The title of the thread is the Queen's Dowry so lets stick to that topic here or start a new thread.
While the diamond brooches and earrings found at the Cabin wreck by Bob Weller, Chris James and crew in 1995 are spectacular and obviously meant for a person of nobility, there is no indication these were jewels intended for Elizabeth Farnese.
Elizabeth and Phillip's first child was born in Jan. of 1716. If you do the math, it means the child was probably conceived sometime in April of 1715-3 months or so before the 1715 fleet even departed!
This could simply mean that Isabella caved in to her husbands demands before she recieved her dowry, OR, maybe all of those jewels ordered for the new Queen actually departed on another ship....months before the 1715 treasure fleet set sail. Maybe on a fast dispatch boat. The exquisite jewels, and the reason why they were being requested, certainly demanded both secrecy and expediancy
It's late. If I didn't think this through correctly, I'm sure someone will let me know!
Tom
Yeah Tom it's turned into the old rehash of where Ubilla's Capitana and Almiranta wrecked. This is nothing NEW. During talks with 3-4 salvors in the past I've gotten 5-6 differing opinions!! I don't care much for the condescending tone of posts either.
I initially posted the list of the "Queen's Jewels" in an on topic response to the OP. I also posted about Lima's securing of "Queen's jewelry" to show that there was more than one set of jewelry pieces destined for the Queen. Not with speculation of what or where but simply to fill the questions of the thread with the historical information I have that is pretty darn valid.
I can't remember who made the statement about both "The Queen's Jewels and "Wellers Jewelry" being pineapples, but maybe it was the latest fashion in Europe?!!? heheh
There's much speculation on this subject but the translated archival documents that I have access to are plain in that the jewels existed and were loaded onto the Capitana and then that they were not found during the salvage operations.
The salvaged operation truly became the most important process of the world at that time. Salmon by default became the lord of the beach and in charge of this. There were others too that would keep a checks and balance on things found.
Why they weren't found? Again it's a BIG OCEAN and even gets bigger when you are looking for treasure. There are a few posters in this thread that can relate to that. Now take into account that these are very specific pieces to be found.
If we were to go out and look for "treasure" today we would stand a tough chance at getting some "treasure", "today".
But over the long run of the season the odds are good. If we were to say we wanted to find a silver 4 reale that would make even greater odds against finding something that in general (silver coins) there are 1.3 million plus left to find.
So now to find unique pieces of jewelry in the scatter of 1,320,000 or 2,143,100 square yards of a shipwreck, ATRONOMICAL odds against!!
Also when I’ve posted this before I find many do not know the limited time we actually get to salvage. A salvage season “typically” is 30 – 90 days a year. I think I did the math on this once and it comes out to be something like 8 ½ years if it was a normal 40 hour work week, 52 weeks a year. So while in reality the wrecks have been worked by modern salvors for over 50 years it is not like they have been worked 50 years in normal thought.
Now back to some speculation.
There have been some spectacular pieces of jewelry found on the wrecks over the years. What was destined for the Queen outside of historical documents we do not know but we can assume that many European and New World Dignitaries wouldn’t mind finding some favor with their new Queen so there could be many pieces that were made for her to this agenda. Also she wasn’t the only woman of wealth in Spain…
I think in reality many salvors wouldn’t mind finding the “Queen’s Jewelry” but in common sense we generally are looking for treasure of all types. In the thought of what Greg once wrote in this thread, give me a pile of gold coins, they’re much easier to split and SELL!!
