What Her Children Chose to Keep | Princess Margaret’s Untold Jewels

Following the death of Princess Margaret in 2002, a pervasive narrative took hold, suggesting that her jewelry box was simply emptied out to satisfy a massive inheritance tax bill. The 2006 Christie’s auction became a global sensation, seeing trademark pieces like the Poltimore tiara, the diamond Rivière, and her iconic five-row pearl necklace sold for record-breaking sums. These treasures, along with hundreds of others, fetched a staggering fortune under the hammer that summer. Yet, that auction only told half the story. Many of the rebel princess’s most meaningful treasures never entered the auction room at all. Today, we are opening the velvet cases that were never handed to the auctioneers to discover what was actually kept and where those treasures are.

There is a particular kind of finality that settles over an auction house when a lifetime of personal possessions is cataloged, numbered, and placed in display cases. In the early summer of 2006, the rooms at Christie’s in London held that exact atmosphere. Four years after the passing of Princess Margaret, her children were confronted with a substantial inheritance tax bill. To meet this obligation, they made the necessary decision to auction a massive portion of her personal estate. Over the course of two days, around 800 items went under the hammer. Flipping through the extensive catalog today gives the distinct impression that her jewelry box was simply emptied out. Famous necklaces, antique brooches, and intimate gifts were dispersed across the globe to the highest bidders.

The most visible and heavily discussed departure from the family collection was the Poltimore tiara. Margaret purchased this piece herself at a public auction in 1959 for £5,500, acting on the advice of Lord Plunkett. Created by Garrard around 1870, the Victorian diadem was incredibly versatile, easily transforming from a substantial headpiece into a magnificent fringe necklace and 11 separate brooches. Because Margaret owned it outright, she had complete freedom over how she wore it. She chose the Poltimore for her wedding to Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960, and it quickly became her trademark jewel. She packed it for state visits from Japan to the Philippines, wore it as a necklace to the theater, and even modeled it in the famous intimate photograph taken by her husband of her sitting in a bathtub. The tiara is inextricably linked to her glamorous, slightly rebellious image.

When this defining jewel returned to the auction block nearly 50 years later, it commanded £926,400. It disappeared into a private collection that afternoon and has remained entirely out of the public eye ever since. Interestingly, this long, complete absence from the spotlight actually allows a persistent rumor to thrive among royal watchers: the comforting hope that Queen Elizabeth II secretly intervened using an anonymous proxy to purchase her sister’s diadem. I would love to believe that the Poltimore is sitting quietly in the Buckingham Palace vaults right now. However, the strong reports of an anonymous Asian buyer cast serious doubt on that theory. It also seems highly probable that if the late Queen had genuinely secured the tiara to keep it in the royal fold, we would have found out about it by now.

Despite the painful sale of the Poltimore tiara and several other significant pieces at that famous auction, a closer look at the estate reveals a very different story. If we dig a little deeper into the jewelry that quietly avoided the Christie’s catalog, we notice that the family actually preserved many highly important and meaningful jewels. They retained items that served as daily companions and intimate family links, prioritizing personal history over sheer carat weight. There is a fascinating and deliberately opaque boundary inside the royal jewelry collection, a gray area where personal property blurs into institutional heritage. When a monarch gifts a diamond necklace to a daughter or daughter-in-law, the documentation rarely specifies whether it is a permanent transfer of ownership or a lifetime loan. This ambiguity serves the Palace rather well, keeping the public from tracking exactly who owns what. It also creates a compelling layer of mystery around several major pieces Princess Margaret wore for decades that never appeared in the 2006 Christie’s catalog.

One of the most substantial absentees is the Persian Turquoise Parure, which consists of a tiara, a grand necklace, earrings, and a brooch featuring large, smooth turquoises surrounded by diamonds. Created around 1900 by the royal jewelers Garrard, the tiara is mounted in gold, pierced by hand to receive delicate platinum millgrain settings. The design incorporates triumphal laurels, true lovers’ knots, and ribbons tied around lamps of love—a fitting choice, since turquoise traditionally stands for love in the lore of precious stones. King George V presented the complete parure to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon as a wedding gift in 1923, and it went on public display at St. James’s Palace alongside her other presents. Elizabeth wore the set frequently in the 1920s and 1930s, often leading the dancing at formal balls in full-skirted gowns of beige lace over satin.

