During wartime, she commissioned the brooch from Birmingham jeweller Alabaster & Wilson. In keeping with restrictions placed on jewellers during the period, the piece was made in bi-colour 9ct gold.
The design was remade from 1952 for sale by Boodle & Dunthorne – the original sketches for a number of different treatments still survive in the factory archives.
Margaret Hall’s brooch came for sale at the Wilson55 (22% buyer’s premium) Fine Jewellery & Watches sale in Nantwich on June 17 with a guide of £300-4000. Offered with its original box in ‘fair to good condition with some repair work to the reverse’, it took £1800.
Royalist stalwart
A blue enamel and diamond ring containing a 17th century stone with a royal provenance was offered with an estimate of £3000-5000.
The later (probably Victorian) mount bears an inscription reading: Given by King Charles the 2nd to the Hon’ble Charles Bertie, Son of Montague Earl of Lindsey 1649. The 1.5ct diamond is certainly in keeping for the period, with a ‘candlelight’ rose cut.
This ring was inherited by the vendor’s late husband, who bore a direct line to Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey (1608-66), a Royalist who raised a regiment of cavalry in Lincolnshire at the outbreak of the English Civil War.
He was present at the surrender of Oxford in June 1646, attended the king in 1647, and finally served as a commissioner for the Treaty of Newport in 1648, a failed treaty between Parliament and Charles I intended to end hostilities.
He continued to attend the king during his trial and accompanied his body to burial.
Charles Bertie was the 2nd Earl’s fifth son and would have been around nine years old in 1649 when, in the year of the regicide, the diamond was reputed to be given to him by Charles II as a gesture of thanks for the family’s loyalty and service to the Royalist cause. The selling price was £6800.
