At the English Bar, the usage long existed that certain chosen barristers should be given the title and superior rank of serjeants. In important cases, a serjeant was usually retained as principal manager and chief representative at the trial, and generally made the statement of the case in court, while one or more ordinary barristers got up the evidence and aided in the examination of witnesses; no serjeants have been appointed since 1868. As with almost all the stages of an English law-student’s and barrister’s progress, heavy expenses had to be born by the new serjeant, as he was expected not only to give a splendid dinner, or rather a series of dinners lasting for a week, to all who were closely or distantly related to his preferment, but to bestow a gold ring upon each one of the numerous guests, these “serjeant rings” varying in elegance and value according to the rank of the recipient. So strictly was this purely traditional custom construed that a close watch was kept to prevent any cheapening of the quality or intrinsic value of these obligatory rings. As it had been laid down by a leading authority that the ring to be given to a chief justice, or “chief baron,” must have the weight of twenty shillings’ worth of gold, a formal protest was made on one occasion, when rings weighing a tenth less than this had been bestowed, not, as Lord Chief Justice Kelynge told the newly appointed serjeants, because of the money value, but “that it might not be drawn into a precedent.”[86] The average cost of one of these bestowals of rings has been estimated at about £40 ($200). The first definite notice of the bestowal of serjeants’ rings comes from the later years of Elizabeth’s reign, although the usage is believed to date back at least as far as the time of Henry VI (1422–1461). The Latin motto on a ring of Sir John Fineux, called in 1485, is “_Suæ quisque fortunæ faber_,” or “Every man is the artizan of his own fortune.” The mottoes engraved on these rings have varied from reign to reign. One of Elizabeth’s time bears “_Lex regis præsidium_” (The Law is the stronghold of the King); under Charles II the motto was “_Adest Carolus magnus_” (Charles the Great is with us). Much more dignified and telling is the motto in James II’s reign, “_Deus, lex, rex_” (God, the Law, the King), implying that God is the source of the law, and that the law is above kings. As to the heavy tax sometimes imposed upon a new barrister’s pecuniary resources, it is stated that on one occasion 1409 rings were given at an expense of £773 ($3865). The usage, though maintained to a considerable extent, became somewhat less oppressive toward the end of the eighteenth century, but even in 1856 rings were given, some of them bearing the motto “_Cedant arma togæ_” (Arms will give place to the Gown) in allusion to the approaching peace with Russia after the Crimean War.[87]