Meghan Markle made a huge mistake when she changed her engagement ring

It was a seemingly tiny tweak, that took the world’s photographers weeks to pick up — but now that it’s been noticed, people aren’t happy.

OPINION

Choosing the right engagement ring can be extraordinarily difficult. It’s hard enough asking someone to spend the rest of their life with you, without also having to present them with an expensive, personalised ornament that’s supposed to sum up your whole relationship.

When I proposed to my darling Taylah, I did it with a ring that had been handed down through my family’s maternal line. It has tiny little diamonds surrounding a slightly-less tiny sapphire — her favoured gem and birthstone. It looks a bit like the home-brand version of Princess Diana’s engagement ring.

I couldn’t afford anything fancier, but I hoped it conveyed a clear message: I love you, I know you, my family welcomes you with open arms, and I’m doing the best I can with limited resources.

When she said yes and allowed me to put that ring on her finger, it was the happiest moment of my life. It has only been topped, subsequently, by our wedding day and the birth of our daughter.

I think I did all right, but on my commoner’s budget, I could hardly compete with Prince Harry. The headline-grabbing diamond ring with which he proposed to Meghan Markle was remarkable.

Harry put himself into the beautiful ring he made for Meghan — but she’s gone and changed it all. Picture: Frank Augstein/AP

He designed it himself, with two diamonds from his mother’s personal collection, a yellow gold band chosen especially that it might match his fiancé’s already extensive collection of jewellery, and a main diamond sourced from Botswana, a country that Harry’s family used to own.

The ring was, by any measure, a beautiful and thoughtful one. However, it seems as though it just wasn’t quite good enough for Meghan.

Recent photographs show that Meghan Markle has redesigned her engagement ring. The yellow gold band is gone, replaced by an upgraded micro-pavé band.

Meghan's ring now features a pave band. Picture: Malcolm Park/Alamy Live

Observers have noted that it has the effect of making the ring look entirely different.

Experts and devotees of the royal family are furious. “A royal engagement ring is a piece of history,” says Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty Magazine, “not a bit of jewellery to be updated when it looks old fashioned”.

This is the sort of behaviour that has driven public opinion against the Duchess of Sussex, and inspired accusations that she is a difficult person to please.

Since joining the royal family, Meghan has generated a never-ending torrent of scandals and feuds.

There was the time she made reportedly our darling Kate cry, the time she is said to have thrown a tantrum over a tiara, her alleged controversial plans to raise a vegan, gender-neutral baby and the way her staffers keep quitting — to name just a few.

But aside from the affront to history and tradition, one can only imagine how this latest transgression over the engagement ring must make Prince Harry feel.

It could hardly be a comfort to look down at your wife’s hand and see that your effort and care has been replaced by something modish and trendy.

“What next?” he must surely think to himself. “Will she be replacing me?”

James McCann is a comedian and freelance writer. Continue the conversation @jdfmccann