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The stirrup-hilt of cast and
chased gold, struck on the blade side of the knucklebow, forward of the hand,
and upon the upper inside of the grip with the London hallmarks for the
assaying year of 1802-03 and the makers’ mark of John Ray and James
Montague (in partnership 1800-21). The knucklebow chased inside and out with
lines of tied, continuous laurel sprays within fluted borders, the curled
quillon terminating in a disc decorated on either side with a six-petalled
floret in relief, a device repeated on the outside of the upper scabbard mount.
The pommel cast, chased and formed as a bearded human male mask, facing forward
of the hand and encircled by a band of guilloche, from which the end of the
knucklebow emerges. The polished and shaped grip decorated at front and back
with lines of tied continuous laurel sprays and at the sides with engraved
lines separating the grip into panels; the grip ferrule formed of cast and
chased alternating bands of laurel leaf tips. Both sides of the grip set with
ovals of translucent blue enamel within cast and chased laurel wreaths; that on
the inside of the grip bearing, in proper colours of enamel, the shield, crest
and motto of The Hon. Edward Pakenham; that on the outside of the grip bearing,
in proper colours of enamel, the shield and monarchical crown from the Royal
Arms of Denmark. The langets formed of acanthus leaves, cast and chased in high
relief. The blade of sabre form, widening slightly towards the tip and with a
broad central fuller, decorated throughout its full length with engraving,
blueing and gilding on the upper half and with engraving, frost etching and
polishing on the lower half. In the upper half, outer side, the iconography
includes the crowned Royal Arms of Denmark with supporters, the shield
encircled by the Collars and pendant Badges of the Orders of the Elephant and
of the Dannebrog, with the Royal Crest and motto shown separately above. In the
upper half, inner side, the iconography includes a gilded oval bearing the name
and address of the retailer of the sword,
R.CLARKE & SON
62 Cheapside
LONDON
and a gilded matte panel enclosing
the following inscription in burnished lettering,
From the Inhabitants of St Croix
TO THE HONBLE LIEUT. COLL. PAKENHAM
as a Testimony
OF HIS MILITARY
MERIT & PRIVATE WORTH.
1802.
In the lower half, outer side, the
iconography includes the standing figure of a British light infantry officer
with drawn sword, the Star, Collar and pendant badge of the Order of the
Dannebrog and the figure of Fame. In the lower half, inner side, the
iconography includes a female allegory of Fortitude and the crowned and
supported Royal Cypher of King Christian VII of Denmark within the