Royal jewel heists tend to capture the world’s imagination—just look at the recent Louvre robbery. But as revealed in an excerpt from the forthcoming biography The Windsor Legacy, the British Royal Family experienced a theft of their own, one that’s been hidden from the public eye—"until now." In the book, veteran royal journalist Robert Jobson reveals that thieves ran off with some of Queen Camilla's jewels just three years ago, but the palace "buried" any news of the crime.
"It wasn't quite the heist of the century—but close," Jobson writes in a passage from the book serialized in the Daily Mail. "Incredibly, no one has breathed a word, until now, about how a daring thief managed to snaffle a bag of Queen Camilla's jewellery."
The author continues that Charles and Camilla, who were then the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, were "en route" to the airport to leave for their 2022 royal tour of Canada when the robbery happened. While visiting a rest stop, aides made the unbelievable mistake of leaving a bag of jewelry "unattended in an unlocked car."
"One of them had stepped away for a cigarette, the other two were inside getting coffees," Jobson continues, writing that "while they were inside, a thief stole Camilla's jewels."
"The thief had simply walked up to the car and taken a bag labelled 'HRH The Duchess of Cornwall,'" he writes, noting that police "managed to track the culprit via CCTV" and the items were "recovered within hours." Although it's unclear which pieces were inside the bag, Jobson points out that the carelessness of the aides resulted in an unusual response from the palace.
He writes that "no charges were filed" against the person who took the jewelry, nor was any "police report was ever made." As far as Buckingham Palace was concerned, the robbery never happened, and the "incident was buried to avoid embarrassment."
