until this danger was past.  Furtively, she concealed the relic for a time, and then it was buried in Herod’s palace.  It was there opportunely discovered by some monks in the fourth century.  This “invention of the head” (the word being interpreted according to the credulity of the reader) resulted in its removal to Emesa, where it was exhibited in 453.  In 753 Marcellus, the Abbot of Emesa, had a vision by means of which he re-discovered (or re-invented) the head, which had in some way been lost sight of.  Following the guidance of his dream, he repaired to a grotto, and proceeded to exhume the long-suffering relic.  After many other similar and rather disconnected episodes, it finally came into possession of the Bishop of Amiens in 1206.

A great calamity in early times was the loss of all the valuables of King John of England.  Between Lincolnshire and Norfolk the royal cortege was crossing the Wash:  the jewels were all swept away.  Crown and all were thus lost, in 1216.

Several crowns have been through vicissitudes.  When Richard III. died, on Bosworth Field, his crown was secured by a soldier and hidden in a bush.  Sir Reginald de Bray discovered it, and restored it to its rightful place.  But to balance such cases several of the queens have brought to the national treasury their own crowns.  In 1340 Edward III. pawned even the queen’s jewels to raise money for fighting France.

The same inventory makes mention of certain treasures deposited at Westminster:  the values are attached to each of these, crowns, plates, bracelets, and so forth.  Also, with commendable zeal, a list was kept of other articles stored in an iron chest, among which are the items, “one liver coloured silk robe, very old, and worth nothing,” and “an old combe of horne, worth nothing.”  A frivolous scene is described by Wood, when the notorious Republican, Marten, had access to the treasure stored in Westminster.  Some of the wits of the period assembled in the treasury, and took out of the iron chest several of its jewels, a crown, sceptre, and robes; these they put upon the merry poet, George Withers, “who, being thus crowned and royally arrayed, first marched about the room with a stately gait, and afterwards, with a thousand ridiculous and apish actions, exposed the sacred ornaments to contempt and laughter.”  No doubt the “olde comb” played a suitable part in these pranks,—­perhaps it may even have served as orchestra.

One Sir Henry Mildmay, in 1649, was responsible for dreadful vandalism, under the Puritan regime.  Among other acts which he countenanced was the destruction and sale of the wonderful Crown of King Alfred, to which allusion has just been made.  In the Will of the Earl of Pembroke, in 1650, is this clause showing how unpopular Sir Henry had become:  “Because I threatened Sir Henry Mildmay, but did not beat him, I give L50 to the footman who cudgelled him.  Item, my will is that the said Sir Harry shall not meddle with my jewels.  I knew him... when he handled the Crown jewels,... for which reason I now name him the Knave of Diamonds.”