LONDON, 1631, MAKER'S MARK RS WITH A HEART BENEATH

Lady Finch would have commissioned this dish after the death of her husband in 1627. They had lived at Roydon Hall, near East Peckham in Kent, and presumably the family plate would have passed with the estate to her elder son Sir Roger Twysden, 2nd Bt. (1597-1672) under the terms of Sir William's will. Sir William had entered Gray's Inn in 1584 and had served as M.P. for Clitheroe, Helston, Thetford and finially Winchelsea, a seat he held from 1628 until his death. First knighted by King James I in 1603 in recognition of having accompanied the King from Scotland to London, William Twysden was later further rewarded by being created a baronet in 1611; he was only the eighteenth to be accorded the honour. He was remembered as a great scholar, being learned in both Greek and Hebrew and having an extremely fine collection of manuscripts. Roydon Hall still stands today and although much altered it still bears the date 1535. The house then belonged to the Royden family and later passed to William Twysden Esq. on his marriage to the Royden heiress Elizabeth (d.1595).