The theft of the 'Irish Crown Jewels' by a person or persons unknown in 1907 is one of the most famous and puzzling mysteries of Irish history, and a case worthy of the great Sherlock Holmes himself.
We should start by saying
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that the 'Irish Crown Jewels' were not the equivalent of the English Crown Jewels in the Tower of London, but were in fact the regalia or insignia of the Order of St Patrick. This was a chivalric order founded by the government in 1783, designed to be the Irish counterpart of the British Order of the Garter, and equally a source of honour and patronage.
The first Grand Master was the Third Earl Temple, who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the prime mover in founding the Order. The Jewels or regalia were presented to the Order by King William IV in 1831, and are believed to have been made up from diamonds belonging to Queen Charlotte.
The Jewels were crafted by Rundell, Bridge and Company of London, and consisted of a Star and a Badge composed of rubies, emeralds and Brazilian diamonds, mounted in silver, which were to be worn by the Lord Lieutenant as Grand Master on formal occasions. The membership of the Order was composed of leading peers titled Knights Companions. The Ulster King of Arms, the state heraldic and genealogical officer in charge of the Office of Arms, was made responsible for registering the Order's membership and caring for its insignia.
The statutes or rules of the Order of St Patrick were revised in 1905, and it was ordered that the jewelled insignia of the Grand Master and the collars and badges of the members should be deposited in a steel safe in the strongroom of the Office of Arms. The Office of Arms had moved to new premises in Dublin Castle in 1903, and the serving Ulster King of Arms was Sir Arthur Vicars, who had been appointed in 1893.
After fitting out of the new premises had been completed, it was found that the safe in which the Order's insignia were to be kept was too large to fit through the door of the strongroom. It was therefore decided to leave the safe in the Library until a more suitably-sized safe could be obtained, but this was never done.
While seven latch keys to the door of the Office of Arms were held by Vicars and his staff, there were only two keys to the safe containing the insignia, both held by Vicars. The last occasion on which the Jewels were seen in the safe was on 11 June 1907, when Vicars showed them to John Hodgson, the librarian of the Duke of Northumberland.
On the morning of Wednesday 3 July there was a strange occurrence, when Mrs Farrell the office cleaner found the entrance door unlocked, told William Stivey the messenger, who on informing Vicars received a rather offhand reply. On the morning of Saturday 6 July there was an even more alarming occurrence, when Mrs Farrell found the door of the strongroom ajar, and on being informed by Stivey, Vicars again replied casually, 'Is that so?', or 'Did she?', taking no further action.
At about 2.15pm on the same day, 6 July, Vicars gave Stivey the key of the safe and a box containing the collar of a deceased knight, asking him to deposit it in the safe. This was most unusual, as Stivey had never before held the safe key in his hand. Stivey found the safe door unlocked and immediately informed Vicars, who came and opened the safe to find that the Jewels, five Kinghts' collars and some diamonds belonging to Vicars's mother were all gone.
The police were called, and in the subsequent investigation lock experts established that the safe lock had not been tampered with, but had been opened with a key. While Mahony was in the Office of Arms from April until 4 July, except one day in May, Shackleton and Goldney appeared not to have visited the premises or indeed been in Ireland between these dates.
The discovery of the theft of the Jewels caused great concern to government, and indeed King Edward VII was particularly angered, as he was on the point of visiting Ireland and intended to invest a knight of the Order of St Patrick. Apparently largely on the King's insistence, it was decided to reconstitute the Office of Arms and replace Vicars. Vicars, however, refused to resign, being supported by his half-brother, Pierce O'Mahony, father of Pierce Gun Mahony and a self-styled Gaelic Chief titled The O'Mahony. The O'Mahony became the most prominent figure in a campaign for a public enquiry which it was hoped would vindicate Vicars.
A Viceregal Commission of Enquiry was eventually appointed, which did not possess powers to subpoena witnesses, and it first met on 10 January 1908 in the Office of Arms. At the outset Vicars withdrew and declined to assist the Commission, on the grounds that it was not being held in public. The Commission heard various witnesses, in particular Francis Shackleton, who travelled from San Remo in Italy to attend the enquiry. After deliberating on the matter the Commission published its report rather speedily on 25 January, and it proved to be a damning indictment, not to say scapegoating of Vicars. The report noted that the safe containing the Jewels was not in the strongroom as required, but was in the Library which was open to the public all day. Vicar's apparently casual reaction to breaches of security in the run-up to the discovery of the theft was commented on, and it was noted that the safe could only have been opened by one of the two keys in his possession, or by a copy of same. The Commission therefore concluded that Vicars 'did not exercise due vigilance or proper care as the custodian of the regalia'.
