Did this Gunpowder plotter leave his ring behind?

REMARKABLE 16TH-CENTURY FIND GOES UNDER THE HAMMER THIS WEEK, SHINING A LIGHT ON ONE OF THE MOST AUDACIOUS CRIMES IN OUR HISTORY AND ITS MIDLANDS LINKS

- CHARLES HANSON

FIREWORKS night may be behind us but do you know the links the famous Gunpowder Plot has to the Midlands? A special gold ring appearing at this week's historica sale, expected to make £8,000-£12,000, proves just that.

Most of the famous conspirators came from, or were related to, prominent Catholic families from the Midlands who, like them, were against the new king, James I.

Miles from the capital they were able to make their way from safe house to safe house, plotting the downfall of the Protestant monarchy who had long suppressed them.

Forget Guy Fawkes, who was just a hired hand with a talent for gunpowder, the plot's mastermind was the charismatic Warwickshire-born Robert Catesby. Catesby was born in Bushwood Hall, in Lapworth, near Henley-in-Arden in 1572.

Fast forward just over 450 years, and it was the same ground next to the family's half-timbered moated building that was the site of a very special discovery.

Here it was that Andrew Rose, a metal detectorist from Birmingham unearthed a 16th-century gold ring close to the house in six inches of earth.