well as administer the premier tier UCI World Tour and second tier UCI ProSeries races. The highest level teams in men's road cycling are the UCI WorldTeam, who are obliged to take part in all UCI World Tour races.

On top of having organized the Road World Championships since 1921, from 1989 until 2004, the UCI administered the UCI Road World Cup, a season-long competition incorporating all the major one-day professional road races. In 2005 this was replaced by the UCI ProTour series which initially included the Grand Tour road cycling stage races (the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España) and a wider range of other one-day and stage races. However, the three Grand Tour races withdrew from the series, and in July 2008 all the major professional teams threatened to quit the series, putting its future in doubt. The ProTour was replaced as a ranking system the following year by the UCI World Ranking, which added the three Grand Tours, two early season stage races, and five more one-day classics to the 14 remaining ProTour events. The World Ranking and ProTour merged in 2011, becoming the UCI World Tour.

To expand the participation and popularity of professional road bicycle racing throughout the globe, the UCI develop a series of races collectively known as the UCI Continental Circuits for each region of the world.

Women
The UCI organize the Road World Championships (road race first held in 1959, time trial first held in 1994), as well as administer the premier tier UCI Women's World Tour races. The highest level teams in women's road cycling are the UCI Women's WorldTeams, who are invited to all UCI World Tour races.

Between 1998 and 2015, the UCI Women's Road World Cup served as a season-long competition of elite-level one-day events. From 2016, the competition was replaced by the UCI Women's World Tour - which includes stage stages as well as one-day events, including many races used in the World Cup.

Track cycling
The UCI Track Cycling World Championships for men and women offers individual and team championships in several track cycling disciplines. The UCI Track Cycling World Cup serves as a season-long competition of elite-level.

Para-cycling Track
The UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships for men and women offers individual and team championships in several track cycling disciplines.

Cyclo-cross
Each UCI-sponsored event feeds into the season-long competition known as the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup. In addition, a series of single-day events are held each year to determine the Cyclo-cross World Champion at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships.

Mountain bike racing
In mountain bike racing, the UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships is the most important and prestigious competition each year. This includes the disciplines of cross-country and downhill. In addition, this event consists of world championship events for bike trials riding. In 2012 the first cross-country eliminator world championship was held in Saalfelden.

The UCI Mountain Bike World Cup is a series of races, held annually since 1991.

At the 2011 World Championships held in Champéry, Switzerland the UCI announced a controversial new sponsorship deal with the previously unheard of RockyRoads Network.

BMX racing
The season-long competition is known as the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup and the UCI BMX World Championships serves as the one-day world championships for BMX racing (bicycle motorcross) cycling.

Trials
Unlike other types of cycling disciplines, trials is a sport where the main factors are the stability and the control of the bike in extreme situations where speed also plays an important role.

The first UCI Trials World Championships took place in 1986. Fourteen years later, in 2000, the UCI Trials World Cup made its debut. The most World Champions titles have been won by riders from Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. The UCI Trials World Youth Games is the most important international event for boys and girls under 16 years old, the first edition of which took place in 2000.

Indoor cycling
The UCI sponsors world championships for artistic cycling and cycle ball at an annual event known as the UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships.

Continental confederations
The national federations form confederations by continent:
 * Asian Cycling Confederation – ACC
 * Union Européenne de Cyclisme – UEC (European Cycling Union)
 * Oceania Cycling Confederation – OCC
 * Confederación Panamericana de Ciclismo – COPACI (Pan American Cycling Confederation)
 * Confédération Africaine de Cyclisme – CAC (African Cycling Confederation)

title: Union Cycliste Internationale


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Helen Mason (journalist)

Helen Mason Young (1938 in Glasgow, Scotland – 1989 in London, UK) was a journalist and children's author.

She gave up a journalistic career with the Daily Express after she married the political journalist Hugo Young and decided care for her four children. As they grew older, she began to return to paid work. She completed a number of successful children's books under her married name, Helen Young, including Wide Awake Jake, A Throne for Sesame and What Difference Does it Make, Danny? whose target age-groups grew along with her own children.

