Rings have been employed frequently in facilitating diplomatic missions, and in negotiations of a very delicate and critical nature. Plutarch relates an anecdote of Luculus to prove his disinterestedness. Being sent on an embassy to King Ptolemy Physcon, he not merely refused all the splendid presents offered to him, amounting in value to eighty talents (15,444_l._), but even received of his table allowance no more than was absolutely necessary for his maintenance, and when the King attended him down to his ship, as he was about to return to Rome, and pressed upon his acceptance an emerald ‘of the precious kind,’ set in gold (for a ring), he declined this also, until Ptolemy made him observe it was engraved with his own portrait, whereupon, fearing his refusal should be considered a mark of personal ill-will, he at last accepted the ring as a keepsake. At a dark epoch in the fortunes of the unhappy Mary, Queen of Scots, when, in 1567, scarcely a shadow of regal power was left to her, an attempt was made to induce her to resign the crown. Sir Robert Melville was employed on this mission, giving her, as an authority for his errand, a turquoise ring confided to him for that purpose by the confederate lords. A ring in the possession of Miss H. P. Lonsdale is stated to have been given by Queen Anne, from her finger, to a Mr. Nugent for some diplomatic services. It is of gold, set with a heart-shaped ruby crowned with three small diamonds. At the back is a royal crown, and the letters ‘A. R.’ Clement VII., to propitiate King Henry VIII., sent him a consecrated rose; while, to gain the good services of Cardinal Wolsey, the Pope drew from his finger a ring of value, which he entrusted to the care of Secretary Pace at Rome, expressing regret that he could not himself present it in person. When the Duchess of Savoy was held a prisoner by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, she found means to send her secretary to solicit the aid of Louis XI. As she was prevented from writing, the only credentials she could give her emissary was the ring the King had given her on the occasion of her marriage. This passport would have sufficed, but that, unfortunately, the bearer, when he presented himself to the King, wore the cross of St. André. Louis ordered the man to be arrested, suspecting him to be a spy of the Duke of Burgundy, and that he had stolen his sister’s ring. The messenger would have been hung, but for the timely arrival of the Lord of Rivarola, who was sent by the Duchess, urging the King to assist her. Plutarch mentions that Clearchus, Cyrus the Younger’s general, in return for favours received from Ctesias, the physician of Tisaphernes, presented him with his ring as an introduction to his family in Sparta.