PREVIEW: JEWELLERY, WATCHES & OBJECTS OF VERTU: 17 JUNE

A gift from one of the most influential Tudor financiers and merchants, Sir Thomas Gresham, a previously unrecorded gold signet ring and one of the series of famous ‘Grasshopper rings, is to be offered at Noonans on 17 June.

The ring dates to circa 1560-1575 and bears the Warner family arms, carved into the oval crystal bezel intaglio, with tinted foil behind to give colour. Set into a heavy closed gold mount, the underside of the bezel is engraved with a grasshopper in green enamel, the grasshopper being the Gresham family crest.

A potential candidate for these arms was Sir Edward Warner (1511-1565) of Polstead Hall and Little Plumstead in the County of Norfolk, but as Sir Edward bore for his arms: ‘Per bend indented sable and argent’, this cannot be the case. It is therefore believed that this ring belonged to Mark Warner, of All Hallows, Lombard Street.

A family heirloom from the 19th century, the ring has passed by descent until circa 2010. Its discovery brings the known number of rings in the ‘Grasshopper’ series from nine to ten.

Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-1579) was one of the great figures of Tudor England, a merchant, financier and advisor to four Tudor monarchs.

He began as a merchant dealing principally in woollen cloth, and other luxury goods such as silks and velvets, but his true talents lay, like his father, in making deals in foreign exchange and arranging finance, in both Lombard Street, London and on the Antwerp Bourse.

Thomas served his apprenticeship in the textiles business under his uncle Sir John Gresham. In the 1530s the Gresham family firm was the largest shipper out of London and in 1544 Thomas was admitted as a liveryman of the Mercers’ Company. His trade took him regularly to Antwerp where he began to undertake financial arrangements on behalf of Henry VIII, including smuggling over £30,000 of gold and silver coins into Bologne to pay the king’s mercenaries there.

Gresham skilfully kept out of the religious fever sweeping back and forth across Europe in the 16th century, and this determined neutrality allowed him to maintain his role as financial agent to the crown, not only to Henry VIII, but Edward IV, Mary and finally Elizabeth I. He successfully negotiated foreign and domestic loans, advising on financial matters, and manipulating the exchange rates to allow him to restructure and reduce the crown’s debt. Under Elizabeth he was also appointed as ambassador to the Court of Margaret of Parma, Governor of Netherlands.

In 1565 Thomas Gresham agreed to finance and oversee the construction of the Royal Exchange on a site between Lombard Street and Cornhill, a grand and appropriate venue for him and his fellow merchants to conduct their business. In his will Gresham left in trust the Exchange, and its income, to be split between the Corporation of London and the Mercers’ Company. In exchange these were required to fund Gresham College, the first institution of higher education in London. The college was originally housed in Gresham’s mansion on Bishopsgate.

Gresham commissioned a number of seal rings, given to acquaintances and business associates during the period of 1560-1575. The ring offered in this auction is believed to have been a gift to Mark Warner (d.1583), a fellow merchant and member of the parish of All Hallows, Lombard Street, in the City of London.

The Warner family had owned property at Stroud Green in Middlesex but had also long been associated with Lombard Street. Mark’s grandfather John and father Richard both contributed to the building of the church of All Hallows. Mark Warner was a member of the Worshipful Company of Drapers, being apprenticed in 1543 and called to the Livery in 1552. By 1554 he had become a freeman, as in this year he took his first apprentice, William Bocher, followed by a second apprentice James Cranfyld, prior to 1558.

As well as being a cloth merchant by trade it appears, like Gresham, Warner was involved in finance, in particular marine insurance. He is included in a list of known insurers in London, 1559-1573 (National Archives’ ref: HCA 24/39).

At this time, marine insurance was provided by custom (not yet legislated) – collectively groups of merchants based around in Lombard Street would each loan against part of the cargo of a ship, the loan being dismissed if the vessel floundered, thus insuring the vessel and spreading the risk of overseas trade amongst the merchant community. The quantity and value of overseas deals negotiated by Gresham must surely have necessitated elaborate insurance deals.

Both men were cloth merchants and involved in finance, both residing and working in close proximity in Lombard Street, so Warner and Gresham’s paths would have undoubtedly crossed.

The other nine recorded examples of the Gresham ‘Grasshopper’ rings are:

– The Sir William Fleetwood ring, in the British Museum. Sir William Fleetwood (c.1525-1594) was recorder of London from 1571-1591.
– The Sir Richard Lee ring, in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Sir Richard Lee (c.1501-1575) was a prominent military engineer and architect.
– The Gabriel Goodman ring, in the National Museum of Wales. Gabriel Goodman (1528-1601) was Dean of Westminster from 1561.
– The Edmund Tremayne ring, in the collections of the former Martins Bank (now Barclay’s Bank) which had its principal London office at 68 Lombard Street, a building known as ‘The Grasshopper’ after its previous owner, Thomas Gresham.
– The Edmund Tremayne ring. Edmund Tremayne (c.1525-1582) was the clerk of the Privy Council under Elizabeth I.
– The Jacques Wingfield ring, sold at Christie’s, 19 December 1977. Jacques Wingfield (prior to 1469-1525) was constable of Dublin Castle and Master of Ordnance in Ireland, and under the protection of William Cecil.
– The Sir Robert Taylor ring, sold at Christie’s, 9 May 1978, exh. Princely Magnificence, V&A, 1980-81, cat. no. 30. Sir Robert Taylor worked at the exchequer.
– The Woodhouse ring. This ring was discovered on the Gresham Estate in Budsale, Suffolk and was presented to the Society of Antiquaries on 23 September 1742.
– The Charles Herbert ring. There is a handwritten note referencing an enquiry from a woman in Australia who had a “grasshopper ring bearing the arms of Herbert, said to have been given to Charles Herbert Esq. father of Sir Edw. Herbert, Attorney General to Charles I”, written on a copy of J. W. Hemp’s article, in the records of the British Museum.
– The William Naylor ring, in a private collection, published in the 2002 postscript to Bejewelled: Men and Jewellery in Tudor and Jacobean England, by Natasha Awais-Dean. William Naylor (d.1571) was one of the six clerks to the Chancery and was granted arms in 1564.

The slight variation in the design of the rings, particularly the form and orientation of the grasshopper, indicates that they were made, probably by several different goldsmiths, over a period of years. Two of the rings are dated to the bezel alongside the coat of arms (the Woodhouse ring to 1557 and the Taylor ring to 1575).

The exact reasons for Gresham to commission and gift these expensive personalised rings are not known. One could assume that, rather than purely given in thanks for past services or kindnesses, it would appear more likely that those chosen to receive such expensive rings were individuals whose future potential could be of benefit to Gresham. The hidden grasshopper crest to the interior of each ring would serve as a pertinent reminder as to exactly where the recipient’s future loyalties should lie.