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Queen Camilla dressed diplomatically and practically on Tuesday. Dressed in a subdued, pistachio green crepe silk dress by Fiona Clare with a matching hat, she also carried an umbrella for the April showers that descended upon Washington, D.C. this morning. One item that stood out was the Cullinan V Diamond Brooch that Camilla had pinned to her dress. The bauble was one that Queen Elizabeth wore often over the years.
According to the Royal Collection Trust, the Cullinan V was “originally worn by Queen Mary as part of the suite of jewelry made for the Delhi Durbar in 1911.” The diamond was found in South Africa in 1905 and named after Thomas Cullinan, the chairman of the mining company that unearthed it. In its uncut state, it weighed 3,106 carats (1.33 pounds) and measured roughly 3.94 x 2.36 x 2.36 inches, making it the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found.
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Queen Camilla, wearing the brooch, speaks with the First Lady at the White House.
It was sent to Amsterdam, where three men worked 14 hours a day for eight months to produce nine large stones, numbered I through IX, along with 97 smaller brilliants. The Cullinan V, which Camilla wore today, is a heart-shaped diamond, one of the nine principal stones cut from the original.
King Edward VII acquired Cullinan VI and VIII as a gift for Queen Alexandra, while the South African government purchased the remaining numbered stones and gave them to Queen Mary in 1910. After King George V had Cullinan I and II set into the Sovereign’s Sceptre and the Imperial State Crown, the remaining stones were gifted to Queen Elizabeth in 1953.
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Queen Elizabeth wearing the brooch at the wedding of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank in 2018.
The Cullinan V can actually be worn a few different ways, including being pinned as a brooch or affixed to a tiara. Queen Camilla famously used this one on her coronation crown in place of the controversial Koh-i-Noor diamond. She also wore it to a Buckingham Palace garden party in 2024 and Royal Ascot in 2025.
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Queen Camilla in her coronation crown, with the Cullinan V diamond centered, in 2023.
The Queen and King Charles traveled to the White House from Blair House, the official presidential guest residence where the royal couple are staying while in the District of Columbia, for a formal ceremonial welcome. The military ceremony is considered the highest diplomatic honor extended by the United States to a visiting head of state.
Alongside President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, the two couples stood on the dais for a 21-gun salute and the national anthems of both countries. The President and King Charles then inspected the troops on parade, across all six branches of the U.S. military: Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Air Force, and Space Force.
Later today, Queen Camilla will attend an engagement with the First Lady at the White House Tennis Pavilion. The King and the President will also meet in the Oval Office for a closed door meeting, without any members of the press. King Charles will later give a formal address to a joint session of Congress, becoming only the second British monarch to do so, following Queen Elizabeth in 1991. He will then meet with chief executives from the technology sector in the U.S. and United Kingdom; the UK is Europe’s largest tech market, valued at $1.2 trillion. Among the Silicon Valley titans already on the White House grounds as of Tuesday morning include outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
After arriving at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Monday, the King and Queen were first hosted at the White House for afternoon tea, then took a tour of the White House beekeeping operation, and later attended a garden party at the residence of the British ambassador to the United States.
Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.