By Dr. Lucille Daver
From Afghanistan to England’s Tower of London, the Black Prince’s Ruby has traversed time and lore. Yet, despite the popular name marking it as a ruby, the gemstone has been identified as a red spinel weighing approximately 170 carats. The spinel is uncut, set in its rough form as a 5 cm irregular octahedron with rounded edges and a beautiful bright pigeon-blood red colour. The stone has a marked imperfection: A drill hole in one corner which reveals that it had, at some point in its lifetime, been used as a pendant. As it currently stands, the drill hole has been plugged with a small cabochon ruby in a gold slip mount.
A crimson ruse: Ruby or spinel?
Rubies and spinels are mineralogically very close (Al2O3 and MgAl2O4, respectively) and, in addition to having a very similar colour, they are generally found in the same deposits. As a result, these two red gemstones have long been confused—with spinels often mistaken for rubies in historical record. This misidentification continued until 1783, when French mineralogist Jean-Baptiste Louis Romé de l’Isle identified spinel as a mineral distinct from ruby. Following his analysis, many of the famous “rubies” in crown jewels were identified as spinels, including:
- Catherine the Great’s ruby (398-carat). Set in the Russian imperial crown in 1762 and identified by Romé as spinel in 1783.
- The Timur Ruby (352.5-carat). Set in a necklace for Queen Victoria in 1849 and identified as a spinel in 1851.
- The Samarian Spinel (500-carat). The largest spinel known to date. The gemstone had originally belonged to the fourth Mughal Emperor of India, Jahangir (who reined from 1605-1627). It currently resides in the Iranian Crown Treasury.
- The Imperial Mughal Spinel Necklace. The necklace is comprised of 11 spinels with a total of 1131 carats. It sold at Christie’s in 2011 for US$5 million.
The famous spinel’s origin
These misidentified big rubies, including the Black Prince’s Ruby, likely originated from Kuh-i-Lal, part of the Badakhshan mining region between present-day Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Red stones from the region, mistaken for rubies, are called balas rubies. The name is derived from the deconstruction of Badakhsan into “Balakhsh” and then “Balas.”
The ruby/spinel mines of Afghanistan pose a significant mystery in the historical gemmological record. While the mines have been referenced in the Arabic writings of various travellers since the 10th-century, our contemporary understanding of them is limited as there are no 20th-century eyewitness accounts detailing the mines or their locations.
In the late 1980s, huge translucent purplish-pink spinels measuring over 20 cm were mined in the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan, close to the Chinese border. It is not known whether the mine that produced these specimens is the same historic Badakhshan mine. The Afghan rubies mined today are small, pinkish in colour and are mostly confined to the Jegdalek mines in the country’s Kabul province.
A seizure and an exchange
There is no record of the year the Black Prince Ruby was mined, nor of its first owners. The gemstone first appeared in the historical record in 1362, when Peter I of Castile (also known as Peter the Cruel) allied with Mohammed V of Granada and allegedly seized Abu Saïd of Granada’s treasure—which included three egg-sized balas rubies—after slaughtering him.
In 1366, Peter the Cruel was driven out of Spain by his half-brother Henry II. That same year, he signed the Treaty of Libourne with Charles II of Navarre (Charles the Bad), and Prince Edward of Woodstock (also known as the Black Prince). The treaty stipulated they both would provide Peter the Cruel with military and financial assistance to regain his throne in exchange for territory and money. The terms of the treaty were enforced when, in 1367, Peter the Cruel regained his throne, but was unable to pay off his debt. Therefore, he passed the enormous, egg-sized balas ruby in his possession to the Black Prince, marking the stone’s entry into the crown jewels of the English monarchy. In 1569, during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, the gemstone was renamed the Black Prince’s Ruby in honour of Prince Edward.
It’s important to note the jewel’s link to the Black Prince was only suggested in the 1760s—based on an unsubstantiated, and later disputed, identification of the gem in a portrait. Nevertheless, despite the stone’s tenuous connection to the Black Prince, there are numerous written records of several Spanish ruby balas within the English crown jewel registers during the 1377 valuation of the seized Spanish crown treasure.
An adverse journey
The Black Prince’s Ruby was described at the Battle of Azincourt on October 25, 1415, set in a gold crown over King Henry V’s helmet and accompanied by pearls and precious stones. During the battle, the King of England was violently struck on his helmet. While he narrowly escaped death, the blow lost him a small fragment of the spinel. Yet, a French prisoner named Gaucourt offered to find the fragment lost on the battlefield in exchange for his freedom. While Gaucourt found the fragment, the King refused to set him free. This broken piece has made the gemstone easier to trace over history.
The story gave birth to the legend of the stone as protective talisman powerful enough to protect the King from death—and successive sovereigns of all houses had the stone mounted on their respective crowns. On August 22, 1485, Richard III is said to have worn it on his helmet during the Battle of Bosworth. Then, in the early 17th century, James I had the jewel set into the royal crown.
Between 1653 and 1658, Olivier Cromwell seized power, established the Commonwealth of Ireland, England, and Scotland and ordered the removal of the crown jewels. Some parts were sold, others destroyed, and the Black Prince Ruby was lost from historical record until 1660, when it was reportedly bought by an unknown man. The man sold it to Charles II after the restoration of the Stuarts, bringing it back to the British crown jewels. However, its repose was not so fortunate. The gem narrowly escaped Colonel Blood’s attempt to steal the crown jewels in 1671, the 1841 Tower of London fire, and the Second World War’s Blitz.
In the tower
The Black Prince’s Ruby is set on the Imperial State Crown. The crown—made for the coronation of George VI in 1937 by Crown jeweller Garrard & Co—is a replica of the Imperial Crown created for Queen Victoria in 1838, but with a lighter, more comfortable mounting. Both the crown and the Black Prince’s Ruby can be found on display at the Tower of London.
References
1 Afzali, H., 1981. Les resources d’hydrocarbures, de métaux et de substances utiles de l’Afghanistan: aperçu générál. Chronique de la Recherche Minière, No. 460, 29-49, RWHL*.
2 Blair, C. (1998). The Crown Jewels: the history of the coronation regalia in the Jewel House of the Tower of London. Stationery Office.
3 Hughes, R. W. (1994). The rubies and spinels of Afghanistan: A brief history. Journal of Gemmology, 24(4), 256-267.
4 Hughes, R. W., Manorotkul, W., & Hughes, E. B. (2017). Ruby & sapphire: A gemologist’s guide. RWH Publishing.
5 Ogden, J. M. (2020). The Black Prince’s Ruby: Investigating the Legend. Journal of Gemmology, 37(4).
Dr. Lucille Daver is a mineral exploration researcher in Que. specializing in mineralogy and diamond geology. A gemmologist awarded with the internationally recognized title of Fellow of the Gemmological Association of
Great Britain, she has been periodically teaching gemmology since 2020 and starteda jewellery company in 2023 (Lucille-daver.com). She can be reached at lucilledaver1@gmail.com
