Keeping it in the family. When Prince William proposed to Princess Kate while on a trip to Africa in 2010, he did so with his late mother’s sapphire engagement ring.
“I had been carrying it around with me in my rucksack for about three weeks” while on the couple’s trip to Kenya with friends, the Prince of Wales told ITV in his and Kate’s engagement interview. “I literally would not let it go, everywhere I went I was keeping hold of it, ’cause I knew this thing … if it disappeared I’d be in a lot of trouble.”
The future king pointed out the sentimental value of the bauble — and how it makes him feel connected to Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in August 1997 when William was 15.
“I thought it was quite nice because obviously, she’s not going to be around to share any of the fun and excitement of it all — this was my way of keeping her sort of close to it all,” the Earthshot Prize cofounder said at the time.
Kate, for her part, agreed with her now-husband’s remarks.
“Well, I just hope I look after it,” she admitted, calling the jewelry “very, very special.”
Despite the frequent comparisons of Kate and the late royal, “No one is trying to fill my mother’s shoes,” William stated in the interview. “It’s about carving your own future and your own destiny, and Kate will do a very good job at that.”
The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall tied the knot one year later, with Diana’s ring — as well as a Welsh gold wedding band — on Kate’s left hand. In the years following their 2012 nuptials, William and Kate soon expanded their family to five with the births of their three children: Prince George, born in 2013, Princess Charlotte, born in 2015, and Prince Louis, born in 2018.
While the Berkshire, U.K. native has frequently paid tribute to Diana through her jewelry — her brother, James Middleton, even proposed to his future wife, Alizee Thevenet, with a nearly identical sparkler in 2019 — no heirloom has caused as much envy as her 12-carat engagement ring, which boasts 12 diamonds around the Ceylon sapphire.
Thank You!
You have successfully subscribed.
As for Diana’s own thoughts on the ring, The Crown researcher Annie Sulzberger told Vogue in 2020 that there are conflicting theories “as to why Diana selected the ring,” listing several options: “The color matched her eyes, the queen may have actually selected it, or as Diana was later quoted as saying, ‘It was the biggest.’” Another option? “Others claim that it simply reminded her of her mother’s engagement ring.”
Keep scrolling to learn everything about Princess Kate’s engagement ring:
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tr%2FMmp6aspmjsm%2BvzqZmrKypoba0tI6poJyspaeytHvKmqueZZ2esaW4xK2mp6tdmruorcaepJ6mpGK%2FqrrGZpyvnaKuwam1zaBkraddoLuww44%3D