A memorial ring was sent by Mary of Scotland, just before her execution at Fotheringay Castle, February 8, 1587, to her faithful follower and kinsman, Lord John Hamilton, with an affectionate message and her last farewell. This ring, set with a sapphire, was handed down from generation to generation in the Hamilton family, and was seen, in 1857, at Hamilton Palace, by Miss Agnes Strickland. She described the sapphire as being large, of rectangular form, and cut with a number of facets, a kind of rose-cutting; the setting was of blue enamelled gold in the style favored by sixteenth century goldsmiths.[323] It might be looked upon as a noteworthy coincidence, that as a sapphire was a memorial of Mary’s death, another sapphire was the token to her son, James I, of Elizabeth’s death and his accession to the throne of England.

On the night before her execution, Mary Stuart found an opportunity to ask her apothecary, a Monsieur Gorion, whether he could safely convey a letter and two diamonds to those for whom they were intended, and whether he would promise to perform this service faithfully. He assented, saying that he could make some drug in which the objects might be safely concealed, so that he could carry them away with him. One of these diamonds was to be given to Mendoza, for a long time Spanish ambassador to the court of Elizabeth; the other, and larger one, was destined for Philip II of Spain. This was to be received as “a sign that she was dying for the truth, and was also meant to bespeak his care for her friends and servants.”[324]

Of rings which have been treated as sacred relics, none can be said to recall a more painful tragedy than one donated to the monastery-church of the Escurial. On April 15, 1587, the Spanish king Philip II had a nocturne and a requiem sung in the church in memory of the unfortunate Mary of Scotland. When the echoes of the solemn chants had died away, the king gave to the abbot a ring set with a diamond which had belonged to the unhappy victim, with the injunction that it should be placed among the sacred relics and preserved as “a symbol of the purity and the firm faith of this saintly queen.”[325] This ring, or at least the large diamond of its setting, must have been the farewell gift which we have just noted.

Although not a betrothal ring, that given by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Essex was most certainly a love token. When this nobleman was high in the queen’s favor she bestowed upon him a gold ring set with a sardonyx cut with her portrait; giving him, at the same time, a solemn promise that whatever charges might be brought against him she would accord him her pardon if he sent her this ring. Some years later, Essex—who in the meanwhile had lost the queen’s favor—was impeached for high treason and condemned to death. In this extremity, he endeavored to find some means of transmitting to the queen the ring she had given him. Fearing to trust his keepers with the execution of his wish, Essex found no better way than to throw the ring to a boy who was passing the prison, directing him to give it to Lady Scrope, Lady Nottingham’s sister. Unfortunately for Essex, the boy gave the ring, by mistake, to Lady Nottingham, whose husband was one of his bitterest enemies, so that the token never reached the queen, who was convinced that her former favorite was too proud and obstinate to seek her mercy. She thereupon left him to his fate. Years afterwards, when Lady Nottingham was on her death-bed, she asked for the queen and confessed that she had failed to deliver the ring sent to her by Essex. This confession aroused the queen’s wrath to such an extent that she burst forth in violent reproaches and rushed from the room exclaiming: “God may forgive you; I never shall!” The proud heart of the virgin queen was broken by this revelation, and, weighed down by remorse for the death of Essex, she expired a few weeks later.

Quite recently this historic Essex ring has found its way to the auction-room, and to judge from the price it brought, the purchaser must have been convinced of the truth of the legend concerning it, as its merely artistic qualities—which are in no wise remarkable—and the fact that it is incidentally a product of sixteenth century art would scarcely suffice to justify the amount paid for it. The sale took place at Christie’s in London, on May 18, 1911, and after spirited bidding the ring was adjudged for $17,060. A firm of dealers in antiquities were the nominal purchasers, but they are said to have acted for Lord Michelson of Hollingly, a baron in the lately overthrown Kingdom of Portugal, and the senior partner in the firm of Stern Bros., of London. This ring is stated to have been bequeathed by mother to daughter in a long line of Essex’s descendants, beginning with his daughter Lady Francis Devereux. Finally it came to Louisa, daughter of John, Earl of Greville, and wife of Thomas Thyme, second Viscount Weymouth and great-grandfather of the late owner.

Some authorities do not think that the story of the Essex ring has a satisfactory historical foundation.[326] It first appears in a book published about 1650 and entitled “History of the most renowned Queen Elizabeth and her great Favourite, the Earl of Essex. In Two Parts. A Romance.” In 1658 Francis Osborn repeats it in his “Traditional Memoires of Elizabeth.” It was even treated dramatically by John Banks (fl. 1696) in his play “The Unhappy Favourite.” Certain later writers claim to have learned of it through trustworthy informants, as for example, Louis Aubery, Sieur de Maurier, who published in Paris, in 1680, a history of Holland and therein states that Sir Dudley Carleton told the story to Prince Maurice of Saxony. In the English translation of this work the episode has been omitted. Still later, at the end of the seventeenth century, it is given by Lady Elizabeth Spelman on the authority, as she alleged, of Sir Robert Carey, brother of Lady Scrope. In earlier versions the ring was represented to have been sent directly by Essex to Lady Nottingham; in Lady Spelman’s recital, however, as we have already noted, Essex instructs the boy to whom he entrusts the ring to deliver it to Lady Scrope, sister of Lady Nottingham. It is suggested that this variation was made to offset the objection that Essex would never have chosen his enemy, Lady Nottingham, as an intermediary between himself and the queen. Manningham, in his “Diary,” the only contemporary who alludes to a ring in connection with Essex’s relations with Elizabeth, only states that “the queen wore till her death a ring given her by Essex.” Possibly this fact may have served as a nucleus for the romantic tale.

