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A Fine And Rare English Silver-Hilted Broadsword With Earlier Scottish Blade image 1
A Fine And Rare English Silver-Hilted Broadsword With Earlier Scottish Blade image 2
A Fine And Rare English Silver-Hilted Broadsword With Earlier Scottish Blade image 3
Lot 397

A Fine And Rare English Silver-Hilted Broadsword With Earlier Scottish Blade
London Silver Hallmarks For 1705, Maker's Mark Of Thomas Vicaridge

28 July 2010, 14:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £10,800 inc. premium

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A Fine And Rare English Silver-Hilted Broadsword With Earlier Scottish Blade
London Silver Hallmarks For 1705, Maker's Mark Of Thomas Vicaridge

With earlier tapering double-edged blade (perhaps medieval, some pitting overall) of flattened diamond section, the forte etched and gilt on one side with a panel surmounted by an Imperial crown and enclosing a crowned lion rampant between the inscription 'Pro Rege Et Regno Anno 1331', a panel of foliate scrolls beneath, and on the other with a similar panel enclosing one of the devices of the Douglas family, a wild man (wodewose) with a heart on his left breast between the inscription 'For Strength In Stier This [the heart] I Bier' (for strength in battle this heart I bear), the hilt comprising two faceted oval side-rings cast and chased at intervals with leaf calyxes and filled with kidney-shaped plates, faceted lobe-shaped rear quillon and knuckle-guard both with leaf calyxes en suite, the latter linked to the side-ring on each side by a scrolled bar also en suite, faceted globular pommel with leaf calyxes above and below, button finial, and swelling grip bound with two thicknesses of twisted silver wire between silver Turk's heads
84.6 cm. blade

Footnotes

Provenance:
Almost certainly by descent through the Douglas family, probably to Sir Alec Douglas Home of the Hirsel
Anonymous sale Christie's London, Important Firearms, Arms and Armour, The Properties Of His Grace The Duke Of Sutherland, K.T., P.C., The Rt. Hon. The Lord Talbot De Malahide And Others, 16 May 1960, lot 71

Literature:
Claude Blair, European & American Arms, 1962, p. 87, no. 170 (illustrated)

The inscriptions and heart refer to the journey of Sir James Douglas to the Holy Land with King Robert the Bruce's heart which ended with Douglas's death fighting the Moors in Spain in 1330. The date of 1331 on the blade is almost certainly commemorative and may be a mistake on the part of whoever designed the etched decoration in the belief that Sir Douglas's journey took place in that year

A similar sword is in the Collection of the Duke of Buccleugh

For more information on Thomas Vicaridge (recorded 1682-1715) see Leslie Southwick, London Silver-Hilted Swords ..., 2001, pp. 249-250

Additional information

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