These are the most important royal jewellery moments during King Charles's reign so far

For a royal family who, until very recently, was helmed by a woman famed for the maxim “never complain, never explain”, jewellery has long served as a medium through which we can better understand them. 

There is a literal wealth of pieces with which they can do this. Although the Queen Consort, the Princess of Wales and the Countess of Wessex have personal jewellery collections, most of the tiaras and necklaces we see at state occasions and on royal tours belong to the Crown, and are loaned on a long-term or lifetime basis by the monarch.

“Everything is very strategic, nothing is by accident,” says fine jewellery expert Sarah Royce-Greensill of the thought that goes not only into who gets to wear which piece, but the timing of when they choose to wear it. Certainly, jewellery and insignia were a core part of the job for Angela Kelly, personal assistant to the late Queen and curator of her wardrobe.

Since the death of the late Queen in September, there has been a shift in the pieces that the senior royals have been wearing in public. “Access to the royal collection seems to grow with proximity to the Crown,” says Lauren Kienha of The Court Jeweller. “They’re part of a diplomatic uniform. Royal women are expected to look the part when representing the monarch, and that includes wearing grand and glittering jewels.”

Experience has taught the royals that sensitivity is paramount. Although she married the former Prince of Wales in 2005, Camilla was styled Duchess of Cornwall, out of respect to the late Princess Diana. But when she wore Queen Alexandra’s Three Feathers brooch in 2006, which has been worn by Princesses of Wales since 1863 – including Diana – the public response was not positive.

Now, as Queen Consort, we are seeing Camilla instead tactfully turn to jewellery that was last worn by the Queen Mother, another woman who was married to a British king. In turn, a generation on from Diana’s death, it feels appropriate that the new Princess of Wales honour her husband's late mother by wearing pieces worn by the last Princess of Wales. 

As for the jewels themselves, the stories behind them are as complex as the politics of wearing them. These are the most important royal jewellery moments during King Charles's reign so far…

Queen Alexandra’s Three Feathers brooch 

The infamous brooch which generated scorn for Camilla in 2006 was worn for the first time by Catherine during South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s state visit to the UK in November. 

It conveys her new status as Princess of Wales through the three feathers of the Prince of Wales crest. Its diamonds, rubies and emeralds – plus the 15-carat cabochon detachable emerald pendant – represent the colours of the Welsh flag.

The brooch has been worn by the Princesses of Wales since it was gifted to Princess Alexandra by the Ladies of North Wales Society when she married the future King Edward VII in 1863. 

The Queen Mother inherited it on Alexandra's death in 1925, who in turn passed it on to Diana when she married the then-Prince Charles (she wore it “close to her heart” as a necklace). It was returned to the royal vaults on Diana’s death.

The Belgian sapphire suite

Camilla largely wears her own jewellery during royal engagements, so it is noteworthy that she chose to wear this tiara and necklace for a banquet during Ramaphosa’s state visit – the first since Charles became king. 

The necklace is a Victorian antique, given to the late Queen in 1947 along with matching earrings as a wedding gift by her father, George VI, and was described by Noël Coward as “the largest sapphires [he had] ever seen.” 

The tiara was commissioned by the Queen in 1963 to wear with the necklace, and used stones from a sapphire necklace that had once belonged to Prince Albert’s mother, Princess Louise of Belgium (hence the name). The reason Camilla teamed it with new sapphire earrings is because she does not have pierced ears, Kienha says. “Her use of the late Queen’s sapphires, though, is a good sign that we may see her delve more into the royal vaults in the coming months and years.”

Queen Mary's emerald choker

Catherine wore Queen Mary’s emerald choker for the first time in December for the Earthshot Prize Awards in Boston. It is part of a suite of jewels made in 1911 and gifted to Queen Mary at the Delhi Durbar, during which her husband, King George V, was named Emperor of India.

Diana famously wore it as a headband during a tour of Australia in 1985 – according to royal biographer Kitty Kelley, the young Princess had tried to put it on over her head instead of undoing the clasp, but it got stuck. She liked the way it looked across her forehead, so decided to wear it that way. Diana would wear it many times afterwards, including on her 36th birthday in 1997, the month before she died. 

“The choker is representative of the way that Diana liked to play with her jewellery,” Royce-Greensill says. “Whatever Catherine wears, she knows it’s going to be pored over, so everything is very thought through. So it was quite a significant moment when she wore the choker.”

Empress Marie Feodorovna’s sapphire brooch

Princess Anne wore this sapphire, diamond and pearl brooch on a visit to Uganda, a little over a month after her mother’s death. 

It looks very much like a piece that was close to the heart of the late Queen – she wore it throughout her reign for landmark occasions such as her Silver Jubilee, but also to horse racing events, a passion which she shared with her only daughter, who appears to have borrowed it on occasion. But it may not be as simple as that, Kienha says: “It’s just not how we normally see the Queen’s jewels being handled… [another] possibility is that it’s a different brooch, possibly a close copy of the original.”

The original brooch was a gift from Queen Alexandra (then Princess of Wales) to her sister Maria when she married the future Emperor Alexander III of Russia in 1866. It was acquired at auction by Queen Mary in 1930, and inherited by Queen Elizabeth on Mary’s death in 1953.

The late Queen’s four-strand pearl and diamond necklace

Catherine wore this choker for the late Queen’s funeral, an elegant piece in keeping with royal mourning dress codes, which dictate that only white and colourless jewellery should be worn.

The necklace was made for Queen Elizabeth II by Garrard in the late 1970s using pearls thought to have been a gift from the Japanese government in 1975. Diana appears to have worn the choker in public first, for a state banquet in 1982. The Queen later wore it during a tour of Bangladesh in 1983 and again in 1995 for Margaret Thatcher’s 70th birthday. 

It has since become Catherine’s go-to for the most significant royal occasions: the Queen and Prince Philip’s 70th wedding anniversary in 2017, the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral in 2021, and for the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in November. 

The Lotus Flower tiara 

 Catherine wore the Lotus Flower tiara for the Diplomatic Corps reception – it’s not the first time we’ve seen her wear it, but these moments tend to be quite rare in comparison with Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot tiara (see below), which is the Princess’s go-to.

 The tiara was made in the 1920s for the Queen Mother, using stones from a Garrard necklace she had received just six months earlier as a wedding gift from her husband – awkward. She would wear it low across the forehead, as was the fashion at the time. 

She passed the tiara on to Princess Margaret in 1959, for whom it was a favourite piece, regularly nestled into that beehive for formal events. When Margaret died in 2002, it was returned to the royal vaults. 

Diana’s aquamarine ring

The Duchess of Sussex wore Diana’s aquamarine ring for the first time on her wedding day, completing her evening Stella McCartney gown with the heirloom piece – a “something blue” with serious swagger. 

Yet it was arguably more significant when Meghan wore it to the Ripple of Hope gala in New York in early December, where she and Harry received a human rights award for their activism since moving to California. Why? Because it represented Diana’s freedom from the royal family too. Diana had been gifted the stone by her friend Lucia Flecha de Lima, and had it turned into a ring by Asprey in 1996 to wear in place of her sapphire engagement ring.

The Hesse Diamond Jubilee brooch

The Queen Consort wore this important Fabergé diamond and cabochon sapphire brooch to the late Queen’s funeral. It had been a gift to Queen Victoria from her Hesse grandchildren to mark her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 – within the heart-shaped frame is the number 60 in Cyrillic script. Among them were members of the Russian imperial family who would be killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

Camilla has worn the brooch several times since her marriage to Charles, but this moment was especially symbolic, a recognition of Queen Elizabeth II replacing Queen Victoria as the longest-reigning British monarch.

Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot tiara 

This is often confused with the Cambridge Lover’s Knot tiara – in fact, Queen Mary’s version was a copy she commissioned in 1913 because she so loved the Cambridge Lover’s Knot tiara, which had been a wedding gift to her aunt, Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel, a century earlier.

It originally had another row of upright pearls on the top, which were later removed. It was inherited by the late Queen in 1953, who gave it to Diana on long-term loan in the 1980s. Diana, it’s claimed, found the headpiece so heavy, it gave her headaches. That doesn’t seem to be the case for Catherine, who has been wearing it since 2015, and most recently wore it for Ramaphosa’s state banquet.