Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton's Engagement Rings, Compared

On an October evening in 2010, on the shore of a lake at the foot of Mount Kenya, Prince William reached into a rucksack he had carried through three weeks of safari and lifted out his mother’s sapphire. Seven years later, a London jeweller set a diamond mined in Botswana beside two smaller stones drawn from that same mother’s own collection. Two proposals, two continents, two entirely different rings, and in both, the quiet presence of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Few pairs of jewellery invite comparison quite like the engagement rings worn by Catherine, Princess of Wales, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Both are among the most photographed rings in the world, chosen by two grandsons of the Queen for women they loved. Set side by side, these royal engagement rings tell two very different stories about how the modern royal family gives, and inherits, a piece of jewellery. This is not a contest, but a closer look at the craftsmanship, the jewellers, and the history each ring carries.

The sapphire that began with Diana

The Princess of Wales’s engagement ring did not start as Catherine’s ring at all. In 1981, a twenty-year-old Lady Diana Spencer was invited to choose her own engagement ring from a tray of pieces already in stock at Garrard, then the Crown jeweller on Regent Street. Rather than commissioning something bespoke, as many royal brides had before her, Diana pointed to an oval sapphire cluster, a decision the public came to adore precisely because it felt like a real choice, made by a young woman with her own taste.

The ring cost £28,500 at the time, a fraction of what a bespoke commission might have run to, since it was, in effect, taken off the shelf. That unpretentious origin is part of why the design endured; it was never built to dazzle above all else, simply chosen because Diana liked it. Twenty-nine years later, her elder son would carry the same ring across Africa, and it would become one of the most recognised pieces of jewellery on earth.

Fourteen diamonds, not twelve

The ring’s specifications are worth stating precisely, because they are among the most frequently misquoted facts in royal jewellery writing. At its centre sits a twelve-carat oval Ceylon sapphire, mined in Sri Lanka, prized for its rich cornflower-blue colour, surrounded by a cluster of fourteen solitaire diamonds, the whole design set in eighteen-carat white gold. Many casual accounts round that diamond count down to twelve, echoing the sapphire’s carat weight, but Garrard’s own design and the consistent record kept by royal jewellery historians confirm fourteen stones encircling the centre gem.

The design was no accident of stock-room convenience. Garrard’s craftsmen are understood to have drawn inspiration from a sapphire-and-diamond brooch that Prince Albert gave Queen Victoria on the eve of their wedding in 1840, a cluster of blue stone ringed by white diamonds. Seen that way, the ring is not only Diana’s choice and Catherine’s inheritance, but a design with roots reaching back to the Victorian court.

A proposal carried across Africa

Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton on 20 October 2010, at a lodge on the shore of Lake Alice, near Mount Kenya. He had carried the ring with him for roughly three weeks, tucked into his rucksack, waiting for the right moment rather than staging one. The couple kept the news quiet for almost a month; the engagement was formally announced on 16 November 2010, at Clarence House.

What made the choice of ring so striking was its openness. Rather than commissioning something new, William chose to give Catherine his late mother’s own ring, telling reporters it was his way of making sure Diana “didn’t miss out” on the day. It is worn now, for a second time, by a Princess of Wales.

A ring designed from nothing

Where Catherine’s ring began its life as an existing piece, Meghan Markle’s began as a blank page. When Prince Harry proposed in November 2017, the ring was newly commissioned with Cleave and Company, a discreet Mayfair jeweller with a long-standing relationship with the royal household. Harry is widely understood to have sketched the concept himself, a markedly more hands-on approach than his brother’s decision to reuse an heirloom.

The finished ring centred on a three-carat cushion-cut diamond sourced from Botswana, a country of deep personal significance for the couple, flanked by two smaller diamonds taken from Diana’s own jewellery collection, set on a plain yellow-gold band: a ring built from three separate stories folded into one setting.

Botswana, Diana, and a trilogy of stones

The structure of Meghan’s original ring followed the classic “trilogy” format: three stones, traditionally read as representing a couple’s past, present and future. The two outer diamonds, drawn from Diana’s personal collection, folded her directly into the design, much as William’s choice of the sapphire had done in a different way.

The Botswana diamond at the centre carried its own weight of meaning, too, since Harry and Meghan had spent time together in the country during the early months of their courtship, a stone with real geography attached, chosen with as much care as reaching for a mother’s own jewels.

