The jewels and precious stones of this shrine were taken away and pawned by Henry III in 1267, the monarch having entered into a solemn engagement, under the Great Seal, to return them in a year’s time from the ensuing Michaelmas. Henry also sent to the then Abbot of Westminster a “Letter Obligatory” promising the restitution of the gems and submitting himself in the matter to the judgment of the Pope and the Papal Legate. The precious jewels were really restored to the Abbey shortly afterwards, as is shown by a document dated February 10, 1269 (53 Henry III). The ruby ring, being a later gift, could not have been among them.[302]
A contemporary entry referring to this shrine in Edward I’s time (1272–1307), is interesting as casting a sidelight on the English coinage at the end of the thirteenth century. Under date of 1299, provision is made for returning to the church of Westminster the half of 38 marks of gold (about $9,500 intrinsic value) that had been taken from the shrine of St. Edward for the jewels sent to Queen Margaret on her first coming to Westminster, “the coinage being so debased and real sterlings rarely found.”[303]
The cross on the summit of the Imperial State Crown of England, as described by Prof. Tennant, is surmounted by a rose-cut sapphire. There is a tradition that this sapphire was once set in the ring of Edward the Confessor, a ring which, according to popular belief, was endowed with wonderful curative virtues, and gave its successive owners the power to consecrate the so-called cramp rings.[304] This attribution of the sapphire is in disagreement with the early notice of the ruby ring given to Westminster Abbey by Richard II as that of the saintly Edward, and also to the usage long observed of setting a ruby in the Coronation Ring. King, in his account of Edward’s ring, calls attention to an entry in the inventory of Henry III’s jewels describing a sapphire weighing 52 dwts (about 337 metric carats), and suggests that this may be the large sapphire of the English crown.[305]
When Pope Hadrian IV (1154–1159) acknowledged the sovereignty of Henry II of England over Ireland, he sent to the monarch by John of Salisbury, the messenger who bore the Brief of Investiture, a valuable ring set with an exceptionally fine emerald. This historical fact probably suggested the name Emerald Isle as a designation for Ireland. The ring and the Brief were carefully guarded in the royal archives at the time John of Salisbury wrote his recital.[306]
During the crusade which brought into martial rivalry two of the most romantic figures of history, Richard Cœur de Lion and Saladin, an English knight, Sir William D’Annay, killed a Saracen prince, in 1192, and not long afterwards vanquished a lion near the ancient Syrian city of Acre, later known as St. Jean d’Acre, as it was placed under the care of the knights of the Order of St. John. As a special and appropriate offering to King Richard, Sir William brought him a paw of the slain lion, and received from the king as a recognition of the bravery he had displayed a ring from the royal finger. The knight was also directed to bear on his crest a “demi Saracen” holding in one hand a lion’s paw and in the other a ring, so that the memory of the gallant deeds and of the royal recompense should never be forgotten. In 1856 this ring was in the possession of Dawnay, Viscount Downe, a lineal descendant of the crusader, who still bore the crest assigned by Richard Cœur de Lion.[307] The ring is of silver and is set with a so-called toadstone, the palatal tooth of a ray, famous in mediæval times as a talisman against poison.[308]
Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) sent to Richard Cœur de Lion four gold rings, each set with a different stone. With the rings, the pope sent a letter from St. Peter’s in Rome, dated May 28, 1198, in which he wrote that the four stones were symbolical. The verdant hue of the emerald signified how we should believe, the celestial purity of the sapphire, how we should hope, the warm color of the garnet, how we should love, and the clear transparency of the topaz, how we should act. Moreover, the ring-form also possessed a symbolical meaning, roundness denoting eternity, which has neither beginning nor end. Hence the royal conscience had in the ring a monition to pass from terrestrial to celestial matters, from temporal to eternal things.[309]
In the ruins of the palace at Eltham in Kent was found a gold ring set with an Oriental ruby surrounded by five diamonds in their native crystalline state, placed at equal distances from one another. This ring weighed over half an ounce (exactly, 267¹⁄₁₀ grains) and bore the following inscription in Old French:
Qui me portera expliotera
Et a grant joye revendra.
(Whosoever weareth me will do doughty deeds,