What Really Happened to Princess Margaret’s Jewels? The Untold Royal Mystery
She was photographed wearing it in a bathtub. Just the tiara, a smile, and nothing else. That single image, taken by her own husband, became the most famous photograph of Princess Margaret ever made. The tiara in that picture was the Poltimore, a dazzling Victorian masterpiece of cushion-cut diamonds and scrolling floral motifs mounted in silver and gold. It could be taken apart with a tiny screwdriver and reassembled as a diamond necklace or 11 separate brooches. It was worth a fortune, and after Margaret died, it was sold at auction for nearly a million pounds to a buyer whose identity has never been revealed. That was in 2006.
The Poltimore tiara has not been seen in public since, but the tiara was only one piece in a collection of over 800 items. There were tiaras, pearl necklaces from Queen Mary, turquoise jewels from the Queen Mother, Fabergé clocks, antique brooches, and a ruby engagement ring designed by her ex-husband. After Margaret died, some of these treasures were sold to strangers, some were kept by her children, and some simply vanished into a gray zone between crown property and personal inheritance where no one, not even the palace, is willing to say exactly what happened.
This is the story of what became of Princess Margaret’s jewels, the auction that broke her ex-husband’s heart, the diamonds her daughter still wears in silence, and the granddaughter who never met her, but who now carries her ring to every royal occasion she thinks Margaret would have wanted to attend. The inheritance crisis began when Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, died on February 9, 2002. She was 71 years old and had been the most glamorous woman in Britain for the better part of four decades. She was the Queen’s rebellious younger sister, the one who smoked through long cigarette holders, danced until 3:00 in the morning, and fell in love with the wrong people in ways that made the front pages shudder.
She left behind two children from her marriage to photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones: David, Viscount Linley, now the second Earl of Snowdon, and Lady Sarah Chatto, the quiet, artistic daughter who paints watercolors and avoids cameras. She also left behind an extraordinary personal jewelry collection, accumulated across a lifetime of state banquets, royal tours, birthdays, and gifts from the most powerful people on Earth. And, she left behind a tax bill. Unlike the sovereign, whose possessions pass free of inheritance tax, Margaret’s personal estate was subject to the standard 40% levy. Her children faced a bill running into the millions. They had two options: pay from their own pockets or sell. They chose to sell, and it tore the family apart. According to Viscountess Hinchingbrooke, Lord Snowdon, Margaret’s ex-husband and the father of David and Sarah, wrote to his children begging them to stop the auction. He felt that selling Margaret’s belongings was a betrayal of her memory. The family was divided, but the tax bill was real, and in the end, Christie’s was given 800 items from Kensington Palace, Margaret’s London home for over four decades, to catalog, exhibit, and sell.
The sale took place at Christie’s King Street in London on June 13 and 14, 2006. Day one was reserved for jewelry and Fabergé, totaling 192 lots. Day two covered furniture, silver, and works of art, encompassing another 600 items. Christie’s made a cautious initial estimate of 2 million pounds for the entire collection, but they were spectacularly wrong. Before the auction, highlights from the collection were exhibited around the world. At Wilton House near Salisbury, visitors were invited not just to look at Margaret’s jewelry, but to try it on. For a fleeting moment, ordinary people could clasp a royal necklace around their throats or feel the weight of a tiara on their heads. Margaret, who spent her life navigating the line between duty and pleasure, might have appreciated the absurdity.
When the gavel fell on day one, the results were staggering. The jewelry alone netted nearly 10 million pounds, five times the estimate for the entire sale. A Fabergé clock in translucent mauve enamel, a gift from Queen Mary, sold for over 1 million pounds to an anonymous buyer. A tiny ruby and pearl necklace that Margaret had worn as a two-year-old in a photograph brought 28,000 pounds, more than 20 times its estimate. Then came the personal items. A Victorian bee brooch, accompanied by a handwritten note from Margaret that read, “Almost the first bit of jewelry given to Mum, given to me 10th February 1945,” sold for 34,000 pounds. Three of her umbrellas from the 1960s sold for over 2,000 pounds. Even three bottles of Kensington Palace white wine from 1976 fetched nearly 5,000 pounds.
