Princess Margaret’s only granddaughter, Lady Margarita
Armstrong-Jones, has revealed why she wears a very famous royal
jewel to special family events.
Lady Margarita told The Daily
Telegraph that she adds the ruby and diamond engagement
ring belonging to her late grandmother to outfits she picks for
major royal spectacles. She tells the paper that ;’I wear it to
things I think she would want to be there for.”
Among the most high profile of those events was the Coronation
of King Charles III in May 2023.
Lady Margarita clearly treasures the ring, saying that ”it’s
a Marguerite shape, a particular floral motif, and just so
beautiful. The fact that it shares our name made it feel very
magical.”
Margarita was named after Princess Margaret, who died three
months before she was born. In fact, her full name is a combination
of several of those that belonged to her grandmother, her great
grandmother and her great aunt – she is Lady Margarita Elizabeth
Rose Alleyne Armstrong-Jones.
It’s long been thought that the engagement ring was designed to
look like a rosebud, in a nod to Princess Margaret’s middle name of
Rose. There are very few close ups of the ring but it is definitely
a floral design featuring rubies and diamonds and it was created by
Lady Margarita’s grandfather, Antony Armstrong-Jones, later the 1st
Earl of Snowdon.
Princess Margaret and Lady Margarita share a link to both the
marguerite and the rose in their names and so the ring can be seen
as a double link between the two.
Lady Margarita, who is studying jewellery design in Florence
while making her own pieces as well, also spoke of the granny she
never met. She said she’d been told her grandmother was ”definitely
a big earring woman.”
Princess Margaret was known for her sense of style and her
engagement ring reflected that. When she announced she was going to
marry Antony Armstrong-Jones, in February 1960, she was seen with
the ring in their engagement photos which were taken at Royal Lodge
on the Windsor estate, now at the centre of the row around Andrew
Mountbatten Windsor who is to leave the property imminently after
losing all his royal titles.
The wedding of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones was
the first royal marriage to be televised. They wed at Westminster
Abbey on May 6 1960.
They went on to have two children – David, now Earl of Snowdon
and father of Lady Margarita, and Lady Sarah Chatto – before
divorcing in 1978.