The 2019 refinement

Meghan’s ring did not stay in its original form for long. In June 2019, shortly after the announcement of the couple’s pregnancy, she appeared at Trooping the Colour wearing a visibly altered version of it. The plain yellow-gold band had been replaced with a delicate micro-pavé diamond band, commissioned from the celebrated New York jeweller Lorraine Schwartz, adding a fine border of small diamonds around the base of the setting.

The change was widely read as a refinement rather than a replacement. Every meaningful stone from the original design remained exactly where it had been, simply reframed within a more contemporary band that caught more light across its full circumference, while keeping Diana’s diamonds and the Botswana centre stone precisely as Harry had first set them.

Two court jewellers, two very different briefs

Their houses tell you almost as much as the rings do. Garrard held the royal warrant for generations and built its reputation on exactly the kind of confident, traditional cluster setting Diana chose in 1981, grand, legible from across a room, instantly recognisable as “a royal ring”. Cleave and Company, by contrast, is a quieter name, favoured by clients who want careful, bespoke work without the fanfare of a household brand, which suited a couple designing a ring from scratch.

Both approaches have their own integrity: one is heritage craftsmanship, handed down almost intact between two Princesses of Wales; the other is bespoke storytelling, built stone by stone and refined as the relationship grew. Neither is more “royal” than the other, simply two equally valid ways a family has always used jewellery to mark a beginning.

Why these two rings still fascinate

What keeps drawing admirers back to these rings is not really the carat count or the auction-house estimate of either piece. It is that each one is, in its own way, a small act of memory. Catherine wears the very stone Diana once chose for herself, carried across a continent by the son who loved her. Meghan’s ring holds two diamonds that were once Diana’s too, set beside a stone that marked her own love story, later refined without losing a single original gem.

Neither an oval sapphire cluster nor a bespoke Botswana diamond is within most budgets, but the same layered, sentimental approach to jewellery is easy to borrow closer to home, through British jewellers such as Astley Clarke and Monica Vinader.

Browse our Royal Figures stories for more on the women, jewels and traditions shaping the modern royal family.

Frequently asked questions

How many diamonds surround the Princess of Wales’s engagement ring?

Fourteen solitaire diamonds encircle the central sapphire, not the twelve often quoted online, a mix-up that likely comes from confusing the diamond count with the sapphire’s twelve-carat weight.

What carat is the Princess of Wales’s sapphire?

The centre stone is a twelve-carat oval Ceylon sapphire, sourced from Sri Lanka and set in eighteen-carat white gold, chosen by Diana from an existing selection at Garrard in 1981.

Where did Prince William propose to Kate Middleton?

He proposed on 20 October 2010 at a lodge near Lake Alice, on the shore of Mount Kenya, during a private African holiday, having carried the ring with him for around three weeks.

Who made the Princess of Wales’s engagement ring?

Garrard, then the Crown jeweller, made the ring and presented it to Diana as part of a tray of existing pieces in 1981. Its design is thought to echo an 1840 sapphire brooch Prince Albert gave Queen Victoria.

What is the centre stone in Meghan Markle’s engagement ring?

A three-carat cushion-cut diamond sourced from Botswana forms the centrepiece, flanked by two smaller diamonds from Princess Diana’s personal jewellery collection. The original setting was designed with Cleave and Company in 2017.

Why was Meghan Markle’s engagement ring redesigned in 2019?

Lorraine Schwartz replaced the ring’s plain yellow-gold band with a micro-pavé diamond band, giving the piece more sparkle. Meghan debuted the updated design at Trooping the Colour in June 2019, with every original stone kept in place.

Does Meghan’s ring contain diamonds that belonged to Princess Diana?

Yes. The two diamonds flanking the central Botswana stone were drawn from Diana’s own jewellery collection, a detail Prince Harry has spoken about as a way of including his mother in the design.

Who made Meghan Markle’s original engagement ring?

Cleave and Company, a Mayfair jeweller with long-standing royal connections, worked with Prince Harry on the original 2017 setting before Lorraine Schwartz updated the band in 2019.

Details of both rings are drawn from contemporaneous royal reporting and jewellery-history sources including The Court Jeweller and Garrard’s own published design history; carat weights and valuations are estimates and can vary slightly between sources.