After the 1746 battle Handel wrote See, The Conquering Hero Comes! for the duke but since then ‘Butcher’ Cumberland’s rapid plunge from grace has been in inverse proportion to the rise of his adversary Prince Charles Stuart and anti-Jacobite pieces are rare.
The 7½in (19cm) tall glass on a double-knopped air twist stem and conical foot was from a collection of 18th and early 19th century glass offered in 32 lots in the September 4 sale.
It came with a paper label for A Churchill Glass – Arthur Churchill being a published authority on 18th century glass and a highly regarded London dealer from the 1930s-70s.
Estimated at £6000-8000, it sold to a UK collector at £15,000.
Loyal subject
The political sympathies of the collector seemed evident with the inclusion of four mid-18th century Irish Williamite wine glasses.
Bidders were less enchanted by the victor of the Boyne. Best of the two which got away was a 7in (18cm) tall glass on tapered plain stem and conical foot.
The flared bowl was wheel engraved with a portrait of ‘King Billy’ on horseback and inscribed The Glorious Memory Of King William The III. It sold on the lower estimate at £800.
