£1,500 - £2,000
Earl of Pembroke Silver Hawking Vervel. Circa 16th-17th century CE. Lewis and Richardson's type C.ii. 10mm, 1.04g. A plain ring with a shield shaped bezel that bears an image of a two-legged horned and winged creature, probably a wyvern, standing left on a torse. The depiction on the shield appears to match that of the heraldic crest of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (b.1580 - d.1630), whose seat was at Wilton House, Salisbury. Fairbairn (1905; 438) describes this as 'a wyvern with wings elevated vert, holding in the mouth a sinister hand couped at the wrist gu.' Clearer representations of this can be viewed in the armorial bindings in the collection of the University of Toronto Libraries (British Armorial Bindings, 2017). Herbert was a favourite of King James I, a patron of Shakespeare and chancellor of Oxford University.
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