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Memorial and Mortuary Rings: Bossuet

Miss Agnes Strickland, in her 'Lives of the Four Princesses of the Royal House of Stuart,' mentions a circumstance in the life of the Princess Henrietta Anne (1670), that, 'as Bossuet was kneeling by her bedside, she suddenly turned to one of her ladies and spoke to her in English, which the Bishop did not understand, to tell her that when she should have entered into her rest, she was to give Bossuet the emerald ring which had been ordered to be made for him as a memorial of her.' Izaak Walton added a codicil to his will (1683) for the distribution of memorial rings to several of his relations and friends, with the motto, 'A friend's farewell. I. W., obiit;' the value of the rings to be thirteen shillings and fourpence each. In the will itself he gives to his son-in-law, Dr. Hawkins, 'whom I love as my own son; to his daughter, his wife, and his son Izaak, a ring to each of them, with the motto, 'Love my memory. I. W., obiit.' To the Lord Bishop of Winchester a ring, with the motto, 'A mite for a million. I. W., obiit.' In a codicil of the last testament of Nell Gwyn (1687) she requests that Lady Fairborne may have fifty pounds given to her to buy a ring.

Dr. John Spencer, Master of Corpus Christi College, in his will (1693) left twenty shillings to each of the Fellows of his college for a funeral ring.

Queen Elizabeth, eldest daughter to James the First, wore to the day of her death a mourning ring, in which was a lock of her brother's hair, brought over to Bohemia by a faithful servant, with the device of a crown over a skull and cross-bones, and the letters 'C. R.' After her death, in 1662, it was much prized by her descendants, and was long a heirloom among them.