English single-handed pre-balance spring verge watch Circa 1632-40

Enamel gold and gilded brass pendant watch by Simon Hackett
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A very fine, rare and small English gilt brass, enamel, glass and gold pre-balance spring single-handed pendant watch, circa 1632-1640.
The case of this example displays panels of the rare French émail en resille sur verre, a technique for embedding enamelled gold designs in coloured glass. Signed gilt brass and steel movement, partly blued, engraved, verge escapement, secured by a pin, and pre-balance spring. Gilt brass dial, sprung latches, later applied silver chapter ring with Roman hour numerals with half-hour divisions, the centre engraved, steel hand. Signed back plate of the movement.
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Diameter: 38 mm
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Signed: Simon Hackett, Londini
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“How goes your watches, ladies? What’s o’clock now? First Lady: By mine full nine. Second Lady: By mine a quarter past.” These three lines by the Jacobean playwright Thomas Middleton (d. 1627) sum up the unreliability of pre-balance spring watches, which for the most part, were more useful as jewellery than as timekeepers.
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Hackett was a goldsmith before becoming a member of the London Clockmakers’ Company in 1632, and he may have imported the case himself.