The cross on the summit of the Imperial State Crown of England, as described by Prof. Tennant, is surmounted by a rose-cut sapphire. There is a tradition that this sapphire was once set in the ring of Edward the Confessor, a ring which, according to popular belief, was endowed with wonderful curative virtues, and gave its successive owners the power to consecrate the so-called cramp rings.[304] This attribution of the sapphire is in disagreement with the early notice of the ruby ring given to Westminster Abbey by Richard II as that of the saintly Edward, and also to the usage long observed of setting a ruby in the Coronation Ring. King, in his account of Edward’s ring, calls attention to an entry in the inventory of Henry III’s jewels describing a sapphire weighing 52 dwts (about 337 metric carats), and suggests that this may be the large sapphire of the English crown.[305] When Pope Hadrian IV (1154–1159) acknowledged the sovereignty of Henry II of England over Ireland, he sent to the monarch by John of Salisbury, the messenger who bore the Brief of Investiture, a valuable ring set with an exceptionally fine emerald. This historical fact probably suggested the name Emerald Isle as a designation for Ireland. The ring and the Brief were carefully guarded in the royal archives at the time John of Salisbury wrote his recital.[306] During the crusade which brought into martial rivalry two of the most romantic figures of history, Richard Cœur de Lion and Saladin, an English knight, Sir William D’Annay, killed a Saracen prince, in 1192, and not long afterwards vanquished a lion near the ancient Syrian city of Acre, later known as St. Jean d’Acre, as it was placed under the care of the knights of the Order of St. John. As a special and appropriate offering to King Richard, Sir William brought him a paw of the slain lion, and received from the king as a recognition of the bravery he had displayed a ring from the royal finger. The knight was also directed to bear on his crest a “demi Saracen” holding in one hand a lion’s paw and in the other a ring, so that the memory of the gallant deeds and of the royal recompense should never be forgotten. In 1856 this ring was in the possession of Dawnay, Viscount Downe, a lineal descendant of the crusader, who still bore the crest assigned by Richard Cœur de Lion.[307] The ring is of silver and is set with a so-called toadstone, the palatal tooth of a ray, famous in mediæval times as a talisman against poison.[308]