I found this gold ring on an arable field near Northampton, England in January 2020. It came as quite a surprise as I didn't expect much from the field. I was using my Equinox 800 in field 1 setting. The signal was very clear. The ring was only about 3" deep. It glowed with a rich buttery yellow as it emerged from the dark brown soil. I knew that it was an interesting ring as soon as I recovered it because I could see inscribed letters on the inside of the hoop and a skull with crossed long bones on either side. Once home I carefully washed it to show the full inscription. it read; RR:mil:nup:cap:just:de:B:Rs Ob:17:feb:80:aet:76 At first this didn't mean anything to me but it lead to some fascinating detective work and eventually the meaning was deciphered as follows; RR are the initials of the person who is being remembered. Mil is short for mile which means knight, Nup is short for nuper which means lately. Cap Just De is an abbreviation for "Lord Chief Justice of" BRs means Banco Regis which means "The court of the King's bench". OB is an abbreviation of Obitus which means died. AET 76 means aged 76. so what it says is " RR knight, lately Lord chief justice of the court of the King's bench who died on the 17th February 1680 aged 76." The position of Lord Chief justice to the King's Bench was given to the highest judge in the land and the date given on the ring confirms that this ring commemorates someone who served King Charles 2nd. With the date of death it didn't take long to identify RR. He is Sir Richard Raynsford. He was a very busy and interesting man. I was able to find out quite a lot about him. I have a copy of his will and in it he says "and to my cousins Mrs Wagstaffe, Mrs Barry and Mrs Barnsley forty shillings a piece to buy them rings in remembrance of me" This is one of those rings. Forty shillings in 1680 was a lot of money! Other things that I was able to find out about Sir Richard was that he was active in the 17th century witch trials. I have information on one of these witch trials where he sentenced two witches to death. He was also what was called a "Fire Judge" which means that he sat in judgement on any claims brought forward due to the great fire of London. I was also able to find several portraits of him on the internet. The ring has been declared and is with the portable antiquity scheme.
Steve Pulley - Europe
