TEA & GEMSTONES 005
‘Royal Engagement Rings”
Hello, hello everyone, welcome to Tea & Gemstones, the place for commentary and history of all things sparkly. I am your host, Jen. Today we’re entering the realm of real-life fairy tales, princes and princesses, king and queens falling in love and the glittering tokens of promise and affection they exchange… we’re talking about Royal Engagement Rings, people.
While movie stars and musicians have cornered the jewelry pop culture market on enormous over-the-top stones, royalty rings come with the unique flavor of the dynastic family history and representation of their country and culture. How do you balance everything a royal engagement ring needs to be? It’s a power flex for sure, a display of the royal family’s wealth and grandeur on the world stage. But too much luxury can be tone-deaf to the financial status of the general population of a nation. Royalty are living figureheads of their country- walking, talking mascots. The jewel on a royal woman’s left ring finger helps to build up and shape their public persona, which in turn reflects out to the greater world. So, let’s talk about these rings, and the women who wear them.
There is many a royal lady rocking a classic white diamond engagement ring; Queen Elizabeth the second of England has a 3 carat round stone that was taken from a Russian tiara. Queen Margrethe (marr-gr
eth-ah) of Denmark has two large stones (over 6 carats each) set dramatically diagonal across her finger. Princess Charlene of Monaco has a beautiful 3 carat pear diamond. But I believe the true “fun” of royal engagement rings comes when a couple embraces more unique colors, designs and history.
It’s not in doubt what the most famous royal engagement ring of all time is. Princess Diana and now Duchess Kate’s, 12 carat Ceylon (suh-laan) blue sapphire ring. It’s the definition of iconic. The deep rich blue oval is framed with 14 white diamonds with everything set in 18 karat white gold. The ring caused a bit of controversy among the public when Diana picked it for her engagement ring. The upper classes were upset because the ring she picked was available for anyone to order from a catalog put out by a British jeweler called Garrard (jurr-ard). So the drama was that any person (provided they had the $60,000 to spend) could order the exact same ring and the royal family really turned up their noses at the idea that a regular person could have the exact same engagement ring as the future queen of England. In tabloids, the ring was branded “The Commoner’s Sapphire.” But doesn’t that concept just suit princess Diana, the ‘princess of people’s hearts’, perfectly? She took something that could have been derogatory and made it instead a positive point of view.
After Princess Diana’s tragic death, Prince Harry and Prince William were each allowed to pick a piece of jewelry
from her collection for their own. Prince Harry is actually the one who selected the blue ring as his chosen heirloom. He is on record stating, "I remember when I held mummy's hand when I was a small boy and that ring always hurt me because it was so big." But when Harry’s big brother William wanted to propose to his longtime girlfriend, Kate, Harry is supposed to have said, “Wouldn’t it be fitting if she had mummy’s ring? Then one day that ring will be sat on the throne of England.” Prince William had chosen his mother’s gold Cartier watch as his heirloom back in 1997, so he and Harry traded. Now Kate has the blue sapphire, and Meghan Markle has Diana’s gold watch. Can you imagine if Harry had held onto the ring for his bride? What kind of ring would the future queen of England have otherwise? We don’t have to speculate, the future is bright for this commoner’s sapphire, it’s destined for the throne on the finger of Kate Middleton.
Duchess Kate’s sister-in-law, Meghan Markle, did not receive a lowly consolation prize because her hubby gave up the sapphire. Her engagement ring connects directly to both Prince Harry’s love of Africa, and a piece of Princess Diana. Her ring is trilogy style, with all white stones- a large cushion cut center diamond flanked by two round diamonds. The center stone is sourced from Botswana, a country in Africa that Harry has made a focus of his charity work for decades.
The two side diamonds are declared to be “from princess Diana’s private collection,” I am guessing a pair of matching diamond studs that were incorporated into the ring. Meghan Markle actually caused a bit of controversy when she changed the yellow gold band of her engagement ring to a diamond eternity band less than a year after getting married. People thought she was messing with a piece of history… but I say, it’s her ring, she can change it if she wants too.
A uniquely avantgarde royal engagement ring went to a woman who was decidedly ‘unroyal.’ In the 1930’s, England had a king named Edward the 8th, and he was in love with a woman named Wallis Simpson. He proposed to her with a nearly 20 carat emerald ring from Cartier inscribed with romantic declaration “we are ours now 27 X 36” for the proposal date of October 27th, 1936. However… Wallis was a two-time divorcee from America, so there was no way Edward would
be allowed to marry her and make her a Queen. But he chose love over being king and he abdicated (that means he left, gave up) the British throne in 1936. He and Wallis moved to France and they were married for 35 years until Edward’s death. Wallis’ rebellious jewel is a testament of the power of a royal engagement ring to change the course of a nation.
