The Stuart wine cups of silver are of exceptional interest. They are of graceful form and exhibit a variety of baluster ornament of pleasing character. The tall wine cup of the time of James I is the work of Peter Peterson, a noted silversmith of Norwich. The Norwich mark of the castle and the maker’s mark of the orb and cross are clearly visible in the illustration of the cup itself, and are further illustrated on [page 395]. The stem is slender and of baluster form. The upper part of the bowl has small trefoils of engraved ornament depending on the line running around the brim. The lower part of the bowl is embossed with leaves and floral conventional pattern. The foot is similarly embossed.
Sometimes these wine cups, or grace cups as they are termed, because it is believed that they were used at the end of a banquet to drink a grace, have octagonal bowls. These are found in the early seventeenth century. Other forms are like the modern open-bowled champagne-glass.
Charles I wine cups obviously are not common. The Civil War laid a heavy toll on such portable articles. During the Commonwealth, according to all report, in the words of Butler in his Hudibras, the Roundheads had a tendency to
Compound for sins they are inclin’d to
By damning those they have no mind to,
and we have Lord Macaulay’s well-known pronouncement that the Puritans condemned bear-baiting not so much for the pain which it gave to the bear, as for the pleasure which it gave to the spectators. It is not to be supposed, therefore, that wine cups of the Commonwealth period were much in evidence. To come to the days of Charles II, the Great Fire of London in 1666 did enormous damage. The Clothworkers’ Hall burnt for three days and nights on account of the oil in the cellars. The Pepys Cup happily was saved, as we have seen. This was in September, but so great was the area of the fire in the city that the ground continued to smoke in December. Lady Carteret told Pepys that pieces of burned paper were driven by the wind as far as Cranborne in Windsor Forest. London remained in ruins till 1668. Pepys goes to Whitehall at the outset of the fire to tell the King what he had seen, and he suggested precautions by blowing up houses to stop the spread of the fire. Pepys is solicitous for the safety of the Navy Office, which was between Crutched Friars and Seething Lane, and Sir William Penn brought the workmen from Woolwich and Deptford yards to demolish houses on the “Tower Street and Fenchurch sides.” It is interesting to read that the Diarist sent off his money, plate, and valuables to Sir W. Rider at Bethnal Green, and then he and Sir William Penn dug a hole in their garden in which they put their wine and Parmezan cheese. All this is piquant in regard to the vicissitudes of fortune through which our old plate has passed.
JAMES I TALL WINE CUP.
Norwich hall-mark. Maker, Peter Peterson.