{"id":2153,"date":"2024-10-29T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/?p=2153"},"modified":"2026-02-20T17:33:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T17:33:20","slug":"will-of-the-month-alice-walter-and-her-deaths-head-ring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/2024\/10\/29\/will-of-the-month-alice-walter-and-her-deaths-head-ring\/","title":{"rendered":"Will of the Month: Alice Walter and Her \u2018Deaths Head\u2019 Ring"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Emily Vine<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

**This will inspired a Chris Hoban song! Read his lyrics and watch a recording at the end of the post.<\/strong>**<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The end of October and the beginning of November marks \u2018Allhallowtide\u2019 \u2013 the time of the year when Western Christians, including in early modern England, have traditionally turned their thoughts to the dead with the marking of All Hallows\u2019 Eve, All Saints\u2019 Day, and All Souls\u2019 Day. While Protestantism rejected purgatory and prayers for the dead, post-Reformation England saw the localised continuance of Allhallowtide traditions such as the ringing of bells to comfort the dead, the baking of \u2018Soul Mass cakes\u2019, and the reciting of phrases such as \u2018God have your soul, Bones and all\u2019.[1]<\/a> This October \u2018Will of the Month\u2019 post features a Halloween-appropriate bequest \u2013 a \u2018deaths head Ring\u2019 \u2013 in other words, a ring with some sort of skull on it. This ring was mentioned in the will of Alice Walter, a widow of the parish of St Sepulchre in the City of London, who died in September 1665.[2]<\/a> It may have looked similar to the seventeenth-century example below, which is held at the British Museum \u2013 a gold mourning ring with a white enamelled skull.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Gold and enamel mourning Ring, seventeenth century, British Museum AF.1521, https:\/\/www.britishmuseum.org\/collection\/object\/H_AF-1521<\/a> \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum<\/strong>. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence<\/a>. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The very act of making a will is of course predicated on looking ahead and preparing for death, but the contents of a will, and the presence of certain objects, can also hint at a testator\u2019s broader thoughts about mortality. In our previous \u2018Will of the Month\u2019 post<\/a>, we discussed the Exeter Alderman Thomas Hunte, who pre-emptively had his own tombstone made, and kept it in his house. Alice Walter\u2019s will opened with a formulaic comment on the inevitability of death \u2013 she acknowledged \u2018this short and Transitory life\u2019 and had decided to write down her intentions \u2018considering the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the tyme thereof\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Memento mori\u2019 and mourning rings<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rings with iconography such as skulls, bones, and coffins were a form of \u2018memento mori\u2019 jewellery that was popular in the seventeenth century: items which were owned and worn to focus one\u2019s mind upon preparation for death in everyday life. Walter died in London at the height of the Great Plague of 1665 \u2013 so it is possible that the circumstances focused her mind somewhat on preparing for her latter end. Yet the \u2018deaths head Ring\u2019 appears to have been a longer-held possession. Memento mori rings were not necessarily the same as mourning rings, which also appear frequently in wills. Mourning rings were commemorative: they were often purchased specially following an individual\u2019s death \u2013 indeed testators often set aside money for this purpose. At gentry funerals, they were sometimes dispersed as tokens to attendees, and mourners would keep them as a means of remembering the deceased.[3]<\/a> Often testators might disperse or leave money for several mourning rings, and specify how much each should cost: some beneficiaries might be worthy of a ring valued at 20 shillings, others only 10 shillings.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
A seventeenth-century funeral procession, with skull iconography. Excerpt from Sheet four of the funeral procession of John Leslie, Duke of Rothes, in Edinburgh in 1681\u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum<\/strong>. