Clive Myrie: ‘People should know the truth about the Koh-i-Noor diamond’

There is an unthinkable moment near the start of BBC One’s The Crown Jewels when presenter Clive Myrie describes himself “a child of Empire” and it suddenly occurs to me that the Koh-i-Noor is about to be cancelled. Or maybe the sovereign’s sceptre will be daubed with paint and tipped into the Tower of London’s moat as a totem of colonialism?

“Absolutely not!” cries Myrie with all the zeal of a national treasure, even if he pulls an unexpectedly appalled face when I call him that. “We’re not setting out to cancel the Crown Jewels. These aren’t just artefacts associated with royalty, they are integral to our history and who we are as a nation.”

He’s right of course, but in this period of national self-inquiry – when so many museums are adding “context” to items connected to Empire or slavery – it’s impossible to ignore the history of the Crown Jewels. And, frankly, the much-disputed Koh-i-Noor, one of the largest cut diamonds in the world and set into the crown of the Queen Mother, has a provenance that ought to carry a trigger warning; it was seized by the British as a spoil of war from a child emperor in the mid-19th century.

“It was essentially muscled out of the possession of a kid aged 10 in India,” says Myrie. “The bottom line is, the Indians want it back, the Afghans say it’s theirs and so does Pakistan. It’s complex and that should be reflected by the context in which it is displayed at the Tower of London.”

Truthfully, it’s not. Or at least not yet. A few cursory remarks inside the Jewel House at the Tower refer to the East India Company “requiring” the Koh-i-Noor’s “surrender” following the Anglo-Sikh Wars in the Punjab in 1849, but they do nothing to convey the huge international controversy that surrounds the diamond. “Reclaiming” the stone remains an official objective of Indian foreign policy.

Perhaps Myrie’s plea will encourage the Tower to update its display. After all, no one could describe his programme as a “hit job”. In fact, thanks to unprecedented access and the latest macro photography, the film provides the most spectacular footage there has ever been of the collection’s dazzling gems.

“When I was asked to do this, the director said, ‘Whatever your preconceptions are about the Crown Jewels, you need to forget them’. I had to tell him, ‘I don’t actually have any. I’ve never even seen them. I’ve not had any cause to go and look at them’,” admits Myrie cheerfully.

“It was a journey for me and one I really enjoyed. For a start the collection [which comprises over 23,000 diamonds, sapphires and rubies and a total of 13 crowns] is just incredibly beautiful and the craftsmanship is exquisite. In and of themselves they are breathtaking, and when you add to that the story of how they came to be, it’s a really fascinating immersion in history.”

Myrie, 57, “fresh” from another gruelling stint reporting on the war in Ukraine, tells me via Zoom that he’s suffering from a chronic sleep deficit. But his enthusiasm remains undimmed, his brain whirrs so fast, so audibly it’s giving me tinnitus and his keen ear prompts him to pull me up when I muse about whether he felt shame or pride on first sight of the jewels. “This is our political and cultural legacy,” he counters. “I’m not sure you can boil it down to either feeling shame or pride; the Crown Jewels are part of what makes us British every bit as much as Churchill or Bobby Moore.

“The Royal family is a binding agent in our society that keeps this kingdom united and after these last terrible years, when the country was literally fragmented into households huddling at home [due to] Covid, we were brought together by two things; the BBC and the Royal family.

“When the Queen gave that stirring address and assured us ‘We will meet again’, it was electrifying. If you think the Royal family makes sense, then the Crown Jewels make sense.”

When I raise an eyebrow at Myrie’s unsubtle encomium to his paymasters at the BBC, he grins broadly and shrugs. But in truth, however you believe the BBC should be funded going forward, there’s no denying it’s a pillar of British life. As, these days, is Myrie. If he’s not presenting Panorama or presiding over Mastermind, he’s reading the news, or out reporting the news. “I’m not an autocutie, I’m a reporter,” he bats back when I wonder if he’s angling to take over as the News at Ten’s main anchor.

