A 16th-century gold ring found by a metal detectorist may be linked to the Gunpowder Plot conspirators.
By the end of the 18th century, posy rings were popular, often given to loved ones at betrothals and weddings. While most posy rings were gifts between lovers or spouses, they were also meaningful tokens of friendship and non-romantic loyalty.
Their name is a reference to “poesy”, not a small bunch of flowers, because of the inscriptions written on the inner surface that were declarations of love and loyalty. The inner part of the ring is the part that makes contact with the skin, so the message was hidden to hide the eyes and conveyed a certain intimacy.
A recently discovered puccini-colored ring is decorated on the outer face with a geometric relief so deep that it is actually filled with enamel. Inscribed on the inner surface is “Your. Friend. In. D.” No inscription with this wording has been found before, and there are thousands of documented documents. The separation between “them” and “deed” suggests that the giver wants the receiver to know that he will prove himself faithful in action, not just words.
It was found in May 2022 next to the moat of Bushwood Hall in Lapworth, the birthplace of Gunpowder Plot leader Robert Catesby. The current half-timber manor house was built 15 years after he was killed for his role in the plot to blow up Parliament, but the surrounding moat also surrounded an earlier house that had belonged to the Catesby family since the 15th century.
Robert Catesby was born there in 1572, and after the death of his Protestant wife in 1598, he returned to his family’s secret Catholic faith. Elizabeth I outlawed Catholicism in 1570 when it was excommunicated, so Catholics were forced to attend Anglican churches or face fines, imprisonment and persecution. Many Catholics went underground, practicing their faith secretly in hidden rooms. Those who refused to publicly renounce their faith were again known as Catholics.
When James VI of Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scots, who had been executed by Elizabeth herself, ascended the throne in 1603, English Catholics had reason to hope that the new monarch would loosen the chains. He didn’t do that. He abused powerful Catholic families and was as ruthless in suppressing religion as Elizabeth had been.
In early 1604, Catesby planned to blow up the King and the House of Lords with gunpowder during the State Opening of Parliament on November 5, 1605, and install James’s nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth, as his puppet queen. He recruited other Catholics, including Guy Fawkes, a veteran of the Eighty Years’ War and the Franco-Spanish War, to join the plot. An anonymous letter alerted the authorities to the danger, and the night before the blast went off, Guy Fawkes was found in a cellar under the Parliament building guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder. He was arrested and the other plotters fled. Catesby was tracked down by a posse of sheriffs and shot at Holbeche House on November 8. He was 33 years old.
At the time of the plot, Catesby was living at another of the family properties at Ashby St Legers on the Warwickshire/Northamptonshire border near Rugby. But Bushwood Hall was a base for other plots, with Catesby using it to store weapons and supplies. It was also the home of John Wright, a leading conspirator, who was at school with Guy Fawkes at York.
It was also only accessed by a one-way road, so there was no traffic, and no valuables were lost along the way to anyone who lived there or dealt with them.
In conclusion, there is no credible direct link between this ring and any of the gunpowder conspirators, but the find site, inscription and dating make it a counterintuitively respectable hypothesis.
The Posey ring is going up for auction on November 27 with an estimate of $8,000-$12,000 ($10,550-$15,830).
