Great H of Scotland
The Great 'H' of Scotland was a jewel belonging to Mary, Queen of Scots comprising a large diamond, a ruby, and a gold chain.
[4] Mary's inventories refer to "Le Henri", and it was described in French as:Une grosse bague a pendre facon de .h.
[5]The Great H may have been the pendant of "incalculable value" which Mary wore at her wedding in 1558 at Notre-Dame de Paris,[6][7] "a son col pendoit une bague d'une valeur inestimable".
[9][10] Accounts of the day also highlight a ruby called the "Egg of Naples" serving as a pendant at the front of her crown, an "escharboucle" thought to be worth 500,000 Écu or more.
[18] Mary hoped to add the "Great H" to the crown jewels of Scotland in memory of her reign, in a list of potential bequests she made in childbed in 1566.
After Mary's abdication, her half-brother Regent Moray and his secretary John Wood brought the "H" with other jewels to England hoping to sell it.
After Regent Moray was assassinated by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, his widow Agnes or Annas Keith retained the "H" for several years.
[22] There is no evidence that Moray had given the jewel to his wife as a gift before his death, as the historians Agnes Strickland and Joseph Robertson supposed.
Mary wrote threateningly "so be sure, if you hold any thing pertains to me, you and your bairns (children) and maintainers shall feel my displeasure heavily, nor is wrongous gear profitable".
She wrote from Dunnotar on 2 November 1570 to William Cecil asking him to intercede with Queen Elizabeth so that Mary would cease from urging Huntly to trouble her and her children for the jewels.
[35] Morton offered conditions to the Earl and Countess of Argyll in August 1574, and these were recorded in a note made by an English diplomat Henry Killigrew.
[40][41] The Countess sent a lawyer, Thomas Craig, to plead on behalf of her daughters Elizabeth and Margaret Stewart that she was still owed money, and was further impoverished by the "letters of horning" raised to recover the Great Harry.
After James VI came of age, in 1581 he ordered the treasurer, William Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie to give several jewels from his mother's collection to his favourite, Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox including, in June, a gold chain of knots of pearls and diamonds.
[52] The jewels recovered from the Earl of Arran and his wife Elizabeth Stewart, including the "H" were finally formally returned to the treasurer of Scotland, Robert Melville on 23 February 1586.
[53] James VI gave the 'H' to Anne of Denmark to wear, possibly among a gift of the "greatest part of his jewels" mentioned in December 1593.
[57] The English diplomat George Nicholson heard that Anne of Denmark had offered the "H" to her friend the Countess of Erroll as recompense for the demolition of Slains Castle,[58] and that Foulis had a breakdown in January 1598 when James reclaimed the jewel without payment.
[62] Portraits of Anne of Denmark made at this time show her wearing a jewel including a large diamond and cabochon ruby, flanked by four precious stones on both sides.
In 1540 Henry VIII gave Katherine Howard an "hache of gold wherin is vj feir diamondes" with an emerald and four pendant pearls, which differs from the pieces described above.
