From which comment we must perceive that the estimate entertained of Henry VIII. has altered decidedly for the worse. This Bauderike, or collar of rubies, was a famous jewel and one which appeared at all the great pageants of the pleasure-loving king. It was entirely broken up by Charles I. and sold to raise funds for his army. We are disposed to conjecture that it included our Ruby either as pendant or other portion of the collar. It was worn at the Field of the Cloth of Gold where Henry and Francis I. outdid each other in splendor. Notwithstanding all this display of gold and jewels, they were but half civilized at the court of Henry, as the following quaint incident proves. At a certain splendid pageant the King and some of his nobles attired themselves in fanciful costumes upon which their chosen names such as "True-Love," "Good Cheer" and the like were written in large letters of bullion. After the mask the King intimated that the court-ladies might take for keep-sakes those gold letters, and they, delighted, proceeded instantly to snatch them from the dress of the King and his courtiers. The crowd which was witnessing this show from afar rushed in to share the spoil, and in a twinkling had stripped the King to his jerkin and hose; they then attacked the Queen and her ladies and "worse would have befallen" if the royal guards had not opportunely arrived and driven off these grabbing subjects.
Henry's daughter, Elizabeth, was even more extravagantly fond of jewels than he was himself. The numerous well-known pictures of the queen are more especially portraitures of Her Highness's dresses and jewels than anything else. Elizabeth did not set the Ruby away in her state-crown but kept it by her, no doubt for the frequent bedecking of her royal person.
She showed it upon one occasion to the Scotch envoy, Sir James Melville, under circumstances of peculiar interest. It was in 1564 when Elizabeth and Mary Stuart were both young women, the one comely, the other beautiful, and both were eagerly sought by every unmarried prince in Europe. Elizabeth had rejected all her offers. Mary had done the same. The English queen was lavishing honors upon her handsome Master of the Horse, Robert Dudley, and was generally understood to be preparing him for a seat on the throne beside herself. At this juncture she astonished the world by announcing that she had found a husband for Mary Stuart. This husband was Robert Dudley. The Scottish queen was considerably amazed at this proposal, and not a little annoyed at being offered for her consort a subject of such mean descent as the handsome Robert. However she did not say nay, and Melville was sent to London to negotiate the marriage. He stayed nine days at the court of Elizabeth and has given most vivid pictures of that great Queen. He found her intensely jealous of Mary's superior personal attractions and pressed the envoy hard to say which had the most beautiful hair. She also resorted to a childish trick to show him how well she could play on the virginals. She likewise danced for him, detaining him two whole days for the purpose, and his comment upon this performance is historic: "I said, 'My queen danced not so high or disposedly as she did.'" All this and much more the canny Scotsman tells us about what he saw and said and did during his nine days visit.
One evening the Queen took him into her bed-chamber to show him some of her most precious belongings. She first opened a lettroun (cabinet) where he beheld a number of little pictures wrapped up in paper, with its name on each one written by her own royal hand. The first one was thus labelled: "My Lord's Picture." It was Leicester's portrait, and Melville holding the candle begged to see it, but Elizabeth made difficulties about it; then the envoy pressed her to let him carry it back with him to show to his own queen, thinking apparently that the sight of the handsome face would move her to the marriage more than all political considerations. Elizabeth declared that she could not give it up as she had but that one, upon which Melville retorted that she had the original. "She shewed me a fair ruby, great like a racket-ball. I desired she would either send it to my queen or the Earl of Leicester's picture. She replied 'If Queen Mary would follow her counsels she would get them both in time and all she had, but she would send a diamond as a token by me.'" It was the Black Prince's Ruby for which the envoy begged, but the poor Queen of Scots was fated never to get either the jewel or the earl.
This ruby was pierced at the top with a small hole to enable it to be worn suspended from the neck, a frequent occurrence with oriental gems which are worn without setting. The hole is now filled up by a small ruby, but this fact proves it to have been among the jewels with which James I. adorned his state-crown. The Earl of Dorset made a careful inventory of the royal treasures, which is signed by the King himself. The description of the imperial crown, after reciting a bewildering number of diamonds, pearls, rubies and sapphires, winds up thus: "and uppon the topp a very greate ballace perced." This is manifestly the ruby in whose fate we are concerned.
Charles I. seems to have used his father's crown at his own coronation in 1626, a ceremony which was marked by two incidents afterwards found to have been ominous. There being no purple velvet in London Charles was robed in white velvet, which is an unlucky color it seems, and the Queen, Henrietta Maria, a silly and obstinate girl, refused to be crowned with him, owing to their religious differences. Fortunately the great Ruby was not left in the jewel-house at the time of Charles' execution, for had it been there we should have heard no more of it. Every thing which was found there was either melted down or sold by order of the Commonwealth. Amongst other things thus treated was the gold filigree crown of Edward the Confessor, which was broken up and sold for its weight of bullion. Such vandalism is almost enough to make one a Jacobite.
With the return of the Stuarts the Ruby came back and ascended once more to its proper place in the Crown of England. All the appliances of a coronation had to be made anew for Charles II., so that the ceremony was in consequence somewhat shorn of its impressiveness. Charles' crown was, according to an old writer, "especially praiseworthy" for an enormous emerald seven inches in circumference, a large pearl and a ruby set in the middle of one of the crosses. This ruby although not particularized is sure to be the one we have traced thus far. It is so very much larger than any other ruby belonging to the Crown of England that whenever we find a pre-eminently large one mentioned in English history we may safely take it to be the Black Prince's Ruby. It could be mistaken for no other stone by any one who had ever seen it. A shining ball of blood-red fire slightly irregular in shape, "great like a racket-ball," is not so common an object that it could pass unnoticed by writers who take it upon them to describe crowns and other royal ornaments.
During the reign of Charles II. the Crown of England had a narrow escape of being stolen. This singular adventure happened as follows:
The Regalia then as now was kept in the Tower and was shown to visitors as still is the case. The person in charge was an old man named Edwards who was in the habit of locking himself in with his visitors when showing the treasure. One day a gentleman, apparently a parson, and a lady, apparently his wife, called and saw the crown which they particularly admired, of course. The parson was Colonel Blood, a notorious Irish desperado. The lady became suddenly faint and was accommodated with a chair and other restoratives in the keeper's sitting-room where quite a friendship was struck up. The soi-disant parson cultivated the friendship assiduously, and finally proposed to cement it by a marriage between his nephew, apparently a soldier, and the daughter of the keeper. Blood came with the nephew who it is needless to say was merely an accomplice, and another friend. They asked to see the regalia and the unsuspecting old man led them into the strong room and locked himself in as usual. The moment he had done so he was set upon by the three ruffians, beaten, thrown down, gagged, stabbed in the body and left for dead. Then they managed to force open the case containing the Crown Jewels. Blood hid the crown under his cloak, the other two took the scepter and the globe, and then they opened the door intending to steal away. Just as they did so, young Edwards, a soldier, who by a singular chance arrived at that moment from Flanders, entered. In a moment after the Tower rang with the cry of "Treason! treason! the crown is stolen!"
The young man gave chase, aided by the guard at the gate, and eventually they succeeded in capturing Blood after a "robustious struggle" during which some pearls and diamonds were knocked out of the crown.