Did Prince Harry Originally Inherit Princess Diana's Engagement Ring?

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, insists he never gave his late mother Princess Diana's ring to his brother William, Prince of Wales, who used said ring to propose to Kate Middleton. Prince Harry is said to have initially picked his mother's sapphire engagement ring when he was tasked with choosing a treasured item of Diana's to remember her by after her tragic death in 1997.

Allegedly, Prince William wanted to inherit an expensive Cartier watch. The Tank Française is worth up to almost $30,000 (and Catherine, Princess of Wales, has also been spotted wearing it). There was a rumor that the brothers exchanged gifts in order for William to successfully pull off his proposal to Middleton. In his 2023 autobiography "Spare," Harry completely denied those claims and stated that he was never in possession of his mother's sapphire ring. He deemed the story that he traded the ring with Harry to be fabricated and insisted that his brother never even informed him that he was getting engaged. "Soon after we returned to Britain, the Palace announced that Willy was going to marry. November 2010," Harry revealed in his book. "News to me. All that time together in Lesotho, he'd never mentioned it." Harry also stated in "Spare" that he remembers when his brother first came into possession of Princess Diana's ring. "I never gave Willy that ring because it wasn't mine to give," Harry wrote." He already had it. He'd asked for it after Mummy died, and I'd been more than happy to let it go."

In "Spare," Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, dismissed rumors that he traded Princess Diana's sapphire engagement ring with his brother Prince William, stating that he was in utter shock to read tabloids featuring this made-up story. "The papers published florid stories about the moment I realized Will and Kate were well-matched, the moment I appreciated the depth of their love and thus decided to gift Willy the ring I'd inherited from Mummy, the legendary sapphire, a tender moment between brothers, a bonding moment for all three of us, and absolute rubbish: none of it ever happened," Harry wrote.

However, Paul Burrell, who once worked as the butler to Princess Diana, discussed his recollection of the ring with Mirror, and seems to remember Harry originally taking the ring as his own. "Harry said to me, 'I always remember holding Mummy's hand and that ring hurting me because it was so big,'" Burrell said. He recalled being the one to urge Harry to hold onto Diana's prized possession. "And that's why, when the boys came to Kensington Palace, I said to them, you must take something of your Mother's," Burrell recounted. "You must take something to remind yourself of your time here at Kensington Palace and your mother's life." Burrell's account further complicates the history of events, since the conflicting stories from multiple parties make it hard to know the full truth regarding Diana's sapphire engagement ring. It seems an odd thing for Prince Harry to lie about, but we might never know what really happened.