EARLY 18TH CENTURY

Details

A Fine Basket-Hilted Highland Broadsword With Jacobite Inscriptions
Early 18th Century
With tapering fluted blade etched and gilt on one side with the figure of St. Andrew and the inscription 'Prosperity to Schotland and no union', and on the other with a crown and sceptre on a cushion surmounted by a laurelled male profile portrait and the inscription 'God Save King James the 8', iron hilt of fretted bars involving panels pierced with circles and stylised hearts, incised pommel, and shagreen-covered grip bound with silver wire
31in. (78.7cm.) blade

Provenance

The Earls of Breadalbane, Taymouth Castle, Perthshire
Said to have belonged to John Campbell, 1st Earl of Breadalbane, and to have been carried by him at the battle of Sheriffmuir in 1715
Major the Hon. T.G. Breadalbane Morgan-Granville-Gavin, M.C., Christie's, 5 July 1917, lot 35 (36 gns. to Trenchard)
C. Trenchard

Literature

Trenchard, pp. 21, 23, figs. 1 and 2
Hayward & Blair, p. 84, fig. 6
Blair 1962, plate 181

Exhibited

The Second Centenary Loan Exhibition of Jacobite Relics and Rare Scottish Antiquities, Edinburgh, 1946, cat. no. 203

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The blade is one of a small group made on the Continent to the order of the exiled James Edward Stuart. For an account of the group see Trenchard, pp. 21-24

Several such blades are described and illustrated in The Swords and the Sorrows, cat. nos. 1:18, 1:25, and 1:26

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