Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland

Links to all my posts on Regency Jewels can now be found under its own page, Regency Jewels.

I hope you’re all enjoying a lovely holiday and wish you all the best for the coming year!

I’m taking a detour from the Regency era this week, to the 17^th C, my second favourite century. One has got to love a century when Over The Top was the norm. This post is really just about a bed, a queen’s bed, and it’s got I WANT written all over it, but I’m adding some history paraphernalia around it.

Vadstena Castle. Sorry, really couldn't resist this "Hello, I'm Gustav Vasa, this is my castle" photo. It's so... special.

This is Vadstena Castle, the home of the bed. It is just one of many castles in Sweden placed like a string of pearls around Stockholm to defend us from those wicked Danes. Well, that was the sentiment in the 16^th C, when these castles were fortified, and they look very much the same. Vasa Castles they are called, since King Gustav Vasa and his sons built them.

The main gate with the castle chapel above.

The 16^th C was also the time of Renaissance princes (at least in Sweden, we’re always late), so the castles were furnished to suit the grandeur of said noble (pinch of salt needed here) princes. To build the first floor of the castle and the towers a number of old (unnecessary) convents were demolished for the stone.

The second and third floors were finished during the turn of the century 15-1600s and it was a royal residence until the beginning of the 18^th Century. In the 1650s the castle was bequeathed to Hedvig Eleonora, the queen consort of Charles X.

Queen Hedvig Eleonora, 1636 - 1715. Look at the size of those pearls!

I say the castle, but the main thing was actually the lands that went with it. Being royalty in these times was an itinerary life. You went to one of your residences, ate until nothing was left in your pantry (and did some ruling, I assume), and then left for the next pantry. And thus it went in a cycle, packing and unpacking all your things, and courtiers and maids and servants. Because the problem for any royal person was they didn’t just feed themselves, but the entire court.

State room, aka dining room.

The first floor has a big room called Herreköket, loosely translated The Lords’ kitchen, it’s a large room that sadly has nothing left of the old inventories. It would have been interesting to see a 17^th C kitchen. The castle was used as a warehouse and and factory since the 18^th C, so there are only bits and pieces left of the old, like this drain.

Window sill or drain, as you like it.

The second floor holds a banquet room, which is now used as an opera during the summers by Vadstena-Akademien.

Charles X, the focal point on the wall.

The third floor had living quarters and the state rooms. After the years of neglect the western most part of the castle is now furnished with some objects from Queen Hedvig Eleonora’s days. Some things remain intact though, like this patterned ceiling.

Ceiling in the state room.

Some things are new (and fake) like this example of a dinner table from the 17^th C.

The courses came and went, so it’s no wonder that when Queen Hedvig Eleonora’s husband, Charles X, died from pneumonia (read heart failure) in 1660 he had a waist circumference of 134 cm (he was 170 cm tall). Something tells me he wouldn’t rest comfortably in the queen’s grand, but not very large, bed.

He wouldn’t have to though, since the king’s quarters were in the eastern part of the castle, on the other side of the castle chapel. And to make sure the marriage wouldn’t turn too chaste by these circumstances there was a wooden balcony on the outside wall, connecting the two apartments.

The chapel with the queen's box by the windows. It has it's match on the opposite wall for the king. The door almost visible on the left leads to the king's apartment.

Also, the queen was a very practical woman. Castles, despite their glamour and grandeur, are chilly and not very private, so she had a wooden cottage built for her outside the castle grounds. It was here she lived, even though she resided at the castle. In some ways you could say she went up in the mornings to go to the castle for her queenly work.

A fireplace doesn't really stand a chance against the thick stone walls of a fortified castle, even when it's placed this close to the bed.

The Choir of Clare College

Collect for the First Sunday of Advent, and all the days in Advent until Christmas.

The Book of Common Prayer, 1662

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness,

and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life

in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility;

that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty

to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal;

through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost,

one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

We’re digging deep into history galore and tragedy of love today. This parure is believed to come straight from the Napoleonic source itself, a gift from Napoleon to his Josephine in 1809, the same year he divorced her to enter a second marriage with the hopes of getting an heir. Napoleon owned up to both faults and virtues, and any number of mistresses, but knowing that he died with Josephine’s name on his lips, that divorce tears at my heartstrings.

Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden (Margaret of Connaught), 1882-1920, wearing tiara and necklace.

