With joynts so close as not to be perceiv’d;
Yet are they both each other’s counterpart.
(Her part had Juan inscrib’d, and his had Zayda,
You know these names were theirs:) and in the midst
A heart divided in two halves was plac’d.
Now if the rivets of those Rings inclos’d
Fit not each other, I have forg’d this lye:
But if they join, you must for ever part.
In Burgon’s life of Sir Thomas Gresham, the merchant prince of Queen Elizabeth’s time and founder of the Royal Exchange, we are shown his wedding ring. This is a gimmal ring composed of two hoops, one bearing the inscription “Quod Deus conjunxit” (What God hath joined together) and the other: “Homo non separet” (Let not man put asunder).[381] The two hoops are set with a red and a white stone, respectively.
A curious development of the gimmal-ring was the so-called “puzzle-ring” consisting of pieces of gold wire ingeniously bent and intertwined so that they appeared to form a single indivisible ring, although by a certain clever twist they could easily be separated into several independent hoops. This type was derived from the East.