In 1951, Elizabeth gave the parure to her younger daughter, Margaret, as a 21st birthday gift. Margaret debuted her new jewels at the Royal Film Performance the following year, one of the first gala events of the new Queen’s reign. She continued to wear them to major events well into the 1990s, including the Jamaican Independence celebrations in 1962 and the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday gala. When the turquoise set failed to materialize at the auction following her death, many observers assumed it had simply been retained by her son, the Earl of Snowdon. Some accounts do report that it remains in his possession today. Yet, given the murky rules of royal inheritance, there is an alternate possibility that the parure was only ever a lifetime loan from the Queen Mother, meaning it quietly traveled back to the main royal vaults after Margaret’s passing.

Another striking piece caught in this web of uncertain ownership is the Sapphire Sunray Bandeau. The design is highly distinctive, featuring a flexible diamond frame set with sunburst motifs and anchored by a prominent central sapphire and diamond cluster. According to the royal jewelry author Leslie Field, the bandeau originally belonged to the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia and was later purchased by Queen Mary. While Mary did buy several pieces from the late Empress’s estate, there are no public records confirming the purchase of this specific sapphire bandeau, leaving its exact origins slightly mysterious. Queen Mary certainly enjoyed the piece in the 1930s, occasionally popping out the central sapphire and replacing it with the carved emerald brooch from her Delhi Durbar parure.

It was Princess Margaret who truly made the bandeau her own in the mid-20th century. She wore the full tiara for several formal events in the late 1950s and early 1960s before retiring the complete diadem from her regular rotation. The design was incredibly versatile, and even after she stopped wearing the headpiece, Margaret would detach the central sapphire cluster and wear it separately as a brooch from time to time. Unfortunately, we have not seen either the full tiara or the sapphire brooch in public for decades. This long absence leaves us completely in the dark about whether Margaret owned the piece outright or had simply borrowed it from her sister, Queen Elizabeth II.

Seeing major historical pieces disappear for decades naturally leads to speculation that they are lost forever, but the royal vaults have a habit of keeping secrets until the perfect moment. The history of the Lotus Flower tiara offers a very reassuring precedent here. Originally a Garrard diamond and pearl meander necklace given to the Queen Mother in 1923, she had it dismantled a mere six months later to create the delicate Lotus tiara. She gave it to Margaret in 1959, and it became one of the princess’s most frequently worn diadems. When Margaret’s daughter-in-law, Serena Stanhope, wore the Lotus Flower tiara for her wedding in 1993, the general consensus was that it had become the personal property of the Linley family. For years after Margaret’s death, collectors assumed the piece was sitting in a private safe entirely separate from the reigning monarch’s collection.

Then, in 2013, the then-Duchess of Cambridge, now Catherine, Princess of Wales, arrived at the annual diplomatic reception wearing the Lotus Flower tiara. She wore it again for a Chinese state banquet in 2015 and at another diplomatic reception in 2022. Its unexpected reappearance proved that Margaret had returned the tiara to the royal vaults, either before her death or in her will. This single piece demonstrates that an extended absence from the public eye does not equate to a permanent loss, leaving the door wide open for the turquoises and the sapphire bandeau to eventually make their own return.

While some of Princess Margaret’s jewelry may have quietly returned to the royal vaults, other significant historic pieces passed directly to her son, David Armstrong-Jones, the second Earl of Snowdon. The fact that these items avoided the Christie’s auction entirely gives us a fascinating look at what the family chose to preserve. Yet, even knowing these heirlooms are safe, they remain largely out of public view. The reasons behind their absence stem directly from the practical realities of modern life. A perfect example of this is the Teck diamond hoop necklace. Created in the 1860s, the piece features 22 diamond hoops, each set with a central collet diamond. It originally belonged to Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, before eventually finding its way into the collection of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

I love observing how the Queen Mother adapted historical jewelry to suit her own practical needs. She had the 22 hoops mounted on a frame and wore the piece as a tiara. She frequently chose this low-profile diadem for evening engagements, wearing it to the Royal Variety Performance in the late 1930s and for the grand reopening of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in February 1946. The size and shape of the jewel provided a comfortable option for a long night at the ballet. In 1960, she presented the jewel to Margaret as a wedding gift. Margaret promptly took it off its tiara frame and wore it strictly as a necklace for the rest of her life. She paired it with the Poltimore tiara for the wedding ball of King Baudouin of Belgium, and it became a constant companion for her evening galas and film premieres, including the premiere of “The Facts of Life” in 1961. She continued to wear the heavy hoops well into her later years, bringing the necklace out for a gala performance marking her 70th birthday in 2000. We know the necklace remains with the Earl of Snowdon today, a fact confirmed in 2012 by Sir Hugh Roberts in his documentation of the Royal Diamonds.

