Is it true that Queen Elizabeth 1 had a ring cut off when she was dead?

Question

My daughter (age 11) asked her teacher who replied she didn't know but if my daughter found out she would get a merit......we are unsure if she is getting mixed up with Victoria who had her coronation ring cut off......10 points to 1st answer with a checkable reference.

Answer 1

I have some sources for you that say yes, Queen Elizabeth I's Coronation Ring did have to be cut off.

"In the first week of her reign, the unmarried Elizabeth, aged just 25, sought to allay the fears of her subjects by promising them her devotion, insisting there would be no marriage or children to distract her from duty.

Holding her coronation ring aloft, she declared: "Behold the pledge of this, my wedlock and marriage with my kingdom. And do not upbraid me with miserable lack of children: for every one of you, and as many as are Englishmen, are children and kinsmen to me."

It was one of history's most enduring images and set the stage for one of the most talked-about reigns in England. When the Queen died 45 years later, the coronation ring was so embedded in her skin that it had to be filed from her finger."

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live... (with some gossip about the Queen)

"In the ceremony of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, she was wedded to the kingdom with a ring, which she always wore, till the flesh growing over it, it was filed off a little before her decease."

http://www.jjkent.com/articles/rings-cor...

"... she asked them to take off the wedding ring with which she had commemorated her espousal to her kingdom and her people on the day of her coronation. The flesh had swollen around it so that it could not be removed. The attendants procured an instrument and cut it in two, and so relieved the finger from the pressure. The work was done in silence and solemnity, the queen herself, as well as the attendants, regarding it as a symbol that the union, of which the ring had been the pledge, was about to be sundered forever."

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?au... (an account of Elizabeth's death, about halfway down)

http://www.headlinehistory.co.uk/online/... (near the bottom)

It was done close to her death.  Considering the Virgin Queen had remained married to her country all her life, it would be the only way it could be removed from her finger.

Answer 2

Yes she did. Queen Elizabeth suffered from an illness throughout her life, which was known at the time as dropsy. It's unclear what this was in modern times. This illness made her body swell up, especially around her joints. It is thought that it was a large factor in her eventual death, which is why the coronation ring had to be cut off.

Answer 3

Something about the story of sawing the ring off doesn't sit right with me. Regardless of how ill the Queen was, you don't just touch the royal body, let alone remove rings. Not while there is still breath in her body. Until she drew her last breath, she was the Queen. It would be above the positions of the Lord Chamberlain and Archbishop to remove her rings before death. That would, in the day, be akin to treason.

Now, the moment she died, then power would automatically go to her heir. Someone would proclaim, The Queen is dead. Long live the King. And riders would be sent to inform his Majesty that he was now King. But they wouldn't go before. Riders might be dispatched to inform the heir that the Queen is gravely ill, but not until her death would anyone dare to move forward with notification. It's just not how it's done.

Answer 4

the Monarchs don't actually wear their coronation ring.

it's kept in a valate at the tower of london.

Answer 5

check an encyclopedia not wikepedia - not a good source every one with and without knowledge can write about something. The Queen Mother DIDN'T have her finger get cut off.

Answer 6

On March 21, 1603, the Lord Admiral finally persuaded the Queen to go to bed. They had to saw the Coronation Ring off her finger where it had grown into the flesh.[citation needed] She could no longer speak. Robert Cecil later alleged that she wordlessly signed to him that James VI of Scotland, son of Mary of Scotland, would be her heir. On March 24, with the Archbishop of Canterbury on his knees by her bed, praying with her women for her soul, she died, between two and three o'clock in the morning.[8] One of the royal chaplains later said it was like watching the falling of "a ripe apple from the tree."[9][10] Elizabeth had ruled England for more than 44 years, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. A horseman was already travelling north to Scotland, and James VI, carrying her ring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Eliza...

ur daughter still deserves a merit i think she died 3 days later

Answer 7

yeah it is, its now being used as a tea towel holder in the palace kitchen