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Three Gold (?) Rings<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walter did not identify the \u2018deaths head Ring\u2019 as a mourning ring as such. She left it to her daughter, Mary Long, and in the same clause she left her wedding ring to her other daughter, Anne Worsley. Later in the will, Walter left to her son Clement \u2018my seale Ring\u2019. A seal ring would be engraved with a personal mark or family crest, and would be pressed into sealing wax to leave an official stamp on a document. As Walter was a widow, it is likely that this was her husband\u2019s seal ring, passed on to the eldest son. All three of Walter\u2019s children received a ring owned, used, or worn in her lifetime, rings which had practical functions and personal meaning as well as financial value. Walter\u2019s will took pains to record the identifying features or purpose of each ring, to ensure that the correct item of jewellery was set aside amongst her personal effects, and passed to the correct beneficiary. Walter gives us no further information about the materials the rings were made of or her reasons for bequeathing them as she did, so we can\u2019t know for certain why one daughter received the wedding ring, and one the skull.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Seal Ring, Revolving seal ring with Throckmorton and Carew arms, gold, England, after 1611, https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O77736\/seal-ring-unknown\/<\/a> \u00a9Victoria and Albert Museum, London<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u2018Part and share alike\u2019<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This careful division of possessions between her three children is also apparent in Walter\u2019s other bequests. Equally, alongside the striking reference to an object associated with death, there is also life. She left \u2018my Childbedd sheete\u2019 along with \u2018my best Curtaines and vallens with Stooles and Cushions of the same\u2026 and Two paire of holland Pillowbeers\u2019 for \u2018the joynt use and benefit of every one of my Children as they shall have occasion to make use of them\u2019. The childbed sheet, like other childbed linen, could be a practical as well as a personally significant bequest, as similarly described linen would often be shared and exchanged between female friends and relatives at times of need. Acknowledging that the linen, alongside other soft furnishings, could be used by any of her children who had \u2018occasion to make use of them\u2019, Walter\u2019s will looked ahead to providing things of practical use to her children at their different stages of life.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Childbed linen, England, 1650-1699  \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2024 https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O357669\/childbed-linen-unknown\/<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Walter also left \u2018unto my said Two daughters All my wearing Apparell both Lynnen and woollen to be devided equally between them part and share alike And alsoe foure Pewter dishes a peece and they to take their Choyce\u2019. This clause hints at a degree of trust in her daughters, that they were permitted to choose and would be able to amicably divide up these items between them. But there was perhaps not the same degree of trust bestowed upon her son and executor, Clement Walter. She left each of her daughters a bed, one of which was the \u2018ffeather=bedd in the upper Chamber of my dwelling house called Clems chamber\u2019. As well as this room being still known as \u2018Clem\u2019s chamber\u2019, it appears that Clement would also inherit the lease of her main dwelling house in \u2018Katherine wheeleyard\u2019. Walter seems to have been concerned that Clement would not give up the large items of furniture, and accordingly left the following contingency: \u2018But in case my Executor shall not be willing to part with the before mencioned Goods [\u2026] in Lieu thereof I doe give unto either of my said Two daughters the summe of Tenn pounds a peece\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tokens of love?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her son and executor Clement, as well as being entrusted with the house and the residue of his mother\u2019s estate, was also specifically left a \u2018Beere Bowle Salt and Two Spoones of silver\u2019. Alongside her executor, Walter also appointed two overseers of her will, William Holloway and John Fowler, and bequeathed \u2018for there care and paines to be taken therein I give unto either of them the Summe of Tenn shillings for a token of love\u2019. The bequests in Alice Walter\u2019s will span large shifts in scale: her dwelling house, her featherbed, two spoons, three small rings. The phrase \u2018token of love\u2019 summarises some of the careful decisions that Walter had made: dividing up her clothes between her daughters, recompensing the overseers\u2019 careful work, pre-empting and counteracting her son\u2019s potential reluctance to part with her household furniture. Indeed the three identified rings \u2013 the seal ring, the wedding ring, and even the \u2018deaths head Ring\u2019, carefully set aside and assigned to each of her three children, were all in their own way tokens of love.<\/p>\n\n\n