A portrait of Queen Elizabeth, elaborately be-pearled as usual, the work of the Flemish painter, Lucas De Heere, shows her with a ring on the little finger of her left hand. It is set with an oblong, table-cut stone. This interesting portrait, which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, while conforming generally to the type with which we are familiar, differs in some respects therefrom. The very slender neck, the delicacy of form and face, may, of course, represent mannerisms of the artist.

The sapphire set in the ring thrown out of the window of Queen Elizabeth’s death chamber by Lady Scrope to her brother Robert Carey, as a signal that the queen was dead, so that he might be the first to bear the news to her impatient successor, James I, was exhibited in the great Loan Exhibition of Ancient and Modern Jewellery shown at the South Kensington Museum in London, in 1872. As there shown, this historic sapphire was the central ornament of a diamond star, or cinque-foil. The original ring was given to John, Earl of Orrery, by the Duchess of Buckingham, natural daughter of James II, and the small brilliants surrounding it in its present setting are the same as those which were about it in the ring.[327]

By the terms of his will, dated December 18, 1630, Sir Edward Coke, of Godwick, bequeathed among other jewels two of historic significance. One of these was a ring “set with a great Turkey (turquoise), which King Henry the Eighth used to wear, and was painted with it on his forefinger.” The other jewel, also a ring, is curiously suggestive when we recall that an attempt (unsuccessful, of course) had been made to poison the unfortunate Sir Thomas Overbury with diamond dust, before poison of a more effective sort was administered to him. The ring in question is described here as set with “a Diamon cut with faucetts (facets)” and the statement is added that it had been given to Sir Edward by Anne of Denmark, Queen of James I, “for the discovery of the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury.”[328]

A gold ring, said to have been one of five such rings given by Charles I to Bishop Juxon, on the scaffold, just before the king’s execution, was shown in the Loan Collection exhibited in the South Kensington Museum, in London, in 1872. The statement is made that this ring was presented by Bishop Juxon to Sir John Halloway, and from him passed into the possession of the Dalby family. The ring bears a death’s head in white enamel on a black ground, and has the motto, “Behold the ende”; around the edge is the inscription, “Rather death then fals fayth”; at the back are the initials “M” and “L,” tied with a mourning ribbon.[329]

The “Verney Ring,” with a portrait of Charles I of England, is, if genuine, the only relic of a heroic tragedy. It is said to have been bestowed by Charles I upon Sir Edmund Verney, one of his most faithful followers in the perils of the Civil War. Sir Edmund was killed at the battle of Edgehill, in 1642, where the Cavaliers were utterly defeated, but even in death he still held the royal standard in his grasp. The ring was taken from his hand, and the body abandoned; it was never recovered. As he was helped into the world by a Cæsarean operation, it became a common saying in the neighborhood of Edgehill that Sir Edmund was neither born nor buried.[330]

With that striking indifference to moral right and wrong so characteristic of Charles II of England, he did not hesitate to bestow a choice ring from his own hand upon the notorious Jeffreys, when the latter was leaving London on one of his circuits always marked by the browbeating of witnesses and accused, and the imposition of capital sentences, wherever possible. It was at a somewhat later date, in 1685, just after the accession of James II, that Jeffreys conducted the trials of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth’s adherents, which came to be known as the “Bloody Assize.” This fact of the presentation was published in the Royal Gazette, thus notably strengthening Jeffreys’ prestige. So general, however, was the reprobation of his heartless and bloodthirsty administration of his judicial office that the ring was called “Jeffreys’ bloodstone.”[331]

In March, 1748, as some ploughmen were tilling a field seven miles from Mullingor, County Westmeath, Ireland, they discovered a grave, the bottom, sides and ends of which were formed each of a single slab of stone. Within the grave were the bones of a man of gigantic stature, and also an urn and a valuable ring, set with twenty-five diamonds. Bishop Pococke, treating of this ring, mentions the fact that Rosa Failge, eldest son of Cathoir More, known as Cathoir the Great, who reigned in 122 A.D., was called the “Hero of Rings,” but the writer adds that the ring could scarcely have belonged to him, since diamonds do not appear to have been known in Ireland at this early date.[332]

A most interesting Washington relic is a pearl and gold ring made in his lifetime and containing a lock of his hair placed beneath a conical glass. This is encircled by a setting of blue and white enamel, a square of red being set at each corner, and around this a circle of thirteen pearls, the number of the original States. This ring was given by Washington to Lieut. Robert Somers. The latter lost his life while fighting the Algerene pirates in Tripoli, but before his departure he confided the ring to the care of his sister, Sarah Keen. It is now owned by Vice-Chancellor E. B. Leaming of Camden, New Jersey, who inherited it from his paternal grandmother, an heir to Somers’ estate. Only two other rings containing Washington’s hair are known of, one in Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh on the Hudson, the other in the Boston Museum.[333]

In far-away Sweden there has been preserved a historic Washington relic. This is a ring given by the Revolutionary leader to Lafayette before the latter’s return to France after the victorious Yorktown campaign. The ring passed from Lafayette to his intimate friend, Baron Erik Magnus Staël von Holstein, Swedish ambassador to France. The latter, on a visit to his native land gave it to his brother, Major Bogislaus Staël von Holstein, in whose family it was transmitted as an heirloom until it reached the hands of the maternal grandfather of the present owner, Mr. Gösta Frölen of Falun, Sweden. The ring is of gold and is set with a miniature portrait of Washington.

It is said that two other rings were given by Washington about the same time to two Swedish noblemen, who had served as adjutants to Rochambeau. The presentation occurred at a banquet given in their honor, just before their departure for their native land, at the City Tavern in Philadelphia, November 11, 1782. In bestowing these gifts Washington is said to have used the following words: “I am happy to be here amongst men belonging to the race of my own early ancestors.” All trace of these rings has been lost.