After the advent of Christianity, it assumed a spiritual as well as political value, the episcopal ring, as it is called, being used as a pledge of spiritual marriage between the bishop and the church. {131} This custom is of ancient date, since there is mention in the proceedings of the fourth Council of Toledo, A.D. 633, that a bishop condemned for any offence by one council, if found innocent upon a second trial, should have his ring restored. The popes also wore seals, and at the present time the revered Father of the Catholic Church has two--one which he uses to sign apostolical briefs and private letters, called the _fisherman's ring,_ representing St. Peter drawing in his net full of fishes; the other, with which he seals his bulls, is ornamented with the heads of St. Paul and St. Peter, with a cross between the two. The Hebrew used the wedding-ring, though some writer maintains that it was not a pledge of love, but given in lieu of a piece of money. It is evident that the Christians adopted the practice in their marriage rites at an early period, some of the oldest liturgies containing the vows with regard to it. Being esteemed in a political and religious sense, it is no matter of wonder that Cupid's minions have also, from time immemorial, made the ring a seal of undying constancy, accepting its circular form as a type of eternity. Thus, Portia, after bestowing her riches upon Bassanio, says: "I give them with this ring; Which when you part from, lose, or give away, Let it presage the ruin of your love, And be my vantage to exclaim on you." But lovers, not content with the emblem of shape, also added mottoes, and it became the fashion to engrave verses, names, and dates within the ring. Alluding to the custom, Hamlet asks, "Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?" And in the last act of _The Merchant of Venice_, when Portia exclaims: "A quarrel, ho, already? What's the matter?" Gratiano answers: "About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me; whose posy was For all the world like cutler's poetry Upon a knife--_Love me, and leave me not_." The wedding-ring of Lady Catharine Grey, sister of Lady Jane Grey, consisted of five golden links, and on the four inner ones were these lines of her husband's composition: "As circles five by art compact, shewe but one ring in sight, So trust uniteth faithfull mindes with knott of secret might; Whose force to breake but greedie Death noe wight possesseth power, As time and sequels well shall prove. My ringe can say no more." The famous ring given by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Essex is said to be still extant, and in the possession of Lord John Thynne, a descendant of Lady Frances Devereux, the earl's daughter. It is of gold, the sides engraved, with a cameo head of Elizabeth in a sardonyx setting.