A ring with a single diamond, set in a heart betwixt two hands;

A great ring in the form of a perssed hand and a perssed eye, all sett with diamonds;

One great ring, in forme of a frog, all set with diamonds, price two-hundreth poundis;

A ring of a burning heart set with diamondis;

A ring in the forme af a scallope shell, set with a table diamond, and opening on the head;

A ring of a love trophe set with diamondis;

Two rings, lyke black flowers, with a table diamond in each;

A daissie ring sett with a table diamond;

A ryng sett all over with diamondis, made in fashion of a lizard, 120 l.;

A ring set with 9 diamonds, and opening on the head with the King’s picture in that.

[Footnote 19:  William Hone, “Every-Day Book”, London, 1838, vol. ii, cols. 749, 750.]

Heriot also lists a ring delivered about 1607 to Margaret Hartsyde, one of the royal household, describing it as “sett all about with diamondis, and a table diamond on the head”; that is, in the bezel.  He states that he had been given to understand that this was by direction of Her Majesty.  His precaution in making this note appears to have been fully justified, for this Margaret Hartsyde was tried in Edinburgh, May 31, 1608, on the charge of having purloined a pearl belonging to the queen and valued at L110.  Her excuse was that she had taken this and other pearls to adorn dolls for the amusement of the royal children, and that she did not expect the queen would ask for them.  As, however, it was brought out in the trial that she had cleverly disguised some of the pearls she had taken, and had offered to sell them to the queen, she was condemned to imprisonment in Blackness Castle until the payment of a fine of L400, and to confinement in Orkney during the remainder of her life.  Eleven years later, however, the king’s advocate “produced a letter of rehabilitation and restitution of Margaret Hartsyde to her fame".[20]

[Footnote 20:  “Every-Day Book”, loc. cit.]

In Shakespeare’s day the “goldsmiths” were also jewellers and gem dealers, and often money-lenders as well.  The settings of the finest precious stones were at that time generally of gold, rarely of silver.  Platinum, the metal that now enjoys the greatest furore for diamond settings, was then unknown in Europe; it was first brought to Europe in 1735, from South America, having been found in the alluvial deposits of the river Pinto, in the district of Choco, now forming part of the United States of Colombia.  The Spaniards had named it platina, from its resemblance to plata, silver.  The chief source in our time is Russia, the richest deposits being those discovered in 1825, on the Iss, a tributary of the Tura, in the Urals.  Other valuable deposits are in the district of Nizhni-Tagilsk.  Platinum also occurs in Brazil, California, and British Columbia, associated with gold, as well as in Borneo,