You are looking at a spectacular tiara – natch, it belongs to the Royal Family. Was it plundered from a Maharajah, “borrowed” from a nabob? No it wasn’t.
It was a gift, with other jewellery, from the illegitimate daughter of a cook married to a porter at McEwan’s brewery in Edinburgh. Her real father, William McEwan, who owned the brewery and was well wedged-up, eventually did the right thing by his mistress, marrying her when their daughter was twenty-one. She was a witness at the wedding.
Margaret Greville was an exceptional woman. Born in 1863, the circumstances of her birth should have excluded her from society. Her house, Polesden Lacey, a wedding present from her father, and money she inherited from him might have given her an entree to the foothills of society.
However, she was a social mountaineer who climbed to the summit of society between the wars. Here’s how Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother described her.
“So shrewd, so kind and so amusingly unkind, so sharp, such fun, so naughty; altogether a real person, a character, utterly Mrs Ronald Greville”.
Cecil Beaton is not so gracious.
“A galumphing, greedy, snobbish old toad who watered at her chops at the sight of royalty … and did nothing for anybody except the rich”.
Beaton was something of a snob himself but met his match in Mrs Greville. She died in 1942, aged 78, leaving this cache of jewels to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother and throwing in £20,000 for Princess Margaret. A diamond necklace that reputedly belonged to Marie Antoinette, a pair of diamond chandelier earrings, a selection of tiaras and a ruby necklace by Boucheron. To this day, the full extent of her collection is not known.
As a rich hostess she might have attracted a lot of scroungers but in fact her guests make an impressive list. The Aga Khan, diplomats, politicians and aristocrats were all part of the Polesden Lacey Set. She was a woman who invented herself and about whom little is known. She never remarried when her husband, Ronald Greville, died in 1908. She had enough money and for what ever motives wanted to be famous in her own right like her socially ambitious contemporaries: Emerald, Lady Cunard and Sibyl, Lady Colefax. I think she eclipsed them.
James Lees-Milne: ‘She was a lady who loved the great because they were great, and had a tongue dipped in gall. I remember old Lady Leslie exclaiming, “Maggie Greville, I would sooner have an open sewer in my drawing room!”‘
Didn’t she rather fancy herself a bit of a political influencer, as well: opposing-the-appointment-of-a-Viceroy sort of thing (since, after all, she had been to India, and must therefore know all about it!)? If memory serves, contemporaries agreed she was very clever to make Polesden supremely comfortable, with endless heat and hot water and an excellent chef, so she could get almost anyone to come. And she shrewdly mixed motherly affection with support for Bertie and his young wife and let her bequests be known well before she died, so she could enjoy the social dividends in person.
Unfortunately, your information about Maggie Greville includes a number of mistakes. They are mistakes which matter.
As an Historian, & someone who has spent years studying & researching Maggie Greville, I am very uncomfortable with seeing these mistakes, in your blog.
If you contact me, I can correct your mistakes, which to me are serious.
I hope you prefer truth rather than misinformation.