To jump back farther in British history, Queen Victoria of England has one of my favorite unique engagement rings. Fun fact- because she was already a queen, when Victoria fell in love with Prince Albert, the social structure meant she was the one who had to propose to him! She did in 1839 and Albert gave her an engagement ring made from yellow gold, crafted in the shape of a snake coiled around her finger, inlaid with diamonds, emeralds and rubies. In those days it was traditional to use birthstones instead of diamonds and snakes symbolized “wisdom and commitment.” So go ahead and get engaged with a snake ring- it’s not unconventional, it is definitely old school.
Let’s leave the British isles and go to the European mainland to talk about patriotic engagement rings. I consider these the ultimate in a royal figurehead statement, the mascots of a nation wearing a bejeweled representation of their homeland on their finger. There are more rings like this than you might think! Let’s do a rundown:
Would you be excited to receive an engagement ring inspired by a flag? In 2003, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark proposed to Mary Donaldson with a trilogy ring featuring a white emerald cut diamond flanked by two square rubies. The Denmark flag is red with a slim white cross. In recent years, Crown Princess Mary altered her ring adding additional white diamonds beside the red rubies for 5 stones total in her ring representing her husband and their 4 children. So her entire family is contained within the Denmark flag, the symbolism is thickly layered and also glamourous.
The Denmark princ
es love a family theme- Prince Frederik’s younger brother Joachim (yow-aa-chim) took the flag idea from a different angle- since his sister-in-law Mary already had the Denmark flag represented, he proposed to his second wife Marie with a flag ring of her own home country- France. On a wide yellow gold band sits a trilogy of oval stones, a ruby, a white diamond and a blue sapphire. At the press conference in 2007 to announce her engagement, Marie stated that Joachim had designed the ring “so I would always have a piece of France with me.”
This next ring I just adore for its uniqueness. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands wears an ultra-rare orange diamond engagement ring. It’s oval cut in platinum flanked by white emerald cut diamonds. The Netherlands has a historic national color… you guessed it, Orange. The orange diamond also represents the name of the Dutch royal dynasty- “the House of Orange-Nassau,” like the British royal family is the House of Windsor. Queen Maxima likes to wear lots of different orange jewelry pieces, but her engagement ring certainly sets the standard for rarity and beauty.
Can you imagine a
prince changing a royal jewel to fit in with Hollywood standards of bling? Well, that’s exactly what happened with Grace Kelly’s engagement ring. In 1956, the Oscar winning actress was proposed to by her boyfriend, Prince Rainier III of the Principality of Monaco. He gave his love a Cartier eternity band of rubies and white diamonds to echo the colors of the Monaco flag- there’s that patriotism showing! Grace Kelly loved her ring, but before she married her Prince, she starred in one last movie called, ‘High Society.’ The movie called for her character to have large white diamond engagement ring as the pinnacle of beauty. When Prince Rainer found out his fiancé would be wearing a fake ring in the movie, he decided to buy her a second engagement ring instead. He went back to Cartier and purchased a 10.48 carat flawless emerald cut diamond flanked by two baguette side stones. Grace wore her new real diamond in the movie and the ring became iconic during her 26-year marriage to her prince. And let’s not fault the prince of Monaco for giving his fiancé a band instead of a large stone, he was actually maybe ahead of a trend, in 2003 Queen Letizia (leh-tee-zee-uh) of Spain received a diamond eternity band for an engagement ring from King Felipe.
There’s one royal engagement ring that we don’t know very much about, but boy I wish we did. It sits on the finger of Crown Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece. The Greek monarchy was abolished in 1973, but they still have this “royal in name only” royal family. Anyway, Crown Princess Marie-Chantal in 1995 was given a cabochon blue sapphire ring, cabochon means a ring is polished s
mooth, no facets cut into it- think like a piece of turquoise or an opal. And this cabochon is set ‘east-west’, meaning horizontally, and as if it was that’s not out of the norm enough, there’s a heart shaped white diamond set on the side. Now that’s making a style statement.
Royal couples are in a unique position with their engagement ring. They seek to represent themselves, their personal style, while also embracing their figurehead status. Royal couples are aware they represent a nation, a culture, and everything they do, say and wear is an extension of their public persona. On the finger of royalty, something as deeply personal and intimate as an engagement ring, ends up connecting with the world at large. There truly is no other piece of jewelry quite like royal engagement rings for their ability to personify the hope and love of a entire country.
That’s all for this episode of Tea and Gemstones. I hope you enjoyed walking through the glittery royal history of these rings with me. If you have an idea for a future episode or just want to connect, message us on Instagram @ Tea and Gemstone or on Twitter. Please see the podcast show notes for a link to our blog for a transcript of this episode and the bibliography. Our theme music is by Joseph McDade. Thanks for listening everyone and until next time
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