“I like finding things out and that doesn’t happen when you’re sitting at a desk getting stories through an earpiece,” he says. “I hope that reporting on events means viewers will appreciate that I have a reasonable grasp of what I’m talking about.”

Myrie was also part of the commentary team at the Duke of Edinburgh’s state funeral, when he shared a story about his mother, Lynne. She and his father were part of the 1960s Windrush Generation. Lynne had worked as a teacher and when the Queen and Prince Philip visited the island in 1953 it was she who led her school out to greet the royal couple.

“It was a wonderful occasion by all accounts,” says Myrie. “They were symbols of the mother country and they were revered. They still are to some degree for her generation, but the popularity of the Royal family and what it means to the Commonwealth and Jamaica is very different now compared to those days.”

Quite so. The recent trip by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was something of a post-colonial PR disaster after the optics showed Prince William riding on top of a Land Rover in his military tropical uniform and the couple shaking hands with local people through a wire fence. They also suffered the ignominy of listening to a talk from the Jamaican PM in front of the cameras when he effectively announced his intention to ditch the Queen as head of state.

But such are the singular travails of modern royalty on tour; here in Britain we are firmly focused on this year’s celebrations surrounding Her Majesty’s 70-year reign. To this end, Myrie is a great choice to front The Crown Jewels. He makes for a relaxed, affable companion on this journey; curious, unstuffy, genuinely surprised at the twists and turns of fate he discovers. I was surprised too – but then again I must confess I’d entirely forgotten the Crown Jewels we see at the Tower today aren’t nearly as old as they seem. 

The originals were melted down at the behest of Oliver Cromwell after the English Civil War ended with the 1649 execution of Charles I; he understood their potency and the danger these treasures posed as a focus for rallying monarchist insurgents. Indeed, it was that very quality that prompted their scrupulous reconstruction after the Restoration.

“You have to remember these Crown Jewels were put together by Charles II, not Henry VIII; they were created when Britain was developing as a naval and colonial empire and the precious stones and gold are the product of that – which is why context is so important,” says Myrie.

“We need to understand where they came from, what they meant then, and what they mean now. The guiding principle should always be, ‘The more information the better’.”

For the sake of an evening’s good, clean entertainment I shall avoid any major spoilers for those readers not versed in the crown that curses any man who touches it (only female staff are allowed to clean it) or the crucial role played by sea kelp in saving the Scottish crown for the nation.

I can however reveal that Myrie, “has a go” in a metal workshop making a crucifix. But then, a hands-on segment is pretty much mandatory for all presenters everywhere. Given the programme is scheduled for Friday June 3, it’s very much on the nose as a curtain-raiser for family-friendly jubilee weekend festivities.

There’s even an interview with Her Majesty the Queen herself, albeit hauled from the archives, dusted down and thoroughly filleted for her observations on the Cullinan diamonds (nine stones cut from a massive 3,106-carat diamond discovered in South African in 1905). She also points out her favourite stone: the thrillingly named Black Prince’s Ruby, which dates back to the 14th century, was worn by Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt and miraculously escaped Cromwell’s edict. It was mined from a region straddling present day Afghanistan and Tajikistan although nobody appears to be wanting it back. As for the highly contested Koh-i-Noor, that argument shows little sign of abating.

“Should we keep it? Who knows?” asks Myrie rhetorically. “The repatriation of the Benin bronzes by the Smithsonian [announced earlier this year] is cut and dried because they quite clearly came from Benin. There’s no ambiguity, no disagreement.”

But history, if told truthfully, will always provoke debate and argument. The unique objects that tell these stories remain freighted with emotion. Take the most recent state opening of parliament, when Prince Charles delivered the Queen’s Speech. It was immediately clear he was standing in for his mother, not replacing her. How did we know this? Because Her Majesty’s usual position was occupied by the Imperial State Crown. Glittering symbol of the monarch, emblem of a nation.

The Crown Jewels is on BBC One on June 3 at 7.30pm