The Mystery of the Landsjewel, Last Seen in March of 1582...
- Mar 4, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: May 17
Part VI of VI, Stage-craft as State-craft
How does a priceless Dutch jewel, offered to Queen Elizabeth I, secured by four locks and keys, simply disappear?
That is a very good question, and an Elizabethan mystery.
In 1582, the northern Dutch provinces offered their most magnificent treasure, the Landsjewel, to Queen Elizabeth I for desperately needed military aid against Spain. Elizabeth sent Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester to Antwerp to inspect the gem. Leicester confirmed that the Landsjewel was extraordinary. He accepted it on behalf of his queen. Then it vanished.
What became of this sublime jewel? And what does this unsolved mystery reveal about the final act of the failed ten-year courtship between Elizabeth and Hercule Francois, the Duke d’Alencon, who was also the French King’s brother?
Follow the trail of the missing Landsjewel through Tudor diplomacy, international finance, and court intrigue to uncover the closing chapter of the Alençon story that Shakespeare transformed into A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
🐸 ACT V, Scene I: Awakening from the Dream to Settle a Debt
As Queen Elizabeth brought to a crescendo her performance as the lovesick princess who kissed the Duke of Alencon in Canterbury (but failed to turn her “frog” into a handsome prince) ( A Mid-winter Night’s Nightmare: The Queen, the Duke and the Drama – Act IV will catch you up on that part of the drama in Canterbury), it became clear that she had been masquerading. Instead of playing for real for Alencon’s affections, she had been playing a strategic chess game for a French alliance against Spain with Alencon’s brother, the king of France all along.
Her gambit had failed. She had been forced to pay Alencon £70,000 to ensure his departure from England – a gallingly large sum for such a notoriously frugal queen. Now, she turned to recoup some portion of her expensive mistake from the Dutch who owed her £40,000 for her aiding them against the Spanish.
The Dutch offered to settle their debt, not with coin, but with a remarkable jewel of extraordinary size which had - alluringly - belonged to Philip II, king of their mutual enemy Spain, known as the “Landsjewel” (or “Landjuweel”). Before accepting the substitution, Elizabeth requested a drawing of the jewel and the opinion of trusted appraisers.
Awakened from her dream, the fairy queen had been left more than a little embarrassed about whom she had been kissing. Here was a sparkling opportunity to own her most loathed enemy’s prized bling!
👀 Act V, Scene II: Leicester Eyes the Landsjewel
Originally, no one was higher in the Queen's favor than Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester Let’s Party Like It’s 1572: Elizabeth I’s Summer Progress and the Fireworks That Set Off the Dudley vs. De Vere Rivalry . But, after enduring Elizabeth’s fury and banishment for his scandalous, secret marriage to her look-alike 2nd cousin Lettice Knollys Devereaux, Leicester - Elizabeth’s former lover whom she nicknamed her “Eyes” - had redeemed himself by escorting her irksome and unwanted suitor, Alencon, to the Netherlands.
In March of 1582, Leicester arrived in Antwerp to inspect the Landsjewel on Elizabeth’s behalf. He met clandestinely with the Prince of Orange, Lord Hunsdon, Prince Epinoy and four burgesses (two from Antwerp and two from Ghent) in a simple room above the street. The Ghent burgesses, mud-splattered from their journey, entered the tiny chamber in boots and spurs.
Each burgess produced a key to one of four locks that secured a casket displayed on a table. One by one, each man turned his key. Leicester witnessed an extraordinary reveal: a gold cup set with precious stones and the “Landsjewel”, which was a huge “carbuncle”, a red gemstone, likely a garnet or a ruby.
Carbuncles were said to possess magical properties. According to medieval texts they glowed spontaneously from within. In Welsh legend, carbuncles generated as much light as the sun “making it always day when the day was gone.” In Isaiah, God promised to restore Jerusalem with splendor, including adorning its gates with carbuncles. Shakespeare describes Pyrrhus avenging his father, Achilles “with eyes like carbuncles” in Hamlet.
The Dutch claimed the Landsjewel came from a dismantled abbey. Enchanted by the jewel’s brilliance, Leicester asked why they had not previously sent it to London, remarking that if the Queen had seen it, she would have done anything they liked.
The casket was resealed, all four locks secured in turn by the four burgesses. Leicester put his wax seal on each lock. Leicester, Hunsdon, Orange and the four burgesses signed a legal document.
🤷♀️ ACT V, Scene III: The Mystery of the Missing Landsjewel
What became of the Landsjewel after that? Who knows! There is no record of the casket arriving in England, or of its reception by Elizabeth. It simply disappeared from the historical record.
Historians have speculated endlessly:
1. Lost in War: The chaos of the Eighty Years’ War may have led to the jewel’s loss, theft, or destruction.
2. Stolen or Misappropriated: The jewel could have been taken by those handling its transport or storage.
3. Hidden by the Dutch: Perhaps the Dutch decided not to relinquish the jewel after all.
4. Dismantled or Sold: The jewel may have been broken apart and sold discreetly.
5. Leicester’s Opportunism: As the last known person to seal the casket, Leicester himself is a prime suspect. His reputation for self-serving behavior and political ambition makes it plausible that he appropriated the jewel. To learn more about what made him that way, see: The Untold Backstory of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester: Queen Elizabeth I’s Favorite.
The Landsjewel’s disappearance remains one of history’s tantalizing mysteries. It may still lie hidden, waiting to be rediscovered!
🧚♀️ Behind the Curtain
“OBERON: And think no more of this night’s accidents
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
TITANIA: My Oberon, what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamor’d of an ass.
. . . .
O, mine eyes do loath his visage now!”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, IV, i
Queen Elizabeth had little to show for nearly ten years of flirtation, negotiations, theatrical displays, and emotional brinkmanship with Hercule François, Duke of Alençon.
She had risked her dignity before Europe. She had allowed herself to be courted by a much younger foreign prince whom many of her subjects distrusted and more than a few of her courtiers thought an ass. She had endured ridicule, political opposition, and endless pressure from Parliament, ambassadors, and her own council.
And then, as if to add one final insult to an already bruised royal ego, the most magnificent jewel in the Low Countries, deep red in color, offered to her under four locks and four separate keys, and chaperoned by her “trusted” Robert Dudley, simply disappeared.
The vanished Landsjewel capped the Alençon affair with one last disappointment.
How to make a brooding and embarrassed queen feel better?
Shakespeare knew exactly how.
He transformed the whole episode into A Midsummer Night’s Dream, complete with carbuncular magic in the form of a flower.
.
Elizabeth became a fairy queen named Titania, awakening from an enchanted dream where she had lavished kisses on a mere mortal in ass’ ears, under the spell of a rare, powerful, jewel-like flower, “before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound.”
Shakespeare, her ever-loving “Oberon”, knew that joking about her missteps would make her feel better.
If you have enjoyed following this remarkable story, you may wish to explore the earlier posts in this series, which trace Queen Elizabeth’s very real and often comic courtship with the Duke of Alençon.
And if you enjoy uncovering the hidden history behind Shakespeare’s greatest plays, subscribe to my blog: https://www.dorotheadickerman.com/subscribe .
While I can't promise you the Landsjewel, I will send new posts, along with a gift box of otherwise unpublished and delightfully juicy Elizabethan secrets, straight to your inbox.
If you want to learn even more about the history behind quotations and phrases from Shakespeare’s works, check out my Instagram post: Seeking Shakespeare, which you can find here: https://www.instagram.com/ddickerman01
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