CARTIER | WATCH CHAIN

Sotheby's. The Jewels of the Duchess of Windsor, Geneva, Friday 3rd April 1987, Lot 106

Accompanied by a facsimile of a letter from the Duke of Windor's valet discussing the chain and how it was a gift from his grandmother, Queen Alexandra.

The inscription to one side of the Latin cross is difficult to decipher, however it refers to the Prince's grandmother Queen Alexandra who frequently would sign her letters to her grandson 'A', she likely presented her grandson with the watch chain when he was about to embark on his trip as a Naval Cadet in 1921. Edward Prince of wales, left Portsmouth in H.M.S. Renown on the 26th October 1921, bound for an extended tour of India and Japan, returning to Plymouth on the 20th June the following year. The Duke subsequently remembered that at the start of the journey, 'My old tutor, Mr. Hansel, now grown quite old, was on the dock to wave good-bye. In the late afternoon, with the crew fallen inand the band playing 'Auld Lang Syne' against the booming of a salute of the twenty-one guns, the battle-cruiser sailed. This time I was to be gone eight months...The East had always fascinated me. Ever since my tour of duty in Egypt during the war, I had longed to explore the lands that lay beyond the Red Sea', A King's Story, pp 164/5.

Throughout the 1920s, Edward, as the Prince of Wales, represented his father at home and abroad on many occasions, undertaking a series of tours throughout the Empire. The Prince visited poverty-stricken areas of Britain, and undertook 16 tours to various parts of the Empire between 1919 and 1935.

H.M.S Renown was laid down by Fairfield at Govan, Glasgow, Scotland on 25 January 1915 and was launched on 4 March 1916 and completed on 20 September 1916, after the Battle of Jutland She served with the Grand Fleet in the North Sea during the remaining two years of the First World War.

When the Grand Fleet was disbanded in April 1919, H.M.S Renown was assigned to the Battlecruiser Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet and in n June she was refitted in preparation for a tour of Canada, Newfoundland and the United States by Edward, the Prince of Wales. From January to March 1920 H.M.S Renown was refitted more extensively as a "royal yacht". Her aft 4-inch mounting and both 3-inch AA guns were removed so that extra accommodation and a promenade deck could be built. A large deck house was built on the shelter deck between the funnels while the port side housed a squash court and the starboard side a cinema. The ship sailed in March for Australia and New Zealand with the Prince of Wales and his entourage aboard and made many stops en route. She returned to Portsmouth in October and was placed in reserve in November.

H.M.S Renown was recommissioned in September 1921 for a tour of India and Japan by the Prince of Wales and sailed from Portsmouth on the 26^th October. The ship arrived back in Portsmouth in June 1922 and she was placed in reserve the following month.