Eventually she resumed her journalism as a freelance columnist on a number of newspapers, such as The Observer and The Sunday Times. As a journalist she was usually credited under her maiden name Helen Mason, and occasionally other pseudonyms to protect her children from the embarrassment of being identified by their friends with some of her more personal observations about them.

title: Helen Mason (journalist)


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User:JeffC

I created the Arts section of the Symmetry page and the Arts section of the Aesthetics page.

I worked a bit on some local Los Angeles color... expanded the Van Nuys page, did a new page on Griffith Park, a new page on Ventura Boulevard, an enlarged graphic image for the LA Metro Transportation Authority, and Descanso Gardens. I also started the Tujunga page.

Being interested in promoting healthy good citizens, I ran a major copyedit on Human Rights and Healthy Diet. Since I'm a computer geek I did a rewrite of File server.

Hey, I have a day job too LOL.

title: User:JeffC


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Abe Reles

Abraham "Kid Twist" Reles (May 10, 1906 – November 12, 1941) was a New York Jewish mobster who was a hit man for Murder, Inc., the enforcement contractor for Meyer Lansky's National Crime Syndicate.

Reles later turned government witness and sent several members of Murder, Inc. to the electric chair. Reles's death from falling through a window while in police custody might have been a hit placed by the American Mafia, as he was set to testify against Gambino crime family underboss and future boss Albert Anastasia.

Early years
Abraham Reles, the son of Jewish immigrants from Galicia, was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York, on May 10, 1906. His father, Sam, worked in one of the garment trades until sometime during the Great Depression. His father's last known occupation was peddling knishes on the streets of Brownsville. His full formal Hebrew name was Elkanah ben Shimon.

Reles attended school through the eighth grade. After leaving school, he began hanging out at pool rooms and candy stores in and around Brownsville. He soon teamed up with two of his childhood friends, Martin "Buggsy" Goldstein and Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, who eventually rose to power with him in the group conventionally known as Murder, Inc. His first arrest came in 1921 for stealing $2 worth of gum from a vending machine, and he was sent to the Children's Village at Dobbs Ferry, New York, for four months.

Reles's small physical size did not deter him from committing ruthless acts of violence. When carrying out murders, his weapon of choice was an ice pick, which he would ram through his victim's ear right into the brain. Reles became so adept at using the ice pick that many of his murder victims were thought to have died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Reles became known as a particularly cold-blooded and psychopathic murderer. On one occasion, in broad daylight, he attacked a worker at a car wash for failing to clean a smudge from the fender of his car. Another time, Reles killed a parking lot attendant for failing to fetch his car fast enough. One night, according to journalist Rich Cohen, he and Harry Strauss with the help of Buggsy and Dukey murdered "Puggy" Feinstein in Kid Twist's house. For this, before, they dismissed his wife and Buggsy's wife giving fifty dollars each, but his mother-in-law was still sleeping in the back of the house, he believed that there would be no problem, but before the victim arrived, he had to wake her up to ask where there was a rope and where the ice pick was.

Reles reportedly got the nickname "Kid Twist" after an earlier New York City Jewish gangster, Max "Kid Twist" Zwerbach. Another theory behind the moniker is that it was the name of his favorite candy. Yet another theory is that the nickname described his method for strangling people. Reles was a bootlegger who rarely touched alcohol. Reles lived at 649 East 91st Street in Brooklyn before moving to 9102 Avenue A, also in Brooklyn.

Prohibition and Murder, Inc.
During the Prohibition days of the 1920s, while still teenagers, Reles and Goldstein went to work for the Shapiro brothers, who ran the Brooklyn rackets. Soon Reles and Goldstein were committing petty crimes for the brothers. On one such occasion, Reles was caught and sentenced to two years in an upstate New York juvenile institution. The Shapiro brothers failed to help Reles, prompting Reles to plan revenge.

