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The Queen received some unusual wedding gifts when she married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten – now the beloved Duke of Edinburgh – in 1947.
The Royal couple received more than 2,500 gifts and they were put on display between November 1947 and March 1948 and were seen by more than 20,000 people.
One of the gifts Princess Elizabeth received was from Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi, which caused quite a stir in the royal household.
Gandhi sent the princess a present of hand-spun lace, which the Queen’s grandmother Queen Mary described as the most “indelicate gift.”
It later transpired Queen Mary had mistaken the lace for one of Gandhi’s loincloths.
In fact, the crocheted, cotton “shawl” was woven from yarn by Gandhi himself and contained a motif “Jai Hind” meaning ‘Victory for India.’
Gandhi is thought to have spun the yarn in the days after Indian independence.
Mary Morton, of the Buckingham Palace Royal Collection told the Times of India: “It came in a box, which we still have, in time of wedding.”
Gandhi’s homespun gift was put on display at Buckingham Palace as part of the exhibition ‘A Royal Wedding’ in 2007.
The exhibition commemorated the Diamond Wedding Anniversary of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Ms Morton said the gift was never used by the newly-wed royal couple as it was always unclear what it as meant for.
She explained its “almost-crocheted” look appeared to suggest the Mahatma was gifting a piece of his own philosophy of austerity to a royal bride who would one day ascend to the throne of the country that formerly ruled India.
The other gifts Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Mountbatten ranged from the more lavish – a Sevres porcelain dinner service and 1935 diamond and platinum Cartier Berar necklace from the Nizam of Hyderabad – to more humble gifts including a box of Kentish apples and a single bath sponge.
A wooden writing desk was sent from the Government of New Zealand, while an ivory table was the gift of the Maharaja of Patiala.
Queen Mary gifted her granddaughter a cluster of wedding gifts.
This included a pair of diamond, gold and silver Indian bangles, which had been given to her by the Presidency of Bombay, the diamond tiara from the ‘Girls of Great Britain and Ireland’, a bangle with diamonds and rubies from the County of Cornwall, her diamond ‘Bow Brooch’ from the County of Dorset and a pair of pearl and diamond earrings, from the Ladies of Devonshire.
Queen Mary also gifted to the royal bride a grand diamond stomacher, which combines diamonds form Kapurthala and the town of Swansea Crescent.
Other royal gifts included a tortoiseshell, silver-gilt and enamel box with a mechanical singing bird from Queen Helen of Romania.
Some of the gifts were put on public display immediately after the wedding between November 1947 and March 1948.
The royal couple received 10,000 telegrams congratulating them on the wedding.
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