Inside Meghan's Growing Signet Ring Collection

Meghan Markle’s signet ring did not arrive with a formal announcement. It surfaced quietly, on her little finger, while she sat courtside watching wheelchair basketball at the 2025 Invictus Games in Vancouver, and it took fashion editors combing through the day’s photographs to notice it at all. Engraved with a cypher rather than a single stone, it turned out to be one of the more personal pieces the Duchess of Sussex has ever worn in public, and it is not the only signet-style piece in her rotation.

Look closely at Meghan’s jewellery over the past few years and a pattern emerges: gold discs, engraved faces, monogrammed surfaces, worn with the same ease as a favourite watch. It is a motif rather than a vast jewellery box of signet rings, but it is a deliberate and recurring one, and it borrows from one of the oldest traditions in jewellery-making, a tradition that long predates modern royalty and stretches back to sealed wax and ancient Egypt.

This piece looks at what Meghan has actually been photographed wearing, verifies the story behind her one confirmed signet ring, and traces the centuries of history that make a small engraved surface mean so much more than its size suggests.

The ring Prince Harry gave her

The clearest signet sighting to date came at the Invictus Games in Vancouver on 9 February 2025, where Meghan was photographed wearing a gold ring on her pinky finger engraved with a monogram combining an “H” and an “M” beneath a coronet. According to a source cited by Us Weekly, the ring was an anniversary gift from Prince Harry, crafted by a private jeweller the year before she was seen wearing it publicly. The design draws on a cypher the couple began using after their May 2018 wedding at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, which paired their initials beneath a coronet featuring cross pattées, fleurs-de-lys and strawberry leaves.

British Vogue has reported the ring is thought to have been made by Bentley & Skinner, a London jeweller and royal warrant holder, though neither Buckingham Palace nor the couple’s own office has confirmed the maker, and outlets covering the story have been careful to flag it as unverified. What is not in dispute is the sighting itself and the ring’s clearly personal brief: unlike a piece bought off a shelf, a cypher ring like this exists in one version, made for one wearer, which is precisely the point of a signet in the first place.

A cypher built for two

What makes the Invictus Games ring a true signet, rather than simply a ring with initials, is how the monogram is composed. A signet’s engraved face has always worked as a miniature seal, specific enough that no one else’s would produce the same impression, and the interlaced “H” and “M” beneath a coronet functions exactly that way. It is not a name spelled out for legibility; it is a mark, closer to a stamp than a label.

The coronet detail matters too. Harry and Meghan’s joint cypher, used on official correspondence and event materials before they stepped back from royal duties in 2020, combined heraldic elements associated with their titles rather than a generic crown shape. Wearing that design on a ring, worn privately and only occasionally photographed, reads less like a fashion choice and more like Meghan carrying a piece of the couple’s shared history on her hand.

The earrings that started it

Before the ring, there were the earrings. Meghan’s most consistently worn signet piece is Ariel Gordon Jewelry’s Royal Signet Studs, a pair of 14-karat gold, flat-disc earrings with an engraved, crest-like face that she has worn on at least six documented occasions, including visits to Nigeria and Colombia in 2024 and repeatedly throughout both seasons of her Netflix series, With Love, Meghan. Our flagship jewellery edit from With Love, Meghan covers that piece, and several others from the show, in full, so we won’t repeat that ground here.

What is worth adding is how the studs function within the wider signet story: they are not a literal seal, since earrings were never used to stamp wax, but they borrow the visual language of one, a stamped-looking disc that nods to the same tradition the Invictus Games ring draws on more directly. Worn together across her wardrobe, the two pieces suggest Meghan is drawn to the aesthetic and the meaning of signet design, not simply copying one specific object.

What a signet ring actually is

The word “signet” comes from the Latin signum, meaning sign or mark, and the earliest examples are extraordinary in their age. Archaeologists have recovered Egyptian signet rings dating to around 2000 BCE, engraved with hieroglyphs and used to press an identifying mark into wax or clay seals on official documents. The Romans and later medieval European nobility carried the practice forward, and by the Middle Ages a signet ring was often the most important object a person of rank owned: functional before it was decorative, a portable and effectively unforgeable signature at a time when most people could not write theirs.

That function explains why signet rings were, and often still are, worn on the little finger. A ring worn there sits clear of the fingers used to grip a quill or a document, keeping the engraved face free to be pressed into wax without smudging a working hand. The habit outlasted the need for wax seals, and it is the reason royal signet rings, Meghan’s included, still tend to appear on the pinky rather than the ring finger.