The buyers were not just acquiring objects; they were acquiring closeness to a woman who had lived more publicly than almost anyone, yet whose private world remained stubbornly her own. Every lot was a sentence in the story of her life. A thousand bidders packed Christie’s four video-linked rooms, joined by over 2,500 clients bidding by phone, in writing, and online. The atmosphere was electric—part auction, part memorial service, part celebrity spectacle. A five-row Art Deco pearl and diamond necklace became one of the most emotional lots of the day. Queen Mary had given it to Margaret for her 18th birthday in 1948, and Cecil Beaton had photographed the young princess wearing it for her 19th, 20th, and 21st birthday portraits—three of the most reproduced images in royal photographic history. The necklace was 39 cm long with a diamond-mounted platinum clasp, and the pearls were graduated in five delicate rows. It sold for over 500,000 pounds. Somewhere in the world, a stranger now owns the necklace that framed the face of a teenage princess in what were perhaps the most carefree years of her life.
But the star of the auction, the piece that made front pages around the world, was the Poltimore tiara. To understand why this tiara mattered, you need to understand the woman who wore it. The Poltimore was not a royal heirloom. It was not borrowed from the crown, not passed down from Queen Mary, and not loaned by her sister. Princess Margaret bought it herself at auction in 1959 for 5,500 pounds. That act alone was a statement. She had full access to the Queen’s collection—dozens of tiaras in the royal vault, any one of which she could have worn on her wedding day—yet she chose instead to buy her own. The tiara had been created by Garrard, the royal jeweler, around 1870 for Florence, Lady Poltimore, wife of the second Baron Poltimore, who served as treasurer to Queen Victoria’s household. It was a masterwork of Victorian craftsmanship, a graduated line of cushion-shaped and old-cut diamond clusters alternating with diamond-set scroll motifs mounted in silver and gold. The floral designs evoked the naturalistic style of the era, and the entire structure was ingeniously engineered. A brown silk ribbon was laced inside the framework, so that only the diamonds sat above the hairline, giving the tiara an extraordinary sense of height.
And it was convertible. With a small screwdriver, which came in the fitted blue leather case alongside the tiara, the diamonds could be unlatched and reconfigured as a fringe necklace or 11 individual brooches. Margaret debuted it as a necklace at the Royal Opera House before anyone even knew she was engaged. Then, on May 6, 1960, she wore the full tiara to Westminster Abbey for the first royal wedding ever broadcast on television. 300 million viewers watched as she arrived in a horse-drawn carriage, the Poltimore soaring above her immaculate Norman Hartnell gown, anchoring a cathedral-length veil of silk and tulle that billowed behind her. The tall, closed-circuit design of the tiara added inches to the petite princess’s frame. She looked, quite simply, like a woman who had chosen her own crown. From that day forward, the Poltimore was Margaret’s signature. She wore it to state banquets in Japan, Sweden, Spain, Oman, and the Philippines. She wore it to Silver Jubilee galas and to the state opening of Parliament. She wore it as brooches pinned to evening gowns and as a necklace draped over bare shoulders. And somewhere in the early 1960s, her husband photographed her wearing only the tiara, smiling from a bathtub—an image so perfectly balanced between rebellion and intimacy that it became the defining photograph of her life. At Christie’s in 2006, the Poltimore was estimated at 150,000 to 200,000 pounds. It sold for 926,400 pounds, nearly five times the high estimate, to an anonymous private Asian buyer. The total for the entire two-day sale reached 13.6 million pounds. The Poltimore tiara has not been seen in public since.
The auction told one part of the story, but what about the pieces that never reached the catalog? The most significant absence was the Persian turquoise parure. This was a full set—tiara, necklace, earrings, and brooch—made of turquoise and diamonds by Garrard around 1900. King George V had given it to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon as a wedding gift in 1923 when she married his son, the future King George VI. The lore of precious stones holds that turquoise stands for love, and the tiara’s design reinforced that message with lamps of love, triumphal laurels, and lovers’ knots, all mounted in hand-pierced gold with platinum settings. The Queen Mother wore the parure to state banquets, royal weddings, and coronation balls throughout the 1920s and ’30s. She then gave the principal pieces to Princess Margaret, reportedly as a 21st birthday gift. Margaret wore the turquoise tiara for decades, to the Jamaican independence celebrations in 1962, to the Belgian state visit in 1963, to the Royal Film Performance in 1967, and the Royal Danish Ballet Gala in 1968.
