Secret support for Mary Stuart

Rings can be more than simply adornment, expression of personal sentiment or symbols of status, they can also conceal or openly show allegiance to a political cause. In some cases, such affiliations could have dangerous consequences, even death.

Beatriz Chadour-Sampson

Based in England Beatriz Chadour-Sampson is an international jewellery historian. Her publications range from Antiquity to the present day, such as 2000 Finger Rings from the Alice and Louis Koch Collection, Switzerland (1994) of which she continues to be a consultant for the Swiss National Museum.

One such example is an unpublished gold ring dating from the time of Mary I of Scotland, also known as Mary Stuart or Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587), who reigned in Scotland from 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567 and whose life was marred by tragedy and betrayal. At first glance it appears to be a signet ring decorated with acanthus leaves and bearing a family crest, but with closer inspection the shield engraved on the heart-shaped bezel is the royal arms of Scotland, and when taken off the finger, an inscription reveals the owner’s loyalty to the Scottish Queen. Hidden inside the hoop is engraved: "MARIA RÑA NOSTRA" (Mary, our Queen).

**Finger ring with heart, coat of arms and inscription, c. 1560-1580.** Swiss National Museum / Alice and Louis Koch Collection

**Royal coat of arms of Scotland until 1603.** Wikimedia

This ring survives from a period of Scottish and English history that shaped the religious and political struggles between the two countries for centuries to come. Northern Europe was convulsed by religious wars in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation of 1517. In England, King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church to establish a new church bringing him into conflict not only with Catholic sympathisers within England but also the Catholic monarchy in Scotland, at that time an independent kingdom with a long history of warfare against England. Declared Queen aged just six days, when her father James V of Scotland died shortly after her birth in 1542, Mary was sent for safety from invading English forces to Catholic France at the age of six by her French mother and Regent of Scotland Marie de Guise (1515-1560). She was betrothed to François, the Dauphin of France, whom she married in 1558, becoming Queen Consort of France in 1559 at his accession to the crown. However, his untimely death in 1560 led to her return to a turbulent Scotland in 1561.

Mary Stuart and her husband, Francis II King of France. Miniature from Catherine de' Medici's Book of Hours, c. 1573. — **Mary Stuart and her husband, Francis II King of France. Miniature from Catherine de' Medici's *Book of Hours*, c. 1573.** Bibliothèque Nationale de France / Wikimedia

During her absence, Scotland had undergone its own Protestant Reformation and Mary faced resistance to her rule. Effectively ruling as a Catholic monarch over a Protestant country, tensions were high. Two marriages in quick succession sealed her fate. Firstly in 1565 she married her English half cousin Henry Stuart Darnley which produced a son, James, before Darnley betrayed her by allying with Protestant Scottish nobles and was subsequently murdered in 1567. Secondly and divisively, within months of Darnley’s death, she married James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, a Catholic noble who had been accused but acquitted of Darnley’s murder. That same year and facing a rebellious coup in Scotland, Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle, managed to escape but was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son, now James VI of Scotland, whom she never saw again. With an attempt to regain the Scottish throne proving unsuccessful, she fled south to England and the hoped-for protection of her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, but instead was imprisoned for 19 years and finally sentenced to death and executed for high treason in 1587. Elizabeth’s advisors feared that Mary would try to realise her claim to the English throne and re-establish the Church of Rome as a devout Catholic. Ironically, when Elizabeth died childless in 1603, Mary’s son James - brought up in the Protestant faith - was the next in line of succession and would reign as James I and VI, King of England, Ireland and Scotland, until his death in 1625.

**Mary Stuart, c. 1558, in a portrait after François Clouet.** Royal Collection / Wikimedia

The wearer of this ring was likely to have pledged allegiance to Mary between 1561 and 1567, while she was still Queen of Scotland, although the hidden inscription may indicate that it was made between her flight to England and her death in 1587, when it was dangerous to openly show loyalty to her cause. Religious and political rebellions had thwarted both her rule in Scotland and endangered her safety as a prisoner of the English crown.

Jewellery, including pieces believed to have once belonged to Mary herself or given to a member of the Royal household, such as the Penicuik jewels in the National Museums Scotland, are rare survivals, especially with her effigy and that of her son. National Museum of Scotland

Another ring, made less than two centuries later, relates to this age-old conflict but unlike with the earlier piece, the owner’s allegiance to the Catholic Stuart cause is openly displayed. The ring pre-dates 1745 and bears a Latin inscription ‘QUAERIT PATRIA CAESAREM’ (‘The country seeks its Caesar’), appealing for the restoration of the House of Stuart to the crown of England, Ireland and Scotland, specifically for James Francis Edward Stuart, Catholic son of the exiled King James II, to be recognised as the rightful heir King James III and VIII. The blue enamel of the hoop resembles the band of the Order of the Garter, but in place of the garter motif is a white rose, the symbol of the Jacobites, the name given to James II’s and James Stuart’s followers. James II had reigned from 1685 after his brother King Charles II’s death but as a devout Catholic convert had proved hugely unpopular with his Protestant subjects. The birth of James II’s son, James Stuart, in 1688 led to anti-Catholic riots and fear in Parliament that this would result in a Roman Catholic dynasty. During the Glorious Revolution of the same year, James II was deposed and exiled to France where he remained until his death in 1701. The crown meanwhile passed to a succession of Protestant heirs beyond the House of Stuart. During the Jacobite rising in 1715, James Stuart, later known as the ‘Old Pretender’, unsuccessfully attempted to take the throne from Hanoverian King George I, and his elder son, the ‘Young Pretender’ Charles Edward Stuart, made a further attempt in August 1745.

**Finger ring with rose and inscription, 1745.** Swiss National Museum / Alice and Louis Koch Collection

Anglo-Scottish conflict, the fateful life of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Jacobite cause elicited strong emotions and fierce loyalties. Surviving commemorative mementoes and political jewellery bring these turbulent centuries to life, a period which continues to be the focus of many romanticised novels, plays and films.

**The "Old Pretender" James Francis Edward Stuart, c. 1720.** Wikimedia

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