In the movie, Saruman mentions:

[azazar]

When Gandalf adresses Saruman after his defeat in Orthanc, Saruman mentions the crown of seven kings and the staff of five wizards. What are those objects, their history and their use?

[Veldrin]

The staffs of the five wizards are the staffs the five Istari (or wizards) that came to Middle Earth from Valinor to help the Free Peoples against Sauron.

The five wizards were: Curunir (Saruman the White), Mithrandir (Gandalf the Grey), Radagst the Brown, and the two Blue Wizards (Alatar and Pallando) of whom Tolkien wrote nothing more about.

The crowns I am not sure about, someone else care to pitch in?

[uthoroc]

Hi there, I just registered for the forum. Thanks for such a useful place for the game!

On this topic, I'll quote the original piece from the book:

tolkien said:

Yes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dur itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now.

The tone is obviously sarcastic in reply to Gandalf's demand that Saruman hand over his staff and the keys of Orthanc.

It seems to me that the "crowns of seven kings" remark does not mean any specific crowns, Saruman just implies that Gandalf desires rulership over many kingdoms.

Veldrin explained the five staffs well enough.

[madwoffen]

There are a lot of discussions about these 7 kings. I think the most balanced one is the one that replaces the story in parallel with the arriving of the 5 Istaris in Middle Earth. Here is an excerpt/translation from a french forum (link below).

"The 5 wands were certainly existing when the Istaris came in ME, it's obvious but we don't know at the time Saruman speaks. And there were also 7 kingdoms at this same time of this arrival: Thranduil, Lorien, Kazad-Dûm (last king killed in 1980), Gondor, Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur (these last 3 were from Arnor, divided since 863). It corresponds also to a Golden Age of the "free people" in the ME.
P.S.: neither Cirdan or Elrond have a title of King."

Source: www.jrrvf.com/forum/noncgi/Forum1/HTML/000055.html

Another theory evoques the 7 Valar but I find it dubious.

[uthoroc]

7 is one of Tolkien's favorite numbers and has quite a strong significance in middle-earth (seven palantiri, seven stars, etc.)

Note also that "crowns of seven kings" is not capitalized in the text as opposed to "the Five Wizards" and the "Keys". I see that as an indication that no specific kings are meant.

But I am certainly no Tolkien scholar, so I'll leave that to others to decide.

[arthedain]

You can read about the Istari in Unfinished Tales. There's a whole chapter about them, though not so much info on the Blue Wisards. Some uncanon info can be found in the new RPG by Decipher.