After Margaret’s death, the turquoise parure did not appear at Christie’s. Its whereabouts remain uncertain. Some believe the Earl of Snowdon retained it. Others argue it was only ever a crown loan to Margaret and should have been returned to the Royal Collection. The ambiguity is maddening because the question of crown versus personal property is the invisible fault line running beneath every royal jewelry story. When a king gives his daughter-in-law a wedding gift, does it belong to her forever, or does it belong to the institution? The answer in the British system is deliberately unclear, and that vagueness serves the palace well. It means no one outside the family can ever make a definitive claim. The turquoise tiara has not been seen in public since Margaret’s death, and no member of the royal family has ever addressed its fate. But not all of Margaret’s unsold jewels are mysteries. Lady Sarah Chatto, Margaret’s daughter, kept a significant number of pieces. Among them are three antique diamond flower brooches, a wedding gift from Lord Snowdon to Margaret in 1960. In 1994, when Sarah married Daniel Chatto, fashion designer Jasper Conran spotted the brooches in Margaret’s jewelry box and suggested they be transformed into a tiara. Wartski, the London jewelers, made a frame to hold the three brooches, and Sarah wore the Snowdon floral tiara on her wedding day, wreathed in fresh greenery for a touch of living nature among the diamonds. Sarah also inherited the Greville pearl earrings, a diamond and pearl riviere from Queen Mary, and diamond star earrings from her mother’s collection. She wears them sparingly, but always at the moments that matter: Margaret’s funeral, Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in 2022, and King Charles’ coronation in 2023. If you look closely at photographs of those occasions, you will find Margaret’s diamonds glinting quietly at her daughter’s shoulder.
For years, one question haunted royal jewelry collectors: What happened to Princess Margaret’s engagement ring? It was not in the Christie’s auction. It was not seen on anyone’s hand. Anthony Armstrong-Jones had designed it himself—a ruby surrounded by a halo of round-cut diamonds arranged in the shape of a rosebud. It was a tribute to Margaret’s middle name, Rose. Experts described it as small, simple, and timeless, nothing like the grand sapphires and emeralds of other royal engagements. It was, by all accounts, deeply personal. In November 2025, the answer finally came from an unexpected source. Lady Margarita Armstrong-Jones, Margaret’s only granddaughter, born just three months after the princess died, revealed in an interview with the Telegraph that the ring had been in the family all along. Her father, David, had given it to her on her 21st birthday in 2023. “It’s a marguerite shape, a particular floral motif, and just so beautiful,” Margarita told the paper. “The fact that it shares our name made it feel very magical.”
A few weeks before that birthday, she had worn the ring for the first time to the coronation of King Charles III at Westminster Abbey, the very same church where her grandmother had married her grandfather 63 years earlier on the very same date, May 6. “I wear it to things I think she would want to be there for,” Margarita said. She is now 23 years old, studying jewelry design at the Alchimia Contemporary Jewelry School in Florence, creating pieces she describes as animalistic and raw. When asked whether Margaret would have liked her work, she paused. “It’s hard to say, but I know she had a love of natural motifs and turquoise, which was her favorite color.” Her aunt Sarah had given her boxes of costume jewelry from Kensington Palace. Her father had given her the engagement ring. And the name she carries, Margarita Elizabeth Rose, echoes her grandmother, her great aunt, and the very flower that a young photographer once set in rubies and diamonds to win a princess’s hand.
Princess Margaret’s jewelry collection was scattered across the world in two days in June 2006. Her bathtub tiara sits somewhere in a private vault, unseen and unworn. Her turquoise jewels exist in a limbo between family and crown. Her pearl necklace, the one Cecil Beaton photographed for her 19th birthday portrait, belongs to someone we will never know. But the pieces that mattered most stayed exactly where Margaret would have wanted them. The diamond flower brooches are with Sarah, who wears them at funerals and coronations with the quiet dignity her mother always admired. The rosebud ring is with Margarita, who takes it to Westminster Abbey when she thinks her grandmother would want to be there.
