The arms gules a cinquefoil or and in dexter chief a mullet or for difference and crest on a wreath or and gules an nadder (sic) sleeping between two fern sprigs proper were confirmed to a Thomas Anguishe of Fowlsham (sic) in 1540 (College of Arms MS: MG1/60). The present ring shows these arms impaling a wyvern on the female side (presently unidentified).

There is a portrait of Thomas Anguishe, mayor of Norwich 1611, in Blackfriars Hall in Norwich in which he is depicted wearing this same ring (see above). Thomas Anguishe (1538-1617) is recorded as a grocer in Norwich, becoming alderman in 1595, sheriff in 1596 and mayor in 1611. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Edmund Thurstone in 1567 who bore him nine sons and three daughters of whom few survived. A fine memorial exists to him in St. George's Church, Tombland, Norwich and the Anguishe's Educational Foundation which he founded still exists today. The skull on the reverse of the ring could allude to the deaths of his children, and finding a 'memento mori' of this type on the back of an elaborate coat-of-arms in a swivelling bezel is rare at this period.

For another memento mori swivel ring cf. 'Princely Magnificence', Court Jewels of the Renaissance (1500-1630), 1980, no. 115