This brooch is an old traditional Scottish sign of love and loyalty. Mary Stewart gave this to Lord Darnley.
The stones represent heartfelt deeds, constancy in love, strong friendship and spiritual unity.
The brooch is decorated with a proud, impregnable, unpretentious flower, a beautiful special — restrained and harsh — beauty with a thistle, a symbol of their owner's belonging to the Order of Thistle, Scotland's highest knightly order.
The thistle saved the Scots when, under cover of night, the Vikings attacked them and took off their shoes to pass silently, but the thorns betrayed them.
“Nemo me impune lacessit”