Another interesting incident in connection with Mary, Queen of Scots, is the ring with which she invested Darnley with the Dukedom of Albany. An engraving and description of this ring will be found in the chapter on ‘Remarkable Rings.’ The infant James, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, was, a few days after his baptism, invested with the ring and other insignia, as Prince of Scotland, Duke of Rothsay, Earl of Carrick and Cunningham, and Baron of Renfrew. The royal child sat in his mother’s lap while a gold ring was placed on his tiny finger. Among the insignia connected with the investiture of the Princes of Wales is a ring. The earliest charter of creation known by Selden is that of Edward III. to his son and heir-apparent, Edward, Duke of Cornwall, some years after he was made Duke. This charter contains the particulars of the ceremony of investiture with the coronal, the ring of gold, and the rod of silver. In the letters patent issued by George I. (Sept. 22, 1714), declaring his son George Augustus, Duke of Brunswick Lunenburgh, ‘Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester,’ the investiture is thus described: ‘Likewise, we invest him, the said Prince, with the aforesaid principality and county, which he may continue to govern and protect; and we confirm him in the same by these ensigns of honour--the girding of a sword, the delivering of a cap and placing it on his head, _with a ring on his finger_, and a golden staff in his hand, _according to custom_, to be possessed by him and his heirs, Kings of Great Britain.’[46] The practice now is that the Prince of Wales is invested with the Earldom of Chester by special patent, while he enjoys by a sort of hereditary prescription certain other titular distinctions. In the patent of creation of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (dated Dec. 8th, 1841), the Queen, in the patent, states: ‘We do ennoble (our most dear son) and invest with the said principality and earldom, by girting him with a sword, by putting a coronet on his head, and a gold ring on his finger, and also by delivering a gold rod into his hand,’ &c. According to French writers it was formerly a custom in that country to give a marquis, on his elevation to that dignity, a ring set with the ruby; a count received a diamond ring. The royal signet-ring in Anglo-Saxon times served as an authority in law-suits about land. In the Cottonian MSS. (Aug. 2, p. 15), one charter states that ‘Wynfleth, to prove a gift of land by Alfrith, led witnesses to the King, who sent a writ to Leofwin, and desired that men should be summoned to the shire-gemot to try the case, and as an authority sent his signet-ring to this gemot by an abbot and greeted all the witan.’