1778 (?)

The inscription refers to the murder of the London magistrate Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, the discovery of whose body, tranfixed with his own sword, on primrose Hill on the date mentioned triggered off the worst excesses of the anti-Catholic Popish Plot. The inscription is the same as that found on some of the well-known daggers produced at the time, but this dagger, which appears to be unique, clearly dates from a century or more later. There can be little doubt that it commemorates the hundreth anniversary of Godfrey's murder in 1778, the year that also saw the passing of the first Catholic Relief Act, which abolished some of the restrictions to which Catholics had been subjected since the 16th century. This event led to the founding of the Protestant Association, which in turn led to the anti-Catholic London riots of 1780 associated with the name of Lord George Gordon

See: S. Knight, The Killing of Justice Godfrey, 1984; C. Hibbert, King Mob. The Story of Lord George Gordon and the Riots of 1780, 1958; C. Trenchard, 'Godfrey Daggers', The Antique Collector, January, 1938, pp. 388-90