Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! I hope today brings lots of love to all of your lives, and I’m starting the fun with a look at a suite of royal jewelry with heart-shaped design motifs: the diamond interlocking hearts that belong to the Duchess of Edinburgh.
On June 19, 1999, Sophie Rhys-Jones became the Countess of Wessex when she married Queen Elizabeth II’s youngest son, the Earl of Wessex, in Windsor. The newlyweds received titles that were intended to be placeholders, as the Queen and Prince Philip wished for them to become Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh after their passing. King Charles III fulfilled that wish on Edward’s birthday in 2023.
A year after her royal wedding, the then-Countess arrived to watch the races at Royal Ascot wearing a special new suite of jewelry. The set included a three-row pearl necklace with a modern clasp made of interlocking diamond hearts and a brooch to match the clasp. Royal reporters were briefed that the jewels were Sophie’s first wedding anniversary gift from Edward.
In the months and years after their first anniversary, Sophie got quite a lot of use out of the set, wearing the pieces together and the brooch alone with other jewels. Here, she wears the brooch a few weeks after receiving it, when she attended a service of thanksgiving for the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
A little over a week later, Sophie wore the brooch and necklace together for another centenary event, the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday pageant at Horse Guards Parade. On that occasion, she also wore her black and white pearl wedding earrings.
Sophie also liked to pair the brooch with a pearl torsade necklace. She wore the brooch and necklace, plus her wedding earrings, as she rode in a carriage beside the Queen Mother during Trooping the Colour in 2001.
A few days later, on her second wedding anniversary, she wore the brooch on a colorful outfit at Royal Ascot.
And in July 2001, she brought the brooch with her as she and Edward made an official visit to the Isle of Man.
The original three-stranded pearl necklace from the set was rather loosely arranged, and by 2001, the piece was adjusted into a tighter choker necklace. Sophie wore the newly-reworked necklace in August 2001 with her wedding tiara for the wedding of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Norway in Oslo. The interlocking hearts are certainly an appropriate design motif to wear for a wedding.
She wore the brooch and necklace together again a few months later, when she and Edward attended a performance of HMS Pinafore.
The necklace traveled abroad for a wedding once again in May 2002, when Sophie wore it in Norway during Princess Märtha Louise’s wedding celebrations.
After wearing pieces from the set regularly for several years, the interlocking hearts have become more rarely-worn jewels from Sophie’s collection. She’s mainly chosen to wear the brooch alone, as she did here in London in the autumn of 2004.
The hearts again were present for a wedding in April 2005, when Sophie wore the brooch for the blessing ceremony for the marriage of her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, the then-Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.
The brooch sparkles here on a dove gray coat during another outing at Royal Ascot, part of the Diamond Jubilee month of June 2012.
One of Sophie’s most poignant appearances in the brooch to date came when she wore the hearts for the funeral of her father-in-law, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in April 2021. Both the late Queen and the late Duke reportedly had great affection for Sophie, and it’s clear that the emotions were returned.
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