After his release, Reles, Goldstein, and George Defeo entered the slot machine business, the province of the Shapiro brothers. Through Defeo's connections, Reles and Goldstein were able to make a deal with the influential crime lord Meyer Lansky, who wanted access to the poorer neighborhoods of Brooklyn and thus agreed. Both parties prospered: Lansky was able to get sizable footholds in Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill, while Reles gained the backing he needed to keep both his business and himself alive.

Reles, Goldstein, and Strauss were partners in all of their criminal activities, which had primarily been the slot machine business and quickly expanded to include loan sharking, crap games, and labor slugging in connection with union activities, especially the restaurant union.

The slot machine business thrived and soon Reles and Goldstein were on the Shapiros' hit list. One night, the two men received a phone call from a "friend" saying that the Shapiros had left their East New York headquarters. Hopping into a car with Defeo, they headed to East New York. However, when they reached the Shapiros' building, the three men were ambushed. Reles and Goldstein were wounded, but all three managed to escape. In the meantime, Meyer Shapiro abducted Reles' girlfriend and dragged her to an open field, where he beat and raped her.

Revenge against Shapiro Brothers
To avenge the ambush and his girlfriend's rape, Reles enlisted the help of fellow Murder, Inc. killers Frank "Dasher" Abbandando and Harry "Happy" Maione. The two killers were glad to help: they hoped to kill the Shapiro brothers and take over some of their operations. After several futile attempts by each side to eradicate the other, the Murder, Inc. group finally caught up with Irving Shapiro.

On that occasion, Reles dragged Irving from the hallway of his home out into the street. Reles beat, kicked, and then shot Irving numerous times, killing him. Two months later, Reles met Meyer Shapiro on the street and killed him by shooting him in the face. Another three years elapsed before Reles finally got the last Shapiro brother, William. William was abducted off the street and taken to a gang hideout. Once there, he was beaten nearly to death, stuffed into a sack, and driven out to the Canarsie section of Brooklyn and buried. Before the gang could finish burying William, a passerby spotted them and they had to flee the scene. William Shapiro's body was exhumed shortly thereafter, and after being autopsied it was determined that he had been buried alive.

Government informant
In 1940, Reles was implicated in a number of killings. Realizing that he faced execution if convicted, Reles became a government witness. Reles implicated his boss Lepke Buchalter in the murder of Brooklyn candy store owner Joseph Rosen; Buchalter was eventually convicted and executed for this crime. Reles's information also implicated Louis Capone, Mendy Weiss, Harry Maione, Harry Strauss, Frank Abbandando, Irving ("Knadles" and "the Plug") Nitzberg, and even his own childhood friend "Buggsy" Goldstein. All except Nitzberg were eventually convicted and executed. Reles' next target was Albert Anastasia, who had been co-chief of operations of Murder, Inc.

Reles was to implicate Anastasia in the murder of union longshoreman Pete Panto. However, unlike other members of Murder, Inc., Anastasia was a high-ranking member of the Cosa Nostra. The trial, based solely on Reles' testimony, was set for November 12, 1941. Until then, Reles was under constant guard by police detectives at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island.

Death
In the early morning of November 12, 1941, with police guarding the door, Reles fell to his death from a window in room 623 at the Half Moon Hotel.

It appeared he may have been trying to lower himself to the fifth floor window underneath using two bedsheets tied together and then to a four-foot length of wire that had been attached to a valve in his room. However, the wire knot to the valve came undone, and he fell to a second floor outdoor landing, and newspapers dubbed him "The Canary Who Could Sing, But Couldn't Fly".

The following day, five police officers who had been guarding him were demoted.

There was widespread speculation that he had been thrown or pushed out of the window and the room had been arranged to look like he was trying to escape. Reles had shown no inclination to escape from protective custody and indeed had demonstrated a fear of even being out of earshot of the police.

Frank Costello reportedly raised $100,000 to bribe these guards to kill Reles. In 2005 evidence was reported that NYPD Detective Charles Burns, one of Reles's police bodyguards, was involved in the disappearance and probable murder of NYC anti-corruption judge Joseph Force Crater in 1930.

However, in 1951 a grand jury concluded Reles died accidentally during an attempted escape.

Reles is buried in Old Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale, Queens.

title: Abe Reles


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Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is a conservation organization with a mission to save species from extinction. Gerald Durrell founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust as a charitable institution in 1963 with the dodo as its symbol. The trust was renamed Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in its founder's honor on 26 March 1999. Its patron is Princess Anne, the Princess Royal.

Its headquarters are at Les Augrès Manor on the isle of Jersey in the English Channel. The grounds of Les Augrès Manor form the Durrell Wildlife Park, which was originally established by Gerald Durrell in 1959 as a sanctuary and breeding center for endangered species. The zoological park was known as the Jersey Zoo at that time.

As of 2016, the zoo was home to more than one hundred species of reptiles, birds and mammals, many of which are designated as endangered in the wild. Despite strong resistance to his ideas from much of the zoological community, in 1959 Gerald Durrell succeeded in creating his own Zoo in Jersey, dedicating it to saving endangered animals from extinction. Gerald Durrell died aged 70, in January 1995. His wife Lee McGeorge Durrell succeeded him as Honorary Director of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and maintains an intense involvement in the Trust's work both in Jersey and overseas.

Jersey
Durrell provides intensive hands-on management of endangered species at its Jersey headquarters and through 50 conservation programmes in 18 countries worldwide.

Durrell's headquarters in Jersey is a safe-haven for endangered animals which need to be rescued from whatever is threatening their survival in their native home. Here they breed and recover in numbers while keeper-conservationists observe and study them to learn more about what they will need to thrive in the wild again.

Durrell Wildlife Camp
Work began on the Durrell Wildlife Camp in early 2012. The wooded copse to the west of Les Augres Manor, bordering on the 'Lemur Lake' enclosure housing a mixed population of ring-tailed lemurs, black and white ruffed lemurs and red-fronted brown lemurs to the southwest. The lodging was named among the best overnight lodging at a zoo in the UK.

Organic farm
The Trust established its own organic farm before any establishment of its kind in the UK. The Durrell Organic Farm was created in 1976 to provide the animal collection with non-chemically treated foods such as sunflowers and maize. It provides 70% of the animals' fruit, vegetable and forage needs over the year – produce which would otherwise cost the Trust well in excess of £20,000 to buy in commercially.

Dodo Club
The Dodo Club is the children's wing of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. The main focus of the club is environmental awareness and citizen science projects among younger members of the Trust. The Dodo Club is so named because the logo of the trust is a dodo, chosen by the founder Gerald Durrell as a reminder of man's wanton environmental destruction.

title: Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust


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Talk:Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen

 * Landsmannschaft Schlesien Landsmannschaft Ostpreussen The associations actually require that members or their ancestors were born in respective region. People that emigrated from Silesia 1950-2003 as the ethnic Germans, are also included. Nico refused to state the truth. He insists that all members were expelled. He also uttered Even the migrants must be considered expellees, since their homeland was under occupation and Germans generally was discriminated and threatened in these areas.  Source User talk:Nico The paragraph indicates, that Nico is a revisionists, that don't accept existing borders (under occupation) I am not sure if we want to have revisionsts Wikipedia? WolfgangPeters

I thought it would be correct to name them expellees, as that is what they name themselves. When they emigrated, Germany had not recognised the current borders. But do as you want. And in any event, what is wrong with considering East Prussia rightfully German, in accordance with international law (the Geneva protocols states: "It is illegal to permanently keep land militarily taken over and to expell and to replace the inhabitants") -- Nico 01:43, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I wonder, why you think that East Prussia is rightfully German? The question is, what that right that you consider superior towards international law? AM

Spelling
Why Ostpreussen and not Ostpreußen in the article title? —Tkinias 07:54, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"rv edits by Schleseir back to Molinari (picture is of region, not organisation, the org doesn't play singnificant role in DE politics, other edits are vandalism))"

1)Which other edits?! 2) Editing of articles is not vandalism--Schlesier 19:54, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * My wrong, other edits were not vandalism. Whether landsmanchafts plays significant role in German politics would be better discussed on its page, to create consensus. Once more my apology for quick and wrong judgement. Pavel Vozenilek 20:40, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen