Just before Gandalf breaks his staff and casts him out of the order of Wizards, Saruman has a minor meltdown in which he accuses Gandalf of grabbing power. He makes specific reference to a handful of symbolically-powerful objects:
‘But you [Saruman] will first surrender to me [Gandalf] the Key of Orthanc, and your staff. They shall be pledges of your conduct, to be returned later, if you merit them.’
Saruman’s face grew livid, twisted with rage, and a red light was kindled in his eyes. He laughed wildly. ‘Later!’ he cried, and his voice rose to a scream. ‘Later! Yes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dûr itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now. A modest plan.’
The Two Towers Book 1 Chapter 10: “The Voice of Saruman”
The Keys of Orthanc and Barad-dûr are pretty obvious, as are the “rods of the Five Wizards”1. However, who are the “seven kings”?
My first thought was that this was a reference to Gondor, not because of the “kings” or “crowns”, but because of the “seven”; in particular, it recalled this line (emphasis mine):
Pippin was silent again for a while. He heard Gandalf singing softly to himself, murmuring brief snatches of rhyme in many tongues, as the miles ran under them. At last the wizard passed into a song of which the hobbit caught the words: a few lines came clear to his ears through the rushing of the wind:
Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three,
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing sea?
Seven stars and seven stones
And one white tree.
The Two Towers Book 1 Chapter 10: “The Voice of Saruman”
However, that doesn’t make a bucketful of sense: Gondor only has one King (two if you count the quasi-independent Kingdom of Arnor; four if you further count the subdivisions of Arnor: Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur).
My next thought was that this is a reference to the seven fathers of the Dwarves. Gandalf does explicitly say that Sauron gave seven rings to “dwarf-kings”:
The Three, fairest of all, the Elf-lords hid from him, and his hand never touched them or sullied them. Seven the Dwarf-kings possessed, but three he has recovered, and the others the dragons have consumed.
The Fellowship of the Ring Book 1 Chapter 2: “The Shadow of the Past”
However, Saruman’s statement seems over-broad if that were the case; in almost all other cases, when talking about a specific race the speaker will preface their statement with that race (e.g., “elf-eyes”, “dwarf-rings”, “dwarf-kings” above, etc.), so it would seem unusual that, had Saruman meant the crowns of the Dwarf-kings, he would not have said “the crowns of the seven Dwarf-kings”.
Has Tolkien ever been more explicit about which seven kings Saruman is referring to, or does anyone have a more educated guess?
1 Even if Saruman isn’t referring to five literal rods, there’s a symbolism here; Saruman thinks Gandalf is seeking domination over the Istari. This says quite a bit more about Saruman than it does Gandalf.
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