The jewels we see in museum cases tell us about power and wealth. But the jewels a family keeps, the ones they refuse to sell, the ones they carry to churches and ceremonies, tell us about love. And love, unlike diamonds, does not need a fitted blue leather case to survive. There is a particular kind of grief that comes with scattering someone’s belongings to the wind. Every object sold is a thread cut from the fabric of a life. But there is also a particular kind of grace in choosing which threads to keep. Sarah chose the flower brooches her father gave her mother on the day they promised to love each other. Margarita chose the ring her grandfather carved into the shape of a rose for a woman named Rose. Those choices say more about Princess Margaret than any auction catalog ever could.
The legacy of these jewels extends far beyond their monetary value or their craftsmanship. They serve as tangible links between the past and the present, silent witnesses to the triumphs and tragedies of a royal life lived in the glare of the spotlight. When one contemplates the vastness of the collection that was liquidated, it is difficult not to feel a sense of loss for the history that was dispersed. Thousands of items—from the most significant royal parures to the most mundane household objects—were stripped of their context, transformed into mere commodities for the highest bidder. Yet, there is a fascinating irony in this dispersion. By selling the items that were not vital to the core identity of the family, they inadvertently curated a new collection—one defined by the deeply personal connection of the survivors to the departed.
Sarah’s decision to preserve the floral brooches and the Greville pearls demonstrates a profound respect for her mother’s aesthetic and emotional landscape. These pieces were not merely adornments; they were symbols of specific chapters in Margaret’s life. By wearing them at major state events, Sarah ensures that her mother’s presence is felt in a subtle, dignified manner, bridging the gap between the eras of the monarchy. The diamonds reflect the light in much the same way they did decades ago, casting a continuity that transcends the physical absence of the princess.
Similarly, the story of the rosebud engagement ring provides a satisfying emotional resolution to a long-standing mystery. For years, the public wondered about the fate of the ring that sealed the union between a princess and an artist. The fact that it resurfaced on the hand of her granddaughter—a budding jeweler herself—feels almost poetic. It represents a passing of the torch from one generation to the next, a symbol of the enduring nature of artistic expression and the legacy of the Rose of Windsor. The ring is no longer a historical artifact; it is a living, breathing component of Margarita’s life, a piece of jewelry that continues to experience history at the very location where its journey began.
Furthermore, the “gray zone” of the crown jewels, particularly the turquoise set, remains a topic of immense interest for historians and enthusiasts alike. It highlights the precarious nature of royal property, where the lines between personal gifts and institutional assets are intentionally blurred. This ambiguity is not a failure of administration but a feature of the system, allowing the monarchy to retain flexibility in how it handles its vast and multifaceted treasures. While it may frustrate the curious public, it is a testament to the complex, evolving nature of royal identity in the modern world.
As we look back at the 2006 auction, we must also consider the atmosphere of the event itself. It was a spectacle that mirrored the duality of Princess Margaret’s own existence: the public princess and the private woman. The crowds at Christie’s were not just looking for luxury; they were looking for a piece of the magic, a connection to the high-society life of the mid-20th century. In that sense, every buyer—anonymous or otherwise—became a custodian of a small fragment of her story. Even if the objects are now locked away in private vaults, they remain inextricably linked to the image of the woman who once made them dance.
The Poltimore tiara, despite its departure from public view, remains an iconic symbol of that era. Its versatility and the story of its acquisition reflect the independence and boldness that defined Margaret’s character. She did not wait for the crown to provide; she sought out what she desired, and in doing so, she created an image that was entirely her own. That image, captured in the bathtub photograph, persists as a testament to her refusal to be bound by the expectations of her rank. Even if the tiara is never seen again, the cultural impact of that photograph and the statement it made about femininity and power remains undiminished.
