Consort crown

A consort crown is a crown worn by the consort of a monarch for their coronation or on state occasions. Unlike with reigning monarchs, who may inherit one or more crowns for use, consorts sometimes had crowns made uniquely for them and which were worn by no other subsequent consorts.

All British queens consort crowned from 1831 to 1937, which included Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, Alexandra of Denmark, Mary of Teck and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, wore their own specially made consort crowns. Each queen went on to outlive her husband but, as a queen dowager, they retained the title, crown and other privileges of a queen for life. Previous English and British queens consort had used the State Crown of Mary of Modena, wife of King James II, until Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, the consort of King William IV, wore a new consort crown created for her. For the coronation of Charles III and Camilla in 2023, Camilla wore the Crown of Queen Mary.

In Imperial Russia, there were no unique consort crowns, because the Lesser Imperial Crown was intended to be used for coronation of all empresses consort, and after that, they did not wear crowns.