240 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES, &c.
and
thus have afforded ample foundation to the marvellous legends built
upon this isolated fact by their fertile imaginations. If the Diamond
possessed this virtue, a fortiori, reasoned they, it must also
characterize the Ruby —a stone held by them then, as now, in so much
higher estimation.* Gesner, her contemporary, relates that our
Catherine of Arragon used to wear a ring set with a stone luminous at
night, which he conjectures was a Ruby. Fraught with historic
associations to the minds of Englishmen beyond all other gems is the
huge Spinel set in front of the great Crown of England, having been a
present to the Black Prince from Pedro the Cruel, upon the victory of
Najera in 1367, and afterwards worn upon his helmet by Henry V. at the
battle of Agincourt. It is an irregular oval, pierced through the
middle, after the usual Indian fashion ; and having this perforation
filled up with a small stone of the same kind to conceal it.
Tollius
quotes Wolfgang Gabelchover for a property of the Ruby more wondrous
still. " It is worthy of notice that the true Oriental Ruby presages to
the wearer by the frequent change and darkening of its colour that some
inevitable loss or misfortune is not far off : and in proportion to the
greatness of the coming evil so doth it assume a greater or a less
degree of darkness and opacity—a thing which I had heard repeatedly
from people of the highest eminence, and have, alas ! experienced in my
own person. For, on December 5, 1600, as I was travelling from Stutgard
to Calwam in company with my beloved wife Catharine Adelmann, of pious
memory, I observed most distinctly during the journey that a very fine
Ruby, her gift, which I wore set in a ring upon my finger had lost,
once or twice.
