Camilla will get Kohinoor once Prince Charles becomes king, says report

Chandigarh, February 8

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Duchess of Cornwall Camilla will be given the priceless Kohinoor crown at Prince Charles’s coronation, the Daily Mail reported in an exclusive story.

On Saturday, Queen Elizabeth announced that the Duchess of Cornwall would become Queen Consort when her husband, the Queen’s son Prince Charles, finally accedes to the throne. To put this into context, the throne is inherited and those who marry into the royal family cannot take it. This means that although Camilla will take the title “Queen Consort” she could never be made “Queen”.

The Queen’s announcement came on a day that marked the 70th anniversary of her accession to the throne.

The Daily Mail report on Sunday said Camilla will have the Queen Mother’s priceless platinum and diamond crown placed on her head when Charles is made king.

The Kohinoor, also spelled as Koh-i-noor or Koh-i-nur, is a precious 105.6 carat diamond of indeterminable origins whose recorded history goes back to the Mughal era when Babur mentions it in his diary. Babur mentions in his diary entry that Alauddin Khalji of the Khilji dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate had acquired the diamond in one of his invasions of the kingdoms of southern India in the 14th Century and that it passed to succeeding dynasties of the Sultanate. Babur received the diamond in1526 as a tribute to his conquest of Delhi and Agra in the Battle of Panipat.

The diamond changed many hands after this, finally falling into those of Queen Victoria in 1949 with the annexation of Punjab by the Company at the end of the Second Anglo-Sikh War.

Kohinoor was set into a crown for King George VI’s coronation in 1937 and has since been with the Queen Mother.

It remains a bone of contention between India and the United Kingdom—the former insists that its former colonial masters return the priceless jewel.

Charles married Camilla in 2005.