April is a royal month with many celebrations and anniversaries, among them the wedding anniversary of the Prince and Princess of Wales. As we continue to wish Kate well in her recovery, I’ll be highlighting a few important pieces of jewelry this month linked to the couple’s nuptials. First up: arguably the most famous engagement ring in the world!
The story of this classic sapphire and diamond ring, of course, begins not with Kate but with her predecessor. When Prince Charles proposed to Lady Diana Spencer at Windsor Castle on February 6, 1981, he did so without immediately offering a ring. After Diana accepted, she was given the opportunity to choose a ring that she liked herself. Garrard put together a selection of rings from their existing stock to give the future princess some options. Leslie Field writes, “On the evening of 22 February the Prince and Lady Diana had dined with the Queen at Windsor Castle and afterwards they looked at a large tray of more than a dozen rings that had been sent down from London.”
The one that she chose (“without a minute’s hesitation,” according to Field) featured a large Ceylon sapphire nestled in a cluster of 14 diamonds and a white gold setting. Most reports state that the sapphire weighs in at 12 carats. Interestingly, the artisans at Garrard who made the ring had reportedly been inspired by another piece of royal jewelry: the diamond and sapphire brooch given to Queen Victoria by Prince Albert on the night before their wedding in 1840. The choice of a sapphire engagement ring wasn’t unusual within the royal family. The Queen Mother, Princess Alice, Princess Marina, Princess Alexandra, and Princess Anne all had sapphire engagement rings, too.
Diana wore the ring in public for the first time on February 24, when she and Charles officially announced their engagement at Buckingham Palace in London. She paired the ring with a blue jacket and skirt that emphasized the rich, bright color of the sapphire in the official pictures taken during the press session. The ring had been hastily altered to fit her finger between that dinner at Windsor and the announcement in London just a few days later.
The ring quickly became an icon through its association with the new Princess of Wales. She wore it everywhere, and soon, she had an assortment of grand sapphire pieces to match. Among these were the large sapphire cluster brooch given to her by the Queen Mother, a suite of sapphire and diamond jewelry offered by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as a wedding present, and another set of modern sapphire jewels gifted by the Sultan of Oman. Above, Diana wears her ring with the Saudi sapphires and the Spencer Tiara in Brisbane in April 1983.
The ring continued to be a fixture on Diana’s left hand for the next decade. She wore it regularly, with her wedding ring, even after she and Charles announced their separation in December 1992.
When the couple’s divorce was finalized in August 1996, Diana stopped wearing her wedding ring. But, contrary to what you may read elsewhere, she did not stop wearing the sapphire engagement ring. For many occasions in that final year of her life, Diana wore no rings at all. However, she still brought out the famous sapphire ring for various events, often pairing it with other sapphire and diamond jewels. Indeed, she began treating the ring more as an accessory than a symbol. When she wore sapphires, she wore the engagement ring. When she wore emeralds, she wore an emerald and diamond toi et moi ring also given to her by Charles. And when she wore aquamarines, she wore a large aquamarine cocktail ring, now worn by the Duchess of Sussex.
After Diana’s death in August 1997, the ring disappeared from public view for more than a decade. It reappeared in November 2010, when Prince William revealed that he had given it to his girlfriend, Catherine Middleton, when he had proposed marriage in Kenya a month earlier. Kate was pictured wearing the ring for the first time during a memorable press conference at St. James’s Palace, held to officially announce the couple’s royal engagement to the public.
When asked why he chose to use his late mother’s engagement ring to propose to Kate, William answered, “It’s very special to me, as Kate is very special to me now as well. It was only right that the two were put together. It was my way of making sure that my mother didn’t miss out on today, and the excitement, and the fact that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together.” Kate added that the ring was “beautiful” and “very, very special,” and said, “I just hope I look after it.” William joked, “If she loses it, she’s in big trouble!”
William and Kate became Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their wedding day in London in April 2011. After the ceremony, Kate began wearing the sapphire engagement ring and her new Welsh gold wedding ring as a pair. This gorgeous photograph shows the two together on her left hand during the wedding reception held at Buckingham Palace.
For almost 14 years, the sapphire ring has been Kate’s constant companion. She wears it for nearly all royal engagements, with the rare exception of occasions that require her to be a bit more active.
A few years after the couple’s wedding, Kate began stacking a third ring with the set: a diamond eternity band. She continues to wear the trio together today. It’s funny to think, isn’t it, that she’s now had the ring for almost as long as Diana did!
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