The Commission's report also contained an unusual paragraph specifically stating that there was no evidence that Shackleton had stolen the Jewels. Shackleton shared a house with Vicars in Clonskeagh and had been in financial difficulties, matters upon which he was closely questioned by the Commission. Dublin naturally was awash with rumours as to who had been responsible for the theft, and Shackleton's name had been prominently mentioned.
The name of Lord Haddo, the son of the Lord Lieuentant, the Earl of Aberdeen, had also been bandied about, and Shackleton's reference to this rumour in the course of his evidence could be interpreted as a calculated device to threaten scandal if he was pressed too hard. Furthermore, a letter from Vicars to Shackleton, dated 25 August 1907 and read into the records of the enquiry, indicated that both Vicars and Goldney believed that Shackleton knew of the whereabouts of the Jewels. It seems strange that the Commission should have gone so out of its way to exculpate Shackleton, and the placing of total blame on Vicars certainly raises suspicions of a whitewash. Furthermore, a name not mentioned at all in the Commission's report was that of Captain Richard H Gorges, a disreputable friend of Shackleton who as we shall see was also linked with the theft.
A much murkier account of the whole affair found its way into the public domain via an article in an Irish-American nationalist newspaper, the Gaelic American. This was written by the Irish Republican Brotherhood member Bulmer Hobson and published on 4 July 1908, the whole saga of course providing advanced nationalists with a golden opportunity to expose what they saw as British corruption. Based apparently on information given to Hobson and Arthur Griffith by The O'Mahony, this article claimed that drunken parties had been held in the Office of Arms, and that on one occasion someone had taken the safe key from an unconscious Vicars, removed the Jewels from the safe as a practical joke and later returned the precious objects via the post! It was claimed that Shackleton, in confederation with Captain Gorges, was inspired to repeat this action at a later date, but this time there was to be no return via the post or otherwise, and the Jewels were eventually sold off to help ease the desperate duo's financial problems. No other Office of Arms staff were alleged to be involved, although there is a possibility that Pierce Gun Mahony may have been used as some sort of dupe.
The article also alleged that there had been a secret Dublin Metropolitan Police enquiry operating in parallel with that of the Commission, which had subjected Shackleton to a less benign interrogation when he had completed his evidence to the enquiry. Bulmer Hobson also recalled in later years that he had an interview in 1912 with Gorges, then apparently acting as an agent provocateur, in the course of which he confirmed to Hobson the essential accuracy of the Gaelic American article.
Although the authorities quickly became aware of the identities of those who had stolen the Jewels, they could not secure hard evidence against them or persuade them to reveal the whereabouts of their booty. In consequence of this, and out of a desire to avoid further scandal and revelations, it was said that the police contented themselves with ordering Shackleton to leave the country without delay. Meanwhile Vicars pathetically waited for Shackleton to do the gentlemanly thing and return the Jewels, but it was never to be. This whole account has the merit of plausibility, even though of course it comes from a biassed source and is uncorroborated in its details. This version of the tale also suggests further avenues of enquiry which would be extremely difficult and time-consuming to pursue, but in the run-up to the hundreth anniversary of the affair in 2007 it is hoped that some sort of expert body of enquiry will be appointed to reinvestigate the whole affair thoroughly.
Are there any other suspects who, even at this late stage, should be looked at also? In fact there is one, the Athlone Pursuivant, Francis Bennett Goldney, who was active in Canterbury politics and rose to be mayor of the city. It appears that Goldney was something of a thieving magpie, and a recently published account reveals the quite remarkable degree to which he purloined artefacts and documents from institutions with which he was connected. After his death it was discovered that his haul included ancient charters and documents belonging to the City of Canterbury, a painting belonging to the Duke of Bedford and two communion cups from Canterbury Cathedral.
Goldney was appointed as Athlone Pursuivant in February 1907, and the Jewels, as we have seen, were found to have been stolen five months later in July 1907. Grounds for suspicion certainly exist against Goldney, but no hard evidence has been found to connect him with the theft of the Irish Jewels nor do contemporaries appear to have suggested that he might have been involved..
The aftermath of the theft of the Jewels was also replete with drama and tragedy. On 30 January 1908 Vicars was informed that his appointment as Ulster King of Arms had been terminated, and Captain Nevile Rodwell Wilkinson was appointed in his place. As the disgruntled Vicars refused to hand over the keys to the Office of Arms strongroom, Wilkinson found himself obliged to stage another break-in in order to gain entry!
Understandably embittered and believing that he had been made a scapegoat for the theft of the Jewels, Vicars retired to County Kerry, and spent the remainder of his life in Kilmorna House. Vicars married Gertrude Wright in 1917, and on 14 April 1921 he was shot by a local IRA unit after it had set fire to Kilmorna. It is not known whether Vicars was just an incidental victim of the Troubles, or whether he had actually been providing intelligence on the IRA in an effort to win back official favour, but it is believed that the killing was a local initiative rather than an act sanctioned by Republican headquarters.
