Meghan Markle's Engagement Ring, Explained
The full story behind Meghan Markle’s engagement ring — the Botswana diamond, the tribute to Diana, and the 2019 redesign, stone by stone.
At Nottingham Cottage, on the grounds of Kensington Palace, on 27 November 2017, Prince Harry proposed while Meghan Markle was, by her own account, “trying to roast a chicken.” That detail has become part of royal folklore, but the ring he produced that evening carries a story every bit as considered as the proposal itself.
Meghan Markle’s engagement ring was never a diamond chosen off a shelf. It was designed by Prince Harry, built by a discreet Mayfair jeweller, and constructed from three stones chosen for specific reasons: a diamond from Botswana, where the couple’s relationship first deepened, and two smaller stones drawn from Diana, Princess of Wales’s own jewellery collection. Two years later, the ring changed again, quietly and deliberately. This is its complete history, told in its own right rather than as a side-by-side comparison.
A proposal designed from scratch
Where many royal engagement rings before it were pulled from an existing tray of stock, Meghan’s began as a blank page. Prince Harry has said he designed the ring himself, sketching the concept before bringing it to a jeweller to realise, a far more hands-on process than simply selecting a finished piece. He worked with Cleave and Company, a small, discreet jewellery house on Old Bond Street with long-standing ties to the royal household.
The engagement took place quietly, weeks before it was announced. Clarence House confirmed the news on 27 November 2017, and the couple gave their first joint interview in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace that afternoon, Meghan wearing the finished ring for the first time. Designing rather than selecting mattered: every element could be chosen for what it meant to the couple, not simply how it would photograph.
The diamond from Botswana
The ring’s central stone is a three-carat cushion-cut diamond sourced from Botswana, and its presence is no accident. Harry and Meghan met in July 2016, and within weeks had taken a five-day camping trip together in the Botswanan bush, largely cut off from the outside world. Harry later described the trip as “crucial” to the relationship, giving the couple a genuine chance to know one another away from the cameras.
Choosing a Botswana diamond for the ring’s centre set that early chapter permanently into the design, long before most of the world knew the relationship existed. The country has continued to feature in the couple’s story since, and Harry’s conservation ties to southern Africa predate the relationship itself. Few royal rings carry a centre stone chosen for personal geography rather than gemmological rarity. This one does.
Two diamonds that were once Diana’s
Flanking the Botswana diamond are two smaller stones, each just under a carat, drawn from Diana, Princess of Wales’s own jewellery collection. In the couple’s engagement interview, Harry explained the choice directly: “The little diamonds either side are from my mother’s jewellery collection, to make sure that she’s with us on this crazy journey together.” Meghan echoed the sentiment, saying it mattered to her to know Diana was “a part of this with us.”
The decision places the ring in a small, meaningful category of royal jewellery: pieces that physically incorporate stones from Diana’s own collection rather than simply referencing her by association. It’s also a real departure from how other royal brides have honoured Diana’s memory. Rather than inheriting or borrowing an existing piece exactly as she left it, Harry had her diamonds reset entirely into something new, giving Diana a literal, permanent presence in a ring built for an entirely new chapter.
Cleave and Company: the quiet Mayfair jeweller
Cleave and Company is not a household name in the way Cartier or Garrard are, and that appears to be precisely the point. The Old Bond Street firm has built its reputation on discretion rather than publicity, working with private clients (reportedly including members of the royal family) who want carefully made pieces without the fanfare of a globally branded maison.
That quieter profile suited a couple designing a ring together rather than choosing from an existing collection. Its role was to translate Harry’s concept into a finished setting: sourcing the Botswana stone, resetting Diana’s two diamonds without altering their character, and mounting the trio on the yellow-gold band Meghan wanted, a markedly different commissioning story from Catherine, Princess of Wales’s sapphire, pulled from Garrard’s existing stock in 1981 rather than built new.
The trilogy design, and why yellow gold
The finished ring follows what jewellers call a “trilogy” setting: three stones in a row, traditionally read as a couple’s past, present and future. It is a classic format, but rarely has each stone carried such specific personal weight: Diana’s diamonds nodding to where Harry came from, the Botswana stone marking where the relationship began, the whole pointing toward the future the couple were building.
