SOME INTERESTING RINGS OF HISTORY 169
tion
should be. There is a rather vague rumor that the glass was broken out
by order of Louis XIV, the fact being that it is no longer in existence
and evidently disappeared at least a couple of centuries ago.15
A
ring set with a pyramidal diamond, one of the type used by Francis I on
this occasion, is shown in the Londesborough Collection. This ring,
which dates from the sixteenth century and is of Italian workmanship,
is known as a " tower ring," possibly because those confined in the
Tower of London were able to use such rings for writing names or verses
upon the window-panes of their prison.18
Still
another story of diamond-point writing, probably even less well
attested than the anecdote of Francis I, is that referring to Queen
Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh.17 On the occasion of an
interview with the wily queen, Sir Walter, rather distrustful of the
royal encouragement accorded him, is said to have gone to a window in
the royal audience chamber and written on the window-pane with his
diamond ring:
Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.
For answer the queen scratched beneath this the following admonition, at once an encouragement and a warning:
If thy heart fail thee, do not climb at all.
An eighteenth century instance of diamond-point writing on a pane of glass was reported in an old news-
15 Theodore Andrea Cook, " Old Touraine," New York, 1895, p. 195.
16 Catalogue of a collection of ancient and mediaeval rings and personal ornaments, London, 1853, p. 15. Privately printed.
17 Cyril Davenport, " Jewellery," Chicago, 1908, p. 127.
