17th Century Bourchier Family Armorial Signet Ring. Gold, 7....

Estimate

£4,000 - £6,000

17th Century Bourchier Family Armorial Signet Ring. Gold, 7.85g. 21mm, 17mm internal. Ring size UK N + 1/2, US 7. Formed of a plain band with wide shoulders that support an oval bezel. The face of the bezel is engraved with an armorial seal displaying the arms of Bourchier. Argent, a cross engrailed gules between four water bougets sable.
The band has been restored and has been re-sized at least once. From a private UK collection, purcahsed before 1987.

The date of the ring suggests this was the property of either Edward Bourchier 4th earl of Bath, (baptised 1 March 1590– died 31 March 1636) or his cousin, Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath (1587 – 16 August 1654) of Tawstock in Devon. He was an English peer who held the office of Lord Privy Seal and was a large landowner in Ireland in Limerick and Armagh counties, and in England in Devon, Somerset and elsewhere. Following his inheritance of the Earldom of Bath from his distant cousin, in 1637 he moved from his native Ireland to Tawstock Court in Devon, a county previously unknown to him where he knew few people. As the most senior resident nobleman in the county he was destined to play the leading role for the Royalist cause in Devon during the Civil War but before the outbreak of hostilities, he was captured in 1642 and imprisoned by the Parliamentarians before he had organised his local forces. In the opinion of Clarendon (d. 1674) he was a man of "sour-tempered unsocial behaviour" who "had no excellent or graceful pronunciation" and "neither had or ever meant to do the king the least service"