William, Duke of Cumberland (1721-65), third son of King George II, was destined by his parents for a career in the army. He took part in the Battle of Dettingen in 1742, but is most renowned for his defeat of the Young Pretender at the Battle of Culloden which quashed the Jacobite Insurrection; his treatment of the clans earned him the unmerited title 'Butcher Cumberland'

For other examples from this rare group of Anti-Jacobite glasses see Joseph Bles, Rare English Glasses of the 17th & 18th Centuries, p. 115, no. 48, L.M. Bickerton, Eighteenth Century English Drinking Glasses, no. 662 (Cecil Higgins Museum) and the Rose Collection, sale Sotheby's, 6 March 1978, lot 51