Following Queen Elizabeth II's death at the age of 96, the monarch's priceless jewels will likely be given to members of the royal family, including Queen Consort Camilla and Kate Middleton.
The “lion's share” of Queen's extensive jewelry collection, according to The Daily Express, will be given to Kate, the new Princess of Wales, but, according to the outlet, Camilla will get first dibs. “The late monarch owned an extraordinary collection of jewelry worth billions of pounds,” The Express reports.
Under guard and still in use
You'll find the Crown Jewels under armed guard in the Jewel House at the Tower of London. These gems are a unique working collection of royal regalia and are still regularly used by the monarch for important national ceremonies, such as the State Opening of Parliament.
Queen Alexandra's Wedding Necklace
The necklace was part of a set which included a tiara, brooch and earrings. The stunning piece was passed down to the Queen Mother, who wore it often until her 2002 death. It was later lent to Princess Kate from Queen Elizabeth.
Discover The Only Jewels Queen Elizabeth Will Be Buried With
According to royal expert Lisa Levinson, the only jewelry Queen Elizabeth II will be buried with will be the Welsh gold wedding ring she received at her wedding to Prince Philip in 1947 and a pair of pearl earrings.
However, details about how her coffin will be dressed have been revealed. The Royal Standard, a flag that represents the Sovereign and the UK, will be draped on her coffin, accompanied by the Imperial State Crown, complete with more than 3,000 encrusted gemstones.
Princess Margaret is the only senior royal member to have ever been cremated. She died in 2002 and did not have a traditional procession for her coffin to her final resting place, reports MyLondon. Instead, she was cremated in Berkshire - the Slough Crematorium.
The Duchess of Sussex inherited some of her late mother-in-law's most stunning pieces. Before her tragic death, Princess Diana made it clear that she wanted her stunning collection of jewelry to go to her sons' future wives.
The Duchess of Cambridge is a lucky lady for many reasons. One being that she is now the owner of Princess Diana's most famous jewel. Originally created by British jeweller Garrard, Prince Charles chose this grand sapphire ring for his proposal to Diana in February 1981.
In the fall of 2020, Kate debuted a new pendant necklace, which appeared to use precious stones from Princess Diana's famed Saudi suite of sapphires—a gift from the Saudi royal family to the late Princess of Wales on the occasion of her wedding, featuring sapphires and diamonds designed to match her Garrard enagement ...
The Coronation Spoon
One of the oldest objects in the Crown Jewels is the twelfth-century Coronation Spoon. It is used for anointing the sovereign with holy oil, the most sacred part of the coronation ceremony.
Very few original garments have survived from this time, and the nature of portraiture has meant that our knowledge of what the average Tudor man or woman wore is very limited as only the rich and powerful could commission them.
Anne Boleyn's iconic 'B' initial necklace is famously seen in the 17th century portrait of Anne in the National Portrait Gallery, but the whereabouts of the original necklace is unknown. Many believe that it was hidden by loyalists and saved for her daughter, Elizabeth I.
While Kate will inherit $110 million in jewelry from the Queen, that collection will not include the Spencer tiara, a diamond-encrusted crown inherited by William's late mother, Princess Diana, in the mid-1970s.
The “sovereign grant,” which amounts to almost $100 million for 2021-2022, includes a ten-year extension for the renovation of Buckingham Palace of around $39 million. The Queen's three other children – Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward – will also inherit a share of their late mother's fortune.
Currently, Prince William owns the Duchy of Cornwall estate with net assets of 1.2 billion US dollars. The estate includes the Oval cricket ground in south London, Dartmoor Prison and a mega-project of 4,000 dwellings. In addition to this, Prince William will also take over his father's estate at Highgrove House.
In Spencer, Diana is horrified (though seemingly unsurprised) to discover her husband gave her the same pearl necklace he gave to his then-mistress, Camilla Parker-Bowles. There's no evidence to suggest this gift-giving snafu ever happened (or that she ate them at the dinner table).
Arguably the most famous piece in Kate's jewellery collection is her sapphire and diamond engagement ring, which previously belonged to Princess Diana.
Princess Diana's iconic sapphire and diamond engagement ring now belongs to Prince William's wife Kate Middleton.
So what will Meghan Markle inherit from Queen Elizabeth? Radar Online reported in September 2022 that both Meghan and Lilibet will be left out of the Queen's inheritance. “There's a very good chance the Queen won't leave either of them any jewels of value,” a source said.
She famously wore the emerald ring for a birthday appearance at the Tate Gallery in July 1997. She also often wore no rings at all during that final year of her life. What is this? More than two decades later, the aquamarine ring reappeared on Prince Harry's wife, Meghan Markle.
The Duchess of Sussex wore Princess Diana's gold Cartier watch, which was inherited by Prince Harry after his mother's death, at an event in Germany.
Why was Princess Margaret cremated? In the aftermath of her death, “royal watchers” told The New York Times that Princess Margaret had opted to be cremated so that her remains could fit alongside her father King George VI's grave in a vault that was made especially to hold him specifically.
The tradition goes back centuries and began with a practical consideration: to help the bodies of deceased monarchs remain pristine, especially before modern preservation techniques.
Cremation does not “prevent God, in his omnipotence, from raising up the deceased body to new life,” the Vatican says, but it does raise the possibility that the deceased's body, which the church believes is sacred, will not be properly respected by ancestors and relatives.