Ultimately, the jewelry collection of Princess Margaret is more than just a list of items; it is a narrative. It is a story of love, duty, rebellion, and loss. It is a reminder that even those born into the most privileged of circumstances must eventually grapple with the same questions of legacy and attachment that define the human condition. The items that were sold may have provided financial relief for her children, but the items they kept provided a sense of continuity. Through them, the essence of the princess continues to participate in the life of the family and the life of the nation.
We are left to wonder what other secrets remain in the vaults of the aristocracy, waiting to be rediscovered or reinterpreted by future generations. The jewelry industry, with its focus on craftsmanship and material value, often forgets the emotional weight that these pieces carry. But as the stories of Sarah and Margarita remind us, the true value of a jewel is not determined by its carat weight or its history at auction, but by the hands that hold it and the reasons they choose to keep it. The diamond flower brooches, the ruby rosebud ring, and the memory of the Poltimore tiara all contribute to a portrait of a woman who, despite the weight of her crown, always sought the beauty in the personal. As we continue to examine the archives of royal history, it is these personal stories that will continue to captivate us, offering a human perspective on a life lived on the grandest of scales. The journey of these jewels, from the hands of artisans to the royal vaults, and finally to the world at large, is a reflection of the changing tides of the 21st century. It is a story that refuses to be forgotten, and as long as there are those who remember, the diamonds will continue to sparkle with the life of the one who wore them best.
In the final analysis, the story of Princess Margaret’s jewelry is a masterclass in the intersection of public spectacle and private sentiment. The auction may have signaled the end of a physical collection, but it ignited a long-lasting fascination that has only grown stronger with time. By documenting these pieces, from their inception to their uncertain futures, we are piecing together a mosaic of a life that was both incredibly public and intensely guarded. Whether it is the quiet, elegant persistence of Sarah Chatto or the vibrant, creative energy of Margarita Armstrong-Jones, the legacy of Princess Margaret endures. It is found in the way they honor their heritage, not by clinging to everything, but by choosing the pieces that truly speak to the heart. This is the most profound lesson of the entire ordeal: that in the end, it is not the volume of one’s possessions that matters, but the meaning we ascribe to those few items that truly belong to us. The saga of the jewels is, at its core, a love story, and that is a beauty that no auction could ever fully divest. As we continue to follow the threads of these histories, we find ourselves looking not just at the brilliance of the stones, but at the light within, the enduring sparkle of a life that left an indelible mark on the world. Princess Margaret, the Countess of Snowdon, may have left her physical treasures behind, but the story of her spirit continues to shine through, refined and polished by the love of those she left behind. The journey of these treasures is far from over; it is merely shifting into new chapters, written in the quiet moments of inheritance and the loud, brilliant displays of the public arena.
The legacy remains, etched in gold and stone, a beautiful, eternal testament to the woman who loved, lived, and sparkled with a fire that the world will never truly extinguish. And so, the mystery of the jewels continues, a lingering question that keeps the memory of Princess Margaret alive for a new generation of admirers who seek to understand the woman behind the diamonds. The tale of the Poltimore, the turquoise, and the rosebud ring is more than a historical footnote—it is a mirror reflecting the complexities of memory and the enduring power of family, showing us that while wealth can be sold, the soul of a legacy is something that remains forever in the hearts of those who keep the story alive. The final chapter, if it ever truly exists, is yet to be written, as each new appearance of these jewels in the public sphere adds another layer to their history, ensuring that the legacy of Princess Margaret will continue to fascinate, inspire, and intrigue for years to come. The jewels have a life of their own, and they, like the princess, are never truly gone as long as their brilliance continues to capture our collective imagination. The story of her jewelry is ultimately a story of humanity, a reflection of the joys and sorrows that define us all, and a testament to the fact that even for a princess, the most precious things are those that hold a piece of our heart. As we reflect on this, we are reminded that history is not just about what is found in books or museums, but about what is kept close, what is cherished, and what is passed down, connecting us in a timeless chain of love and remembrance that spans the ages. Princess Margaret’s journey, and the journey of her jewels, is a testament to this, and it remains one of the most compelling stories of our time, a beacon of elegance, drama, and enduring emotion that continues to shine brightly in the history of the modern world.
