This ruby was pierced at the top with a small hole to enable it to be worn suspended from the neck, a frequent occurrence with oriental gems which are worn without setting. The hole is now filled up by a small ruby, but this fact proves it to have been among the jewels with which James I. adorned his state-crown. The Earl of Dorset made a careful inventory of the royal treasures, which is signed by the King himself. The description of the imperial crown, after reciting a bewildering number of diamonds, pearls, rubies and sapphires, winds up thus: "and uppon the topp a very greate ballace perced." This is manifestly the ruby in whose fate we are concerned. Charles I. seems to have used his father's crown at his own coronation in 1626, a ceremony which was marked by two incidents afterwards found to have been ominous. There being no purple velvet in London Charles was robed in white velvet, which is an unlucky color it seems, and the Queen, Henrietta Maria, a silly and obstinate girl, refused to be crowned with him, owing to their religious differences. Fortunately the great Ruby was not left in the jewel-house at the time of Charles' execution, for had it been there we should have heard no more of it. Every thing which was found there was either melted down or sold by order of the Commonwealth. Amongst other things thus treated was the gold filigree crown of Edward the Confessor, which was broken up and sold for its weight of bullion. Such vandalism is almost enough to make one a Jacobite. With the return of the Stuarts the Ruby came back and ascended once more to its proper place in the Crown of England. All the appliances of a coronation had to be made anew for Charles II., so that the ceremony was in consequence somewhat shorn of its impressiveness. Charles' crown was, according to an old writer, "especially praiseworthy" for an enormous emerald seven inches in circumference, a large pearl and a ruby set in the middle of one of the crosses. This ruby although not particularized is sure to be the one we have traced thus far. It is so very much larger than any other ruby belonging to the Crown of England that whenever we find a pre-eminently large one mentioned in English history we may safely take it to be the Black Prince's Ruby. It could be mistaken for no other stone by any one who had ever seen it. A shining ball of blood-red fire slightly irregular in shape, "great like a racket-ball," is not so common an object that it could pass unnoticed by writers who take it upon them to describe crowns and other royal ornaments. During the reign of Charles II. the Crown of England had a narrow escape of being stolen. This singular adventure happened as follows: