Art objects -- Collectors and collecting; Collectors and collecting
The bolder Jacobites had their drinking-glasses engraved with Stuart
emblems: a heraldic rose and two buds were, for instance, emblematic of
James II, his son, and his grandson, while the star, oak-leaves, and
acorns, etc., were obvious in allusion. The very boldest Jacobites had
glasses inscribed with mottoes--_Fiat_ being the most general one, as
this “Let it be done,” was the motto of the Cycle Club, ancestor of
Jacobite activity. The more timid Jacobites contented themselves with
symbols or inscriptions engraved upon the under side of the foot of the
glass. One comes across specimens of the _Fiat_ Jacobite drinking-glass
with the two oak-leaves engraved on the foot. Others are engraved with
the heraldic rose upon the bowl and a star upon the foot. A large
glass--its owner must have been the very boldest Jacobite of all!--is
inscribed _Audentior Ibo_ and also bears the portrait of the Young
Pretender, whose death in 1788 did not, strangely enough, put an end to
Jacobite activities. Indeed, the “Stuart fascination” is one of
history’s great mysteries. On the foot of Jacobite glasses one sometimes
finds engraved the feathers of the crest of the Prince of Wales; the
rose and two buds of the Stuarts on the bowl. Still other glasses are
not heraldic, but have the heraldic Stuart rose engraved upon the foot.
It is truly remarkable that any of these Jacobite glasses should have
survived, for many of them must, in their perilous time, have had to
meet with destruction to escape serving as telltales when sudden and
unexpected raids upon Jacobite strongholds were made by the officers of
the Crown. Some of these engraved and inscribed Jacobite glasses were
probably decorated upon the Continent, but most of them are of English
workmanship in engraving as well as in manufacture. Probably many of the
Jacobite glasses were made at the glass-works of Newcastle-on-Tyne,
proximity to the border of Scotland making such a location convenient on
occasion. I think but few should be attributed to the Bristol
glass-workers. Probably the largest number of Jacobite glasses were made
shortly before the “Forty-five.”
As the Jacobites had specially engraved and inscribed glasses, so, too,
did the partisans of King William. Williamite glasses were to be found
in Ireland as well, where a number of them--some are extant--were
engraved with anti-Jacobite toasts. But when it was not likely that the
Irish could forget James II. Authorities are not agreed as to which were
first put forth, Williamite or Jacobite glasses, but I am inclined to
think precedence in chronological order should be given to the engraved
and inscribed Williamite ones. There were, of course, fewer Williamite
glasses than Jacobite glasses, just as later there were fewer Hanoverian
glasses, as the Williamites and the Hanoverians were in the ascendant,
and public loyalty considered itself beyond the necessity of
symbolizing its fealty in other than the simple toast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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