Moving from the glittering, flashbulb-heavy film premieres of Margaret’s era to the present day highlights a very simple truth: a modern Earl and his family simply do not attend the volume of state banquets and royal galas that require a heavy, 22-hoop antique diamond necklace. The jewel sits securely in a vault because the specific aristocratic world that required it on a weekly basis no longer exists. This same shift in lifestyle applies to another major piece often associated with the Snowdon family, the diamond fleur-de-lis brooch. The origins of this large, antique-style diamond stomacher are actually quite fascinating. For a long time, it was vaguely attributed to a shipping company gift from the late 1950s. However, a very compelling theory suggests it is actually a Cartier redesign of an entirely different jewel. In 1957, Dr. J.T. Williamson—the very same man who presented the famous Williamson pink diamond to Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding present—gave Margaret a massive diamond dahlia brooch featuring a prominent central stone.

Margaret reportedly found the original floral design a bit too bulky for her petite frame. Shortly after Dr. Williamson’s death in 1958, Cartier allegedly remodeled the dahlia into something much more to her taste. Later that year, Margaret debuted the magnificent fleur-de-lis stomacher alongside the Lotus Flower tiara. During a tour of Canada, she found highly creative ways to handle its massive size. Over the decades, she famously pinned elements of the stomacher directly into her hair as a makeshift headdress for Lord Glenconner’s 60th birthday party on the island of Mustique in 1986. Unlike many grand ornaments that royal women retire as fashions change, Margaret continued to pin this heavy piece to her evening gowns well into her old age, wearing it for a concert at the Royal College of Music in 1995.

The stomacher vanished from the public eye following her passing in 2002. Many observers assume it was inherited by her son, David. If the brooch is indeed sitting in the Snowdon vaults, its absence from the modern social scene is easily explained by practical realities. The specific formal stage required to properly carry off a massive, mid-century diamond stomacher rarely exists today. These historical diamonds likely wait quietly in their cases for the next generation of the family to take them out. While some pieces remain hidden simply because the era of grand formal dressing has faded, other historic diamonds transition away from the royal spotlight through an entirely different avenue. Personal family milestones frequently dictate the movement of significant pieces, allowing them to shift quietly out of the immediate royal line without ever appearing in a public sale.

The journey of Queen Mary’s Art Deco diamond clips perfectly traces this type of silent migration. These versatile geometric clips first appeared in the Royal Collection during the 1930s. Their exact origins remain unconfirmed, though jewelry historians suggest Queen Mary likely acquired the pair herself. She regularly pinned the clips directly onto the brim of her hat alongside wearing them in the more traditional placement on her bodice. Following Queen Mary’s death in 1953, her granddaughter, Princess Margaret, inherited the Art Deco clips. Margaret incorporated them into her regular rotation throughout the 1950s. The clips changed hands again in 1993 through a very traditional family exchange. When the Honorable Serena Stanhope married Margaret’s only son, David, the then-Viscount Linley, Margaret presented her new daughter-in-law with the Art Deco clips as a wedding gift.

They immediately became the principal jewels of the new Viscountess. She relied on them for a variety of major family events, pinning them to her tailored coat for the christening of her son in 1999. In a fitting tribute to the woman who gifted them, Viscountess Linley wore the clips for the funeral of Princess Margaret at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle in 2002. She continued to wear them to high-profile royal gatherings, including the wedding of Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly in 2008, as well as for the traditional royal church services at Sandringham. A wedding gift presented directly to a bride becomes her personal property, completely separate from the wider royal vaults or the estate of her husband. Following the announcement of the couple’s divorce in 2020, Serena, now Countess of Snowdon, has understandably stepped back from the public royal stage. The Art Deco diamond clips almost certainly remain in her private jewelry box today. We might naturally wonder if the clips will ever return to the public eye, keeping in mind that they could very well be passed down to the Countess’s daughter, Lady Margarita, for a new generation of wear.

The visual legacy of Princess Margaret looks entirely different when we turn to the collection of her daughter, Lady Sarah Chatto. Because Sarah appears so frequently wearing her mother’s diamonds and pearls, it is easy to assume she inherited the vast majority of the estate. The reality points more toward practicality than sheer volume. Her frequent public appearances in these inherited jewels stem directly from how perfectly these understated, classic pieces align with her personal wardrobe. While her brother holds the massive antique stomachers and heavy tiaras that require a formal state banquet to see the light of day, Sarah relies on elegant daytime and evening pieces that integrate seamlessly into modern royal family gatherings.

