LOT 0420

Caroline Silver-Gilt Third Earl of Essex Military Reward Badge

1642 A.D.

1 1/4 in. (5.39 grams, 30.20 mm).

Cast and chased badge of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, by Thomas Simon (or Thomas Rawlins?), bifacial with obverse portrait bust of the Earl of Essex turned slightly to left, and to the reverse an oval garnished shield of Essex, surmounted by coronet; Platt II, type G.

From a late 19th-early 20th century collection based on the old handwritten coin tickets.
Acquired on the UK art market in the 1980s.
From an East Anglian private collection.

Accompanied by two old faded handwritten coin tickets.

See Medallic Illustration, 299/119; Platt, p.202.

Essex became Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentary forces in the Civil War before being displaced in 1645. Badges of several types and varieties bearing his image were presented to various ranks in the army. The grandson of Francis Walsingham, the Principal Secretary and 'spymaster' of Elizabeth I, as well as the son of Elizabeth's favourite, Robert Devereux figured prominently in the First English Civil War. At its outset, he became the first Captain-General or Chief Commander of the Parliamentarian army, known as the 'Roundheads.' However, unable and unwilling to defeat the Royalist forces during the Lostwithiel Campaign in 1644, Devereux became overshadowed by the ascending Oliver Cromwell and, less than six months after resigning from his commission, died without an heir in 1646.