The choice of an 18-carat yellow-gold band, rather than the platinum or white gold more common in royal jewellery, was reportedly Meghan’s own preference, and it has since become something of a signature. Set against Diana’s smaller diamonds and the pale Botswana stone, the warmer gold gave the original design a distinctly different character from the cooler settings favoured by previous generations of royal brides.
The 2019 redesign by Lorraine Schwartz
The ring did not stay in its original form for long. In June 2019, weeks after the birth of the couple’s first son, Archie, Meghan appeared at Trooping the Colour wearing a visibly updated version of it. The plain yellow-gold band had been replaced with a delicate micro-pavé diamond band, a fine border of small diamonds running around the base of the setting, catching considerably more light than the smooth band it replaced.
The redesign was carried out by Lorraine Schwartz, the New York jeweller known for dressing celebrities on red carpets from the Met Gala to the Oscars, reported at the time as a gift marking the couple’s first wedding anniversary. Nothing structural about the ring’s meaning changed: the Botswana centre stone and both of Diana’s diamonds stayed exactly where Cleave and Company had set them. Schwartz’s work was a reframing, not a replacement.
What the ring is worth today
No official valuation has ever been released by the family or the couple, and any figure quoted publicly is an estimate rather than an appraisal. Jewellery experts asked to price the original 2017 design offered figures ranging widely, roughly £30,000 to well over £200,000, depending on assumptions about the Botswana stone’s clarity, which has never been independently graded.
More reliable is the ring’s cultural value. Its cushion-cut centre stone and yellow-gold setting were widely copied by high-street and fine jewellers within weeks of the 2017 announcement, an influence easy to see simply by browsing any engagement ring counter today.
A ring that still tells its own story
What makes this ring worth returning to, years on, is how little of its original meaning has been lost. The Botswana diamond still marks a place two people chose to get to know each other privately. Diana’s two stones still sit exactly where Harry placed them, a quiet way of including his mother in a life she never got to see him build.
For readers curious how this ring sits alongside the piece worn by Catherine, Princess of Wales, our closer look at how the two rings compare sets the sapphire and the Botswana diamond side by side. Taken on its own, though, Meghan’s ring remains one of the more thoughtfully constructed pieces of modern royal jewellery, built from scratch, stone by stone.
Frequently asked questions
What is the centre stone in Meghan Markle’s engagement ring?
A three-carat cushion-cut diamond sourced from Botswana, a country of particular significance to Harry and Meghan as the setting for an early camping trip in 2016 that deepened their relationship.
Who designed Meghan Markle’s engagement ring?
Prince Harry is understood to have designed the concept himself, working with Cleave and Company, a discreet Mayfair jeweller on Old Bond Street, to bring the design to life in 2017.
Do any of the diamonds in Meghan’s ring belong to Princess Diana?
Yes. The two smaller diamonds flanking the Botswana centre stone were taken from Diana, Princess of Wales’s own jewellery collection, a detail both Harry and Meghan spoke about directly in their 2017 engagement interview.
Why did Meghan Markle’s engagement ring change in 2019?
In June 2019, New York jeweller Lorraine Schwartz replaced the ring’s original plain yellow-gold band with a micro-pavé diamond band, reportedly as a gift marking the couple’s first wedding anniversary. Every original stone remained in its original position.
How much is Meghan Markle’s engagement ring worth?
No official valuation has been released. Independent experts have estimated the original 2017 design at figures ranging widely, from roughly £30,000 to over £200,000, depending on assumptions about the Botswana diamond’s clarity, which has never been publicly graded.
What jeweller made the original 2017 ring?
Cleave and Company, a private jewellery house on London’s Old Bond Street with long-standing royal connections, crafted the original design, sourcing the Botswana centre stone and resetting Diana’s two diamonds alongside it.
Is Meghan Markle’s ring similar in design to Catherine, Princess of Wales’s ring?
Not especially. Catherine’s ring is a sapphire cluster chosen from existing Garrard stock in 1981, while Meghan’s is a bespoke diamond trilogy commissioned from scratch in 2017. A full side-by-side comparison of both rings is available in our companion piece.
Details in this article are drawn from the couple’s own 2017 engagement interview, contemporaneous royal reporting, and jewellery-industry commentary on the 2019 redesign. Valuation figures are independent estimates rather than official appraisals, as no formal valuation of the ring has ever been published.
