Legend says that if a sapphire is worn by an evil person the stone will get angry and refuse to shine – if that doesn’t give you enough incentive to be a better person, these next few sapphire pieces will.

Because of its extraordinary hardness, its alleged resistance to fire and ability to “withstand hammer and anvil”, by the fifteenth century, the diamond had come to be acknowledged as a symbol of fidelity. No sixteenth-century royal marriage was complete without a diamond ring. In 1518, even 2-year-old Princess Mary (daughter of Henry VIII) had a tiny diamond ring placed on her finger when she was married, by proxy, to her bridegroom, the baby Dauphin of France.