A cornerstone of her regular rotation is the pair of Greville pearl earrings. These striking pearl and diamond drops, featuring 12 small round diamonds arranged in an upside-down V-shape above a large pearl, originally belonged to the society hostess Dame Margaret Greville. Margaret began wearing them in the late 1950s, eventually giving them to Sarah as a wedding gift in 1994. Sarah has worn them to almost every significant royal event since, from the weddings of Prince William and Prince Harry to the funeral of Prince Philip. The antique diamond star earrings, which Margaret acquired in the mid-1950s, regularly accompany Sarah to Royal Ascot and the traditional Christmas church services at Sandringham. For Prince Philip’s funeral, she also pinned her mother’s pearl and diamond star brooch, a classic six-prong design, to her dark coat.

I always find it fascinating to observe Sarah’s specific approach to these heirlooms. She strictly avoids highly conspicuous, heavy ornaments during the day, choosing instead to wear pieces that serve as a quiet, almost intimate continuation of her mother’s daily presence. You can see this subtle curation in her use of the diamond ear of wheat brooch, an antique piece she has worn for Easter services at Windsor Castle and the opening of the White Lodge Museum in Richmond Park. She also brought out a very specific pearl necklace featuring a prominent floral diamond clasp for the coronation of King Charles III, wearing it alongside the Greville pearl earrings and a diamond bracelet. She takes historical jewels and makes them look completely organic to her own life.

This careful integration is most visible in how she wears diamond rivières. During her life, Princess Margaret actually owned two very similar single-strand diamond necklaces, which can be incredibly difficult to tell apart in old photographs. The longer of the two was the Lady Mount Stephen necklace, a piece of 34 old-cut diamonds bequeathed to Margaret by Queen Mary. That specific necklace was selected for the 2006 Christie’s auction, where it sold for nearly a million pounds. The second diamond rivière, featuring a slightly tighter, more choker-like setting, remained in the family. King George VI gave this shorter diamond necklace to Margaret for her 21st birthday in 1951. Margaret formally passed it down to Sarah for her own 21st birthday celebration at Windsor Castle in 1985. Sarah also inherited Queen Mary’s pearl and diamond rivière, an antique line of alternating collet diamonds and round pearls. Queen Mary was photographed wearing this exact piece in the 1920s while holding a young Princess Elizabeth. Margaret predominantly reserved this strand for evening galas in the 1950s and 1960s, styling it with the Lotus Flower tiara. Seeing a necklace that Margaret once draped over ball gowns for formal state banquets, now repurposed by Sarah for a daytime Thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s Cathedral, completely shifts the visual context of the jewel. She regularly stacks this pearl and diamond line with her 21st birthday diamond rivière to attend major daytime celebrations.

Of all the historic necklaces and antique earrings Lady Sarah Chatto inherited, one specific jewel stands entirely apart because it was physically constructed just for her. The story of the Snowdon floral tiara actually begins with three individual diamond brooches. When Princess Margaret married Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960, the groom presented his royal bride with these antique floral ornaments as a wedding gift. They featured diamond-set petals and leaves arranged on distinct branches with edges that look sharp and naturalistic rather than soft and romantic. Margaret incorporated them immediately into her regular jewelry rotation. She pinned them to the fabric of her evening gowns, arranged them as hair ornaments for formal galas throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and notably wore them for the christening of her daughter, Sarah, in 1964. Margaret retained the brooches long after her divorce in 1978, wearing them for various gala occasions and family portraits in the ensuing decades.

The transformation of these brooches happened entirely by chance in 1994. While Sarah was preparing for her wedding to Daniel Chatto, her dress designer, Jasper Conran, noticed the three diamond flowers sitting in Margaret’s jewelry box. He suggested they could be combined to form a bridal diadem. The jewelers at Wartski took on the commission and approached it with a highly practical solution. They designed a custom frame to hold the three pieces together as a tiara, leaving the original brooch fittings completely intact and untouched. Sarah walked down the aisle at St. Stephen Walbrook Church wearing a diadem that physically represented the beginning of her parents’ marriage. She chose to soften the sharp antique diamonds by wreathing the base of the tiara in fresh greenery, pairing it perfectly with the Greville pearl earrings her mother had also given her for the occasion.

