Dagger and sheath

Dagger 1629, Sheath 1654

In England during the early 17th century it was fashionable to call a certain type of dagger a ‘Buckingham’ dagger, since its popularity coincided with the ascendancy of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628), the favourite of James I. The cross-guard is usually of iron overlaid in silver and the grips are of wood. In this example, the blades of flat-diamond section are etched with Latin mottoes, a date and Tudor roses. Traces of gilding were found on the blade when it was recently cleaned.

By tradition this once belonged to Sir John Hotham. Deprived of his office as Governor of Hull by Charles I, he initially supported the Parliamentary cause but his ambitious nature soon brought him into conflict with leading Parliamentarians like Cromwell and Colonel Hutchinson. The 17th-century historian Lord Clarendon described him as being ‘without any bowels of good nature or the least sense or touch of generosity’. Found guilty of intriguing with the Royalists, Hotham was beheaded in London in 1645.

King Charles II

Line engraving 

Mid 17th Century

Unknown Artist

Christmas is Cancelled

Oliver Cromwell, “who was part of the joint republican, military and parliamentarian effort that overthrew the Stuart monarchy as a result of the English Civil War, and was subsequently invited by his fellow leaders to assume a head of state role,” [Source] banned Christmas in the ‘anti-fun charter’ of 1651. Public notices were nailed to trees around Britain warning that:

In 1657 he also banned mince pies because they symbolised Catholicism.

Mary, Queen of Scots

By an unknown artist

Oil on panel, circa 1560-1592

The Great Fire of London, 1666. Oil on canvas

This painting derives from an original by Jan Griffier the Elder (c. 1645/52-1718), it is not dated or signed. The Great Fire of London started in a baker’s shop in Pudding Lane in the early hours of of Sunday 2 September 1666 and raged for the next four days destroying four-fiths of the city walls. This painting depicts the cataclysmic scale of the disaster.

Oliver Cromwell’s head

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who was part of the joint republican, military and parliamentarian effort that overthrew the Stuart monarchy as a result of the English Civil War, and was subsequently invited by his fellow leaders to assume a head of state role in 1653. Following [his] death on 3 September 1658, he was given a public funeral at Westminster Abbey, equal to those of monarchs before him. After the monarchy was reinstated, and Charles II, who had been living in exile, recalled, parliament ordered the disinterment of Cromwell’s body from Westminster Abbey. After hanging “from morning till four in the afternoon”, the [body was] cut down and the head placed on a 20-foot (6.1 m) spike above Westminster Hall. In 1685 a storm broke the pole upon which it stood, throwing the head to the ground, after which it was in the hands of private collectors and museum owners until 25 March 1960, when it was buried at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge.

The symbolic value of the head changed over time. While it was spiked on a pole above the London skyline, it gave a potent warning to spectators. In the 18th century, the head became a curiosity and a relic. The head has been admired, reviled and dismissed as a fake throughout the centuries. After Thomas Carlyle dismissed the head as “fraudulent moonshine”, and after the emergence of a rival claimant to the true head of Oliver Cromwell, scientific and archaeological analysis was carried out to prove the identity. Inconclusive tests culminated in a detailed scientific study by Karl Pearson and Geoffrey Morant, which concluded, based on a study of the head and other evidence, that there was a “moral certainty” that the head belonged to Oliver Cromwell.

An iron ‘scold’s bridle’ or ‘brank’. Early 17th century

A scold’s bridle, sometimes called “the branks”, as well as “brank’s bridle” was a punishment device used primarily on women, as a form of torture and public humiliation. It was an iron muzzle in an iron framework that enclosed the head. The bridle-bit (or curb-plate) was about 2 inches long and 1 inch broad, projected into the mouth and pressed down on top of the tongue. The “curb-plate” was frequently studded with spikes, so that if the tongue moved, it inflicted pain and made speaking impossible. Wives that were seen as witches, shrews and scolds, were forced to wear a brank’s bridle, which had been locked on the head of the woman and sometimes had a ring and chain attached to it so her husband could parade her around town and the town’s people could scold her and treat her with contempt; at times smearing excrement on her and beating her, sometimes to death.

Charles II Restoration commemorative caudle cup: 1660

Tin-glazed earthenware commemorative caudle cup made in Southwark and decorated in blue, manganese, yellow and red on a white glaze with a half-length portrait of Charles II, crowned and wearing armour, flanked by the flags of St Andrew and St George, and inscribed:

‘C.R.’ and ‘DRINK UP YOUR DRINK AND LEVE NON IN FOR HEAR IS A HELTH TOO CHARLS OVER RYOUL KING’ and ‘WIB/1660’.

Caudle was a hot spicy drink of ale or wine whisked into an emulsion with egg yolk. During the 17th century, the term caudle (alternatively - lear) was also used to mean a sauce made of sack, butter and eggs for pouring into pies.

Part of a confession by Guy Fawkes. His weak signature, made soon after his torture, is faintly visible under the word “good”(lower right).

(Transcript)

Town on the Monday night following, and confesses also that the said Persy, this examinate, Robert Catsby, Thomas Winter John and Christopher Wright met at the forenamed house on the Backside of St Clements Inn on Sunday night last He further saith that the Wednesday before his aprehension He went forthe of the Townd to a house in Enfield Chase on this side of Theobalds where Wally doth ly And thither came Robert Catsby, Graunt and Thomas Winter, where he stayed untill Sunday night following He confesses also that there was speech amongst them to Draw Sir Walter Rawley to take part with them, being One that might stand them in good stead, as others in Like sort were named. (faint) Guido Fawkes Taken before us and subscribed By the examinate before us Ed(war)d Coke A S Waad (Wade) Edward Forsett

House of Stuart, Charles I of England coins

Tower mint 1630-1631

Double marriage portrait of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza holding hands; in the background the head of Charles in the Boscobel oak. 1662

The Coronation of Charles II in Westminster Abbey