The reader will find a list of mottoes, and much information on the subject of serjeants’ rings, in ‘Notes and Queries’ (1st Series, vol. v. pp. 110, 139, 181, 563; 2nd Series, vol. i. p. 249). The most recent instance (January 1872) of the presentation of a serjeant’s ring is that of Mr. J. R. Quain, who chose for his motto ‘Dare, facere, præstare.’
At the Loan Exhibition of Ancient and Modern Jewellery at the South Kensington Museum, in 1872, a serjeant’s gold ring, inscribed ✠ LEX X REGIS X PRÆSIDIUM, was shown—the property of Mr. John Evans—as the earliest known, the date being 1576-77. The small size of the ring would assume that it was merely complimentary.
Some barristers that Lord Brougham did not think much of, wishing to be made serjeants, he suggested that the most appropriate motto that could be found for their rings would be the old legal word ‘scilicet.’
Serjeants’ ring.
This illustration represents a serjeant’s ring, supposed to be of the seventeenth century—a plain band of gold, engraved with ‘Imperio regit unus æquo’ (Horace, lib. iii., Ode iv.).
In the collection of Mr. J. W. Singer is a very fine serjeant’s ring, which that gentleman attributes as of very early manufacture. It is a rare type of rings of this description, which have not been much noticed. The inscription reads: ‘Legis executo regis pservatio.’
In France, Italy, and Germany, a forensic order of knighthood was frequently conferred on the successful practitioner at the bar. Bartoli, the oracle of the law in the fourteenth century, asserted that at the end of the tenth year of successful professional exertion, the avocât belonging to the denomination of l’Ordre des Avocâts became ipso facto a knight.
When the distinction was applied for, the King commissioned some ancient Knight of the Forensic Order to admit the postulant into it. The avocât knelt before the Knight-commissary and said: ‘I pray you, my lord and protector, to dress me with the sword, belt, golden spurs, golden collar, golden ring, and all the other ornaments of a true knight. I will not use the advantages of knighthood for profane purposes; I will use them only for the purposes of religion, for the Church, and the holy Christian faith, in the warfare of the science to which I am devoted.’ The postulant then rose; and being fully equipped, and girded with the sword, he became, for all purposes, a member of the order of knighthood.
In the Memoirs of the Maréchal de Vieilleville, who died in 1571, such knights are mentioned as very common.