Sparkling Sapphires and Diamonds for a Royal Garden Party in Scotland

Royal Week in Scotland has officially begun, and a trio of Windsors were on hand on Tuesday for the annual garden party at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla were joined by his sister, the Princess Royal, as they arrived for the garden party at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on Tuesday. They were joined by several Scottish dignitaries, including the Duke of Hamilton, who is the Hereditary Crown Bearer of the Crown of Scotland.

King Charles was dapper in a morning suit for the garden party, while both Queen Camilla and Princess Anne wore jackets and hats in bright, patriotic shades of Scottish blue.

I wasn’t able to license any great close-up photos of King Charles’s tie pin, but this image shows some of the details. It looks like it’s set with diamonds and sapphires (or blue enamel) and has an interesting scrolling design. If I squint, I can almost convince myself that it’s supposed to be some kind of serpent. The Loch Ness Monster??? (Surely not.)

Queen Camilla’s jewelry was much more straightforward. She wore her favorite diamond and pearl drop earrings with her four-row pearl necklace with the round diamond clasp. On her jacket, she pinned a special heirloom piece: Queen Mary’s Diamond Thistle Brooch.

The brooch arrived in Queen Mary’s jewelry box during the reign of her husband, King George V. The piece’s design features clear Art Deco influences, especially in the geometric design of the stem of the thistle. Here, in a photograph taken in the summer of 1935, Queen Mary wears the brooch pinned to her hat for a church service near the Balmoral estate.

Queen Elizabeth II was the next person to wear the thistle brooch. She brought it out particularly often in the later years of her life, almost always for events either in or related to Scotland. Here, she wears the brooch at the Scottish Parliament in 2019.

Queen Camilla has now worn the brooch on several different occasions. She also wore it last year for the annual garden party at Holyroodhouse, paired with the same diamond and pearl earrings.

Princess Anne was elegant in a blue floral dress with a blue jacket and hat for the garden party. She accessorized with a necklace made of pearls and blue beads, diamond and sapphire cluster earrings, and another special pin with Scottish significance.

Here’s a closer look at the small brooch, which is a diamond-set version of the badge of the Royal Scots, a former regiment that is now part of the amalgamated Royal Regiment of Scotland. Anne was Colonel-in-Chief of the former regiment and is now patron of the Royal Scots Regimental Association. She wears the diamond badge often for events in Scotland.