The last will and testament of Vicars is a rather sad and indeed bitter document, in which he condemned both the Irish Govenment and King Edward VII for making him a scapegoat and shielding 'the real culprit and thief', whom he specifically named as Francis R Shackleton. Because of these potentially defamatory, not to say explosive allegations, this will was closed to researchers until 1976.
Nemesis stalked many of the other actors in the affair just as ruthlessly as it did Vicars. Shackleton was convicted of fraud in 1913, and following his release from prison he assumed the surname Mellor and died in 1941 in Chichester. Pierce Gun Mahony was found shot through the heart in 1914 what appears to have been a hunting accident, although suspicions of murder were voiced. Captain Gorges killed a policeman in 1915 and was convicted of manslaughter. From his prison cell he claimed to have information on the fate of the Jewels, but was not believed, and eventually died in the 1950s. Francis Bennett Goldney died in a motoring accident in France in 1918, and his executors were soon called to task when the Canterbury charters and other purloined items were noticed among his effects.
It can be argued that the Irish Office of Arms never really recovered from the Jewels scandal, and that standards in Irish genealogical and heraldic practices were the principal casualties of the affair.
The new Ulster King of Arms, Nevile Wilkinson, left the running of the Office of Arms to deputies, and while he did establish an Heraldic Museum, he never produced a substantial heraldic or genealogical publication. Wilkinson's chief claim to fame was in fact the creation of the elaborate doll's house known as Titania's Palace, and he exhibited more enthusiasm for this project than for tending personally to the affairs of his Office. The decline of the Office of Arms of course accelerated following Irish independence in 1922, until it was eventually taken over by the Irish government in 1943, in a condition which the new incoming head Edward MacLysaght fairly characterised as a mess. (9) The Office of Arms was restructured as the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland/Genealogical Office, and is now based in Kildare Street, Dublin, where the State Heraldic Museum contains a display case commemorating the Crown Jewels Affair. Ironically, the Office of the Chief Herald is today mired in a scandal not entirely dissimilar to that relating to the Crown Jewels, the MacCarthy Mór Hoax, which is the subject of another article on this site.
Observing that the first Ulster King of Arms was appointed in 1552, the Office of the Chief Herald has decreed itself to be 'the oldest Office of State', and is celebrating its '450th Anniversary' during 2002, a claim as absurd as that the Dáil and Seanad are the same as the old Irish Parliament, or that the Office of President is coterminous with that of the Viceroy under English rule.
The fate of the stolen Crown Jewels remains a subject of speculation and controversy to the present day. In 1976 an intriguing Irish Government memorandum dated 1927 was released, indicating that 'the Castle Jewels are for sale and that they could be got for £2,000 or £3,000'. Gregory Allen has interpreted these words to mean that the stolen Jewels were still intact in 1927 and that the thieves or their agents were effectively endeavouring to ransom them to the Irish Government. Allen then proceeds to put forward a rather implausible theory that the Jewels may have been stolen by patriots intent on furthering Arthur Griffith's plan to secure Irish independence through the device of a 'dual monarchy'.
Some commentators have followed Allen in believing that the 1927 memorandum was referring to the stolen Jewels, but the present writer is not so sure. Might not the reference have been to the elements of the regalia of the Order of St Patrick not stolen in 1907, the last remnants of which were returned to England as late as the 1940s? If this interpretation is correct, the belief that the stolen Jewels survived intact for many years after 1907 appears to be unsupported.
Of course facts or the absence of same should not be allowed to get in the way of a good yarn, and rumours and legends have abounded over the years, with claims that the Jewels may still be hidden in Ireland, or somewhere in England, or alternatively are in the possession of a wealthy collector in America or elsewhere abroad. A field in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains was dug up in 1983 by the Irish police, acting on information apparently given by someone on their death-bed, but nothing was found. On a visit to Listowel some years back the present writer was shown a clearly forged letter referring cryptically to the Jewels and allegedly written by Vicars, and an account of strange nocturnal activities among the ruins of Kilmorna appeared in a newspaper in 1998.
We must conclude that the mystery of the Irish Crown Jewels remains unresolved. On balance, the present writer tends to believe that Shackleton and Gorges are the most likely ones to have orchestrated the theft of the Jewels in 1907, but the revelations concerning Goldney's kleptomania place him more prominently on the list of suspects. In any case, it seems probable that the thief or thieves would eventually have sold the Jewels for ready cash, with the result that they are highly unlikely to have survived intact, legends to the contrary notwithstanding.
For more: http://homepage.tinet.ie/~seanjmurphy/irhismys/jewels.htm
