f one of these
latter cases will illustrate the significancy of this mode of
investiture. "Then were the king's scribes called, on the thirteenth day
of the first month; and there was written according to all that Haman
commanded unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors that were
over every province--to every people after their language; in the name
of king Ahasuerus was it written, and _sealed_ with the king's ring."

Of the golden ring with which our kings are invested, as "the ensign of
royal dignity, and of defence of the catholic faith," there is yet
another miracle of the coronation to relate. A certain "fayre old man"
having asked alms of St. Edward the Confessor, he had nothing at hand to
bestow upon him but his ring. Shortly after, two English pilgrims lost
their way in the Holy Land, when "there came to them a fayr ancient man,
wyth whyte heer for age. Thenne the olde man axed theym what they were,
and of what regyon. And they answerde that they were pylgryms of
England, and hadde lost theyr fellyshyp and way also. Thenne thys olde
man comforted theym goodly, and brought theym in to a fayre cytee; and
whanne they had well refreshed theym, and rested there alle nyhte, on
the morne, this fayre olde man went with theym, and brought theym in the
ryght waye agayne. And he was gladde to here theym talke of the welfare
and holynesse of theyr kynge Saynt Edward. And whan he shold depart fro
theym, thenne he tolde theym what he was, and sayd, 'I am JOHAN THE
EVANGELYST; and saye ye vnto Edward your kyng, that I grete him well by
the token that he gaff to me, thys _rynge_, with hys one handes[25].'"

By the exact mode that we have quoted from Scripture, do we find Offa,
king of the East Angles, appointing Edmund as his successor; and with
the ring, it is noticed, with which he had been invested at his own
promotion to the royal dignity[26].

On the detention of James II. by the fishermen of Sheerness, in his
first attempt at escape from this country, in 1688, it is particularly
noticed in his Memoirs, "The king kept the diamond bodkin which he had
of the queen's, and the _coronation ring_, which for more security he
put into his drawers." The captain, it appeared, was well acquainted
with the dispositions of his crew; (one of whom "cried out, 'It is
father Petre--I know him by his lantern jaws;' a second called him an
'old hatchet-faced Jesuit;' and a third, 'a cunning old rogue, he would
warrant him!') for,