The first panel bearing the Royal Arms: The College of Arms (Rouge Dragon) notes that the cipher C R suggests the arms were intended for Charles I, rather than Charles II. He also notes that the decorative treatment is unusual in that it would appear to be a combination of English and Scottish representations and draws attention to the particularly unusual feature of the banners both flying inwards, though a near precedent is to be found in Charles I's second Great Seal used from 1627 - 1640

The second panel bears the Arms of Ball of Mamhead, County Devon. Rouge Dragon notes '...The helm is a strange hybrid, having the bars which distinguish a peer, but facing to the dexter, the mark of a gentleman...'. The engraved arms are charged with a fleur-de-lys in the point of the chevron - the cadency mark of a sixth son. Although the Balls of Mamhead were never granted a crest, they were said to use An arm erect in the hand a fireball proper according to the edited pedigree in J.L. Vivian's The Visitations of the County of Devon (Exeter 1895)

Sir Peter Ball of Mamhead (1598-1680) entered the Middle Temple and was called to the Bar. In 1626 he married Anne, daughter of Sir William Cooke of Gloucestershire, was sworn in as Recorder of Exeter in 1632, Lent Reader, Middle Temple in 1640, at which time he was appointed Solicitor to Queen Henrietta Maria and Knighted at Oxford on 7 October 1642. In 1643 he was made Attorney to the Queen on the recommendation of the King, and admitted by the University of Oxford to the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. During the interregnum he was fined heavily for his loyalty to the Crown and stripped of his Offices; these, however, were returned to him in 1660 at the restoration of Charles II. He continued as Attorney to Henrietta Maria and died in 1680. His memorial in Mamhead Church where he was buried on 4 September, after reference to his numerous progeny, reads "...His excellency in all learning and great knowledge in ye law gave him early preferment. Recorder of Exeter at 34: Solicitor, then Attorney General to Henrietta Maria, Queen to Charles ye Martyr and of his council at 37. Engaging in ye troubles 1641 suffered the fate of loyalty: At the return of Charles 2nd, disobliging the great favourite was only restored to his former places, serving his royal mistress all her life and her concerns 3 years after..." The youngest of Sir Peter's seventeen children was baptised at Mamhead on 22 July 1654, Henrietta Maria, certainly a brave display of loyalty at a time when Cromwell was much concerned about possible risings.

The cadency mark on Sir Peter's coat-of-arms is for his sixth son Giles, later to be Merchant and British Consul at Genoa. Unforunately the dates of Sir Peter's progeny are not all recorded (he produced seventeen living children, nine sons and eight daughters, over a period of twenty-eight years), but applying the law of averages the most likely date for Giles's birth would have been between 1641 and 1645

The 'Lady Rochester' referred to in the inscription on the back of the second panel is almost certainly Anne St. John, who married for the second time, as his second wife, Henry Wilmot, First Earl of Rochester of the second creation, 1652 (there being three creations in the 17th century)

Anne St. John (1614-1698) was the daughter of Sir John St. John of Lydiard Tregose, near Swindon, Wiltshire. She married first Sir Francis Henry Lee (a Parliamentarian) of Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire, who died in 1639 leaving her with two young sons and a daughter. In 1643/4 (the exact date is not known) she married Henry Wilmot, a widower and dashing Lieutenant-General who had distinguished himself at Edge Hill in October 1642. Little is known of the details of Anne Rochester's marriage. Her husband was forced into exile in France at the end of 1644 whilst Anne stayed on at Ditchley with her two sons by her first marriage. Their son John, the notorious rake and celebrated wit and poet, was born in 1647

Anne St. John's family tree show her to have been close to the hub of activity on both sides during the Civil War and with influence in both camps. Both her younger brothers married daughters of Oliver St. John, Lord Chief Justice to Oliver Cromwell, and related to him by marriage; whilst her first cousin Anne, Lady Dalkeith, was lady-in-waiting to Queen Henrietta Maria and Governess to Princess Henriette Anne. It was Lady Dalkeith who was responsible for effecting the escape to France of the infant Princess aged two, disguising herself as a beggar woman. Remarkably Anne managed to keep Ditchley intact for her sons during the period of the Commonwealth

Why Anne engraved the Royal Armorial panel can easily be appreciated; the Court was at Oxford, a short distance away from Ditchley, and Woodstock Park was at her doorstep. It is possible that perhaps this panel was being prepared as a present for the Royal baby due in mid-1644. The exact relationship between Anne Rochester and Peter Ball's family must be conjecture, though there were common links between Anne and Lady Ball's family through the Herbert and Danvers families and many years later Lady Ball's nephew was a trustee for Lady Rochester's grandchildren. The one time when the Ball family and Lady Rochester would certainly have been in close contact was during the period of the Civil War when the Court was at Oxford. Wilmot was at that time Lieutenant-General of the King's Horse for the Oxford Garrison. The Queen arrived in Oxford in July 1643 and until her departure in the following April Sir Peter Ball would have been prominent among her Court, having already been Knighted there in 1642. Giles Ball, the sixth son, for whom the second panel was cut, was most probably born sometime between 1641 and 1645, the year 1643 fitting neatly into the middle. Thus July 1643 until July 1644 is the one period when all the players were on the stage together and babies expected by both the Queen and Lady Ball

These hitherto unrecorded panels are each of distinctly different glass, the first with the Royal Arms being of a more yellowish tint with an uneven surface and roughly finished edge, whilst the second is of a more lavender tint and smooth surface. These differences would be quite consistent with window-pane glass of the period. The hand of this amateur engraver is remarkably competent whilst the inspiration and execution of the design would appear to closely ressemble embroidery and stumpwork of the period. For another panel diamond-engraved with a portrait of James II as Duke of York, surrounded by flowers including roses and birds perched on oak branches and pomegranate, see Arthur Churchill Ltd, 'A Coronation Exhibition of Royal, Historical, Political and Social Glasses....', Exhibition Catalogue, 1937, pl.2, no. 2