Family crests, heraldry and personalisation

As European heraldry developed from the twelfth century onwards, the signet’s engraved face increasingly carried a family’s coat of arms rather than a generic mark. Heralds at tournaments identified knights by the devices painted on their shields and surcoats, and that same imagery, simplified to fit a small oval or shield-shaped face, made its way onto rings a family’s head would wear and, in time, pass down. In many British families the signet ring still travels this way, from one generation’s eldest to the next, carrying an engraved crest that has sometimes remained unchanged for centuries.

That inheritance model is part of why a signet ring reads so differently to most jewellery: not designed to be replaced or upgraded, but preserved. A signet is also, by tradition, deliberately personal rather than showy, small enough not to announce itself and specific enough that its meaning is legible chiefly to the wearer, which is precisely the quality Meghan’s own pieces share.

A tradition the wider royal family already keeps

Meghan’s signet pieces sit inside a much longer royal habit. King Charles has worn his own signet ring, engraved with the seal of the Prince of Wales, since the mid-1970s, a design previously worn by his great-uncle the Duke of Windsor and stacked over his wedding band on his little finger since marrying Diana in 1981. Diana herself received a signet ring from Charles the night before their wedding and was later photographed wearing her own version. Queen Victoria is generally credited with popularising the pinky-worn signet for royal women in the first place, breaking with the assumption that the style belonged to men alone.

Seen against that backdrop, a monogrammed ring from Harry and a pair of engraved studs look less like a passing trend and more like Meghan adopting a piece of royal visual language already at home in the family she married into.

Why the motif keeps returning

It would overstate the evidence to call this a large “collection” in the way a tiara vault or a charm bracelet might be. What is verifiable is narrower, and more interesting: one confirmed signet ring, gifted with real sentimental weight, and a pair of signet-style earrings worn often enough to have become one of her signatures. Together they point to a genuine preference, rather than a single gift worn once for a photograph, for jewellery that says something specific to her rather than jewellery chosen for maximum sparkle.

That is the throughline across Meghan’s jewellery more broadly: layering Cartier heirlooms with pieces that carry a private story. Signet design, personal by definition, fits that instinct closely. Browse our Royal Style & Fashion stories for more on how Meghan builds meaning into what she wears, piece by piece.

Frequently asked questions

Does Meghan Markle have a signet ring?

Yes. Meghan was photographed wearing a gold signet ring engraved with a monogram combining “H” and “M” beneath a coronet at the 2025 Invictus Games in Vancouver. It was reportedly an anniversary gift from Prince Harry.

Who made Meghan Markle’s signet ring?

The maker has not been officially confirmed. British Vogue has reported the ring is thought to have been made by Bentley & Skinner, a London jeweller and royal warrant holder, but neither the couple nor the jeweller has verified this publicly.

What is engraved on Meghan Markle’s signet ring?

The ring features a monogram combining Meghan and Harry’s initials beneath a coronet with cross pattées, fleurs-de-lys and strawberry leaves, based on the joint cypher the couple used following their 2018 wedding.

Are Meghan Markle’s signet earrings the same as a signet ring?

Not literally. Meghan’s Royal Signet Studs from Ariel Gordon Jewelry are engraved, disc-shaped earrings that borrow the visual language of a signet, but earrings were never used to seal documents the way signet rings historically were.

Why do signet rings have a family crest?

The tradition developed from medieval heraldry, when a family’s coat of arms identified its members at tournaments and on official seals. Engraving that crest onto a ring let the head of a family authenticate documents and, over generations, pass the design down as an heirloom.

Why are signet rings worn on the little finger?

Wearing a signet ring on the pinky kept the engraved face clear of the fingers used to grip a quill or hold paperwork, so it could be pressed cleanly into wax. The habit has outlived its original purpose but remains the traditional placement, including within the royal family.

Does King Charles wear a signet ring?

Yes. King Charles wears a signet ring engraved with the seal of the Prince of Wales, previously worn by his great-uncle the Duke of Windsor, and has worn it, stacked over his wedding band, since marrying Diana in 1981.

Did Princess Diana wear a signet ring?

Yes. Diana received a signet ring from Charles the night before their 1981 wedding and was later photographed wearing her own version, continuing a habit that traces back to Queen Victoria popularising the style for royal women.

Details of Meghan Markle’s signet ring are based on reporting from British Vogue and Us Weekly as of early 2025 and have not been officially confirmed by representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex; historical dates are drawn from published heraldry and royal-jewellery histories.