Because the Wartski frame preserves the original mechanics of the brooches, the Snowdon floral tiara remains exceptionally versatile, with Sarah choosing to wear the individual diamond flowers as brooches for all subsequent major royal gatherings. She wore these component floral ornaments for the golden wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1997 and again for their diamond wedding anniversary service a decade later. When Sarah later loaned her bridal gown to the Victoria and Albert Museum for an exhibition, she temporarily reattached the brooches to the tiara frame so the complete bridal look could be displayed behind the glass. We saw Sarah wear them during the celebratory smiles of family weddings, and we saw her wear them during periods of profound national mourning. For the funeral of her aunt, Queen Elizabeth II, at Westminster Abbey in 2022, Sarah pinned the separate floral brooches directly to her dark coat, pairing them once again with Margaret’s antique diamond star earrings.

While classic diamonds and pearls form the backbone of Lady Sarah Chatto’s daily rotation, she also inherited some of her mother’s most highly recognizable colored gems. Princess Margaret had a clear affinity for colored stones set in elaborate antique frames, and her collection included two pairs of distinctive drop earrings that entirely avoided the auction block. The first is a pair of emerald earrings featuring a pear-shaped emerald—though some sources suggest the stones could potentially be jade or tourmaline—suspended within an 18th-century diamond frame. Their exact provenance remains unconfirmed, but it is widely believed they were a gift from her husband, the Earl of Snowdon. They entered her collection by the mid-1960s, and Margaret famously wore them for two portraits taken by him. She kept these emeralds in regular use for decades, choosing them for a charity concert at St. James’s Palace in 1984 and the State Opening of Parliament in the 1990s. When Sarah arrived at Kew Palace for Queen Elizabeth’s 80th birthday dinner in 2006, wearing these exact emerald drops, the moment served as a highly vivid visual greeting from the 1960s.

There is a corresponding pair of sapphire earrings in Sarah’s jewelry box that closely echoes this antique aesthetic. They feature slim, pale blue briolette sapphires suspended within an ornate diamond frame accented by two small rubies. Princess Margaret acquired them in the mid-1950s, wearing them frequently on overseas tours and for major gala performances during that decade. Sarah tends to reserve these pale blue drops for more specific family occasions, ensuring they remain a private but consistent part of her mother’s legacy. Beyond the colored drops, Sarah’s inheritance includes substantial naturalistic brooches that carry their own highly specific histories. The diamond floral spray brooch, for instance, dates back to the 19th century and features a large central diamond surrounded by leaves and stalks set in silver and gold. Margaret received it in December 1955. Lord Aberconway presented it to her on behalf of the builders when she launched the ship Corinthia for the Cunard Steamship Company. Margaret wore it frequently in the late 1950s, pairing it with her sapphire bandeau for a banquet in Trinidad. Though it largely disappeared from her public appearances after the 1960s, Sarah brought the diamond spray back into the daylight. She pinned it to her coat for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in 2002, pairing it with Margaret’s diamond star earrings.

The 2006 auction at Christie’s will always be remembered as the moment Princess Margaret’s jewelry box was opened to the world. The loss of the Poltimore tiara and her magnificent diamond necklaces still feels like a heavy blow to royal history. I always find it deeply unfortunate that inheritance taxes routinely force families to dismantle a lifetime of personal heritage. It is genuinely saddening to realize that a massive portion of Margaret’s collection was scattered to anonymous buyers across the globe simply to settle a financial obligation. Yet, looking closely at the specific diamonds and pearls that avoided the auction block changes our understanding of what was actually lost.

The descendants of Princess Margaret managed to preserve a remarkable selection of incredibly meaningful jewelry. The pieces that remained in the family carry the most significant personal history. Even if they lack the massive carat weight of the sold tiara, these are the antique earrings Margaret wore while watching her children grow up. They are the floral brooches presented by a husband on their wedding day and the delicate diamond necklaces given by parents to mark a 21st birthday. When Lady Sarah Chatto wears these historical pieces today, she does so with a quiet, unwavering dignity. Her careful curation shows that while an auction house can disperse hundreds of diamonds, the core history of a family continues through the specific items they choose to keep close. If this journey through Princess Margaret’s hidden treasures felt as fascinating to you as it did to me, please support this video with a like. I would be incredibly grateful. Subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon so we can continue opening these royal jewelry boxes together. Thank you so much for watching. I look forward to seeing you in the next story.