Lady Gabriella Windsor Is Engaged!

Thomas Kingston and Lady Gabriella Windsor (JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

We've got some breaking royal wedding news out of Britain today: Buckingham Palace has officially announced the engagement of Lady Gabriella Windsor to Thomas Kingston.

Jewels of The Splendour of Power (Part 1)

The Khedive of Egypt Tiara and Queen Sofia's Star and Pearl Tiara (Image kindly shared by Alberta; do not reproduce!)

I've got a special treat for you today, magpies: a peek into a major jewelry exhibition currently on display in Denmark! Lovely reader Alberta paid a visit to The Splendour of Power at Koldinghus recently, and she has generously shared some of her photographs from the exhibit with me so that I can share them with all of you! There are so many great pieces on display that I'm dividing them up into a few posts, and today's is all about tiaras.

The Daily Diadem: The Cambridge Sapphire Tiara

Keystone/Getty Images

Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent wears the Cambridge Sapphire Tiara for a pre-wedding ball for her daughter, Princess Alexandra, at Windsor Castle, 23 April 1963; more on the history of the tiara here!

Prinsjesdag Jewels 2018

SANDER KONING/AFP/Getty Images

September always brings a new season for parliaments and governments in Europe, and today, we've got the annual Prinsjesdag celebrations in the Netherlands. As King Willem-Alexander addresses the representatives gathered in the Ridderzaal, we also get a bit of glitter from his queen consort.

Jewel History: A German King and Queen for Finland? (1918)

Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse and Princess Margarethe of Prussia, who very nearly became King and Queen of Finland (Wikimedia Commons)

"King Picked for the Finns Is Brother-in-Law of Kaiser"

(originally appeared in the Washington Post, 14 Sep 1918)

Duke Adolf Frederick of Mecklenburg-Schwerin [1], who had been nominated for the throne of Finland and had been accepted by the picked legislative representatives of the former grand duchy, won over to the German cause, has withdrawn from the race. Emperor William's [2] brother-in-law, Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse [3], has been substituted in his stead, according to cable dispatches from Stockholm, and his election as King of Finland is to be confirmed by what is now known as the Finnish diet within the next few days.

It is difficult to understand why the change should have been made in this choice of a ruler for Finland, for Duke Adolf Frederick is a man of much energy, administrative experience and resourcefulness; a sportsman, a celebrated African explorer and who at the beginning of the present war was governor general of all Germany's possessions in the western portion of the Dark Continent.