I don’t know whether to call it irony or tragedy, but the focal point of the parure, the centered cameo on the tiara, depicts Eros and Psyche, a popular love story of the time and one of the first HEA love stories of Western culture. The lovers had to fight both fate and the gods to be together, but they did – unlike Napoleon and Josephine.

Princess Ingrid of Sweden (Crown Princess Margaret's daughter), 1910-2000, dressing up for a masquerade. Princess Ingrid became Queen consort of Denmark.

Follow this link for more on Ingrid and the Ruby Parure.

The suite consists of a tiara, necklace, bracelet, earrings and a brooch. It’s made of red gold and cameos, surrounded by pearls, except for the necklace where diamonds frame the cameos. The cameo parure wasn’t mentioned in the inventories after Josephine’s death in 1814, which is why her ownership of the parure is questioned. She has been portrayed wearing a similar cameo tiara, if one allows the artist a little artistic freedom.

Josephine de Beauharnais

On the other hand we do know it belonged to Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine’s daughter who was married to one of Napoleon’s brothers. I’m sorry to say, their marriage wasn’t very happy either, not even to begin with. Eros and Psyche really didn’t work their magic there.

Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland

In some convoluted way the parure ended up with Josephine of Leuchtenberg (granddaughter to Josephine de Beauharnais and niece to Hortense).

Josephine, wearing the cameo tiara, with her "Swedish" family. From left: Queen Desiree (former fiancee of Napoleon!), Crown Prince Oscar (born in Paris) and King Charles XIV John (former Marshal of France. Napoleon was a bit put out when Charles John accepted the Swedish title and then turned against Napoleon in the war). Click on picture to enlarge it.

Follow this link for more on Charles John, Marshal of France and King of Sweden.

The granddaughter Josephine was seven years old when her famous grandmother died. She was the Duchess of Bologna from birth, by Napoleon’s decree, and named Napoleonne as a middle name. But the world changed after her birth with Napoleon’s downfall. Her father Eugène, who had always been favored by Napoleon, lost his titles, Josephine would have lost hers and it was only by the grace of Eugène’s father-in-law, the King of Bavaria, that Eugène was bestowed the title of Royal Highness and Duke of Leuchtenberg – in fact, Eugène was the only one of the viceroys and kings of Napoleonic Europe to gain a title after Napoleon’s exile.

Silvia, Queen consort of Sweden, wearing the earrings and brooch that belongs to the parure. The cameo on the brooch shows the familiar profile of Napoleon himself. Isn't that a dandy gift to your loved one?

Josephine was sixteen in 1814 when she married Oscar of Sweden and became the Crown Princess of Sweden. She was no longer Duchess of Bologna, and she had to drop her middle name Napoleonne (the Swedes had fought against Napoleon, at least nominally), but she had all those gorgeous, sparkly jewels with her, which I think speak more of Napoleon and his court than ever her Napoleonic name did. And she needed them, for, yet again I’m sad to say, her marriage wasn’t the happiest. Shall we blame Eros or the royal tradition of arranged marriages?

Bracelet worn by the newly married Crown Princess Victoria. Modern times, new traditions, she married the love of her life and beamed of happiness from early morning to late at night. Eros was merry little god that day, I think.

Despite unfortunate alliances of the past and more in tune with the Eros and Psyche theme, the tiara has become something of a wedding tiara in the Swedish Royal Family. The present queen, the crown princess, and several of the present king’s sisters wore the tiara at their weddings.

Crown Princess Victoria on her wedding day, June 2010.

If you wonder why she beamed you can listen to the wedding speech of her husband Prince Daniel. He’s a true Lisa Kleypas hero, a self-made man of the people who one day met a princess.

I do like attention to detail. This photo for example shows how to combine a Napoleonic tiara with a Victorian lace. The lace must have been starched, and almost seamlessly turns the tiara into a coronet. I love!

The parure still rests in its original velvet case, marked Nitot – Napoleon’s personal jeweler, who designed the crown jewels for the coronation and was the founder of Chaumet in Paris. If it’s a rainy day, dreary day, actually any kind of day, have a look and brighten the day. They have a Josephine collection in honor of Nitot’s first muse. Or stay tuned with this sparkly video, a dance galore to end our Regency Jewels series, with royalty waltzing and tiaras glittering.