How Meghan Markle Got Princess Diana’s Crown Jewels

Royal family

By Sarah Nathan

They may be estranged, but Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle have one more thing in common.

Both the future queen and the one who considers herself the true queen of California have the chance to dip into the collection of priceless jewels that belonged to Princess Diana, the mother-in-law they never knew.

While in Nigeria during her three-day faux-royal tour with Prince Harry last weekend, Markle, 42, showed off a delicate diamond cross that sparkled in the sun as she attended a reception for military families in Abuja.

Sources told Page Six that the unreleased necklace was given to Markle by her husband and came from her mother’s private collection.

“Diana remains an important force in Harry’s life and, therefore, in Meghan’s life,” a source who knows the couple told us.

“A lot of his work is inspired by his mother, and it’s obvious how much she still means to him.

“A gift to his wife that once belonged to his mother is incredibly meaningful and this is not lost on his wife.”

The appearance of the cross, however, sparked intrigue as to its origin.

A London socialite who knows Markle reflected to Page Six: “Meghan likes to arrange her jewelry to tell a certain story.

“I can’t believe she’s been sitting on that necklace for 5 years.”

Additionally, Diana, who died aged 37 in August 1997, was never photographed wearing this jewelry in public.

“No, I didn’t acknowledge that at all,” said an inside source who worked closely with Diana.

“In fact, Diana was always a professional and she generally avoided wearing religious designs of any kind because they could potentially offend people, so she would generally never wear such a thing.”

Indeed, Diana was photographed carrying a cross in public only twice: once, her own, which she donated to charity, and once with a cross she had borrowed from a friend.

The cross she owned was seen when, while hugging HIV-positive children in San Paulo, Brazil, in April 1991, a little baby reached up to grab her gold cross necklace .

The princess donated the cross and chain for a charity auction which was to take place in early September 1997.

It was stored for 20 years after his death, then reportedly sold to an Australian collector for an undisclosed amount.

The cross borrowed was the impressively large Attallah Cross, a pendant made of square-cut amethysts accented with circular diamonds in the 1920s by Garrard, the royal family’s longtime jeweler, and purchased in the 1980s by Diana’s friend, businessman Naim Attallah, who lent it to her for a charity gala.

Most notably, Diana wore the cross on a necklace in October 1987, when she paired it with a Catherine Walker dress at a charity gala in London.

In January 2023, it was auctioned in London and sold for $197,453. The lucky owner who outbid everyone? Kim Kardashian.

In fact, the extent of Diana’s gem collection remains as mysterious as the origin of Meghan’s new necklaces.

When she died in 1997, Diana’s will left her money, about $34 million before taxes at the time, to her sons, and called for them to get three-quarters of her physical assets. His 17 godchildren would share the other quarter.

Her executors changed parts of the will, limiting her godchildren to one keepsake each, giving William and Harry all of her jewelry.

This change may have been influenced by a special “letter of wishes” that was revealed during a bizarre trial in 2002, when Diana’s butler Paul Burrell was accused of stealing 301 items from her apartment after his death.

During the trial, Burrell’s lawyer revealed that Diana had written to her future executors: “I would like you to allocate all my jewels to the share which will be held by my sons, so that their wives can, when the time comes come, have them or use them. . I leave the exact distribution of jewelry to your discretion.

The trial, incidentally, ended when Queen Elizabeth intervened at the eleventh hour to tell her staff that she “remembered” that Burrell had permission to take items from Diana’s apartment, none of which were jewelry.

William and Harry’s engagement and marriage brought at least some items from their mother’s collection into the public light, although many pieces of jewelry worn by Diana have never been seen again since her death.

But Diana’s best-known jewelry – her engagement ring, designed by Garrard and featuring a 12-carat oval blue sapphire, surrounded by 14 solitaire diamonds, set in an 18-carat white gold band – was unveiled in 2010 on Kate’s hand. , to gasp, when she and William announced their own engagement.

“I thought it was pretty nice because obviously she’s not going to be there to share the fun and excitement of it all – it was my way of keeping her close to it all,” William said .

Kate called the choice “very, very special” and called the ring “beautiful”, adding: “I just hope I take care of it.”

Even this ring is surrounded by intrigue.

There were long-standing rumors that Harry initially chose the ring after Diana’s death, but then gave it to William to show his approval of Kate.

Burrell, the former butler, offered a particularly detailed version in which Harry chose the ring, saying: “I…