."The Watch as a Watch" In: Anderson, Kate. “‘A Gift with Strings Attached’: Deciphering a Jacobean Watch

Watches, miniature timepieces powered by a spring and designed to be carried or worn as adornment, were first made in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. By the early decades of the seventeenth century, they were expensive and unreliable technical luxuries but readily available in London—at a price. They were rare enough that it was noted Guy Fawkes had one on his person when he was arrested in 1605, but were available to the extent that he and his co-conspirator Thomas Percy had been able to buy it the day before to time the burning of the touchwood.1