Queen Elizabeth's Wedding Band Has a Secret Inscription—and Only Prince Philip Knows the Message
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Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip will mark their 73rd wedding anniversary on November 20. The royal duo tied the knot in 1947, and the monarch has worn her wedding band, which she received on that fated day, ever since. Like Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle's baubles, the Queen's ring is made from Welsh gold—but there is one key detail that makes her accessory one of a kind. According to The Daily Mail, there is a hidden message on her band that only one other royal knows: her husband.
Ingrid Seward, a royal expert and the biographer of the new book, Prince Philip: A Portrait of the Duke of Edinburgh, revealed that the Queen actually wears her ring at all times—the reason for which might be a secret string of text inside. "She never takes it off and inside the ring is an inscription," she wrote. "No one knows what it says, other than the engraver, the Queen, and her husband."
Related: An Inside Look at the Making of Queen Elizabeth's Wedding Dress
In addition to her custom band, the Duke of Edinburgh also personalized her engagement ring, creating it from a tiara originally belonging to his mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg. He designed the three-carat ring with five smaller diamonds after taking the tiara apart. The couple's road to marriage, however, actually started back when they were teenagers—and it was love at first sight for the Queen. In the documentary Being the Queen, Prince Philip's cousin, Lady Pamela Hicks, shared that a young Queen Elizabeth first met her future husband—described as "this absolute Greek god"—at Dartmouth in 1939.
Years after their initial meeting, the Queen truly knew that Prince Philip was the only one for her. "She fell in love at age 18 and she never looked at anyone else," biographer Sally Bedell Smith said, People previously reported. Suzanne Mackie, executive producer of the Netflix series The Crown, added, "One of Elizabeth's greatest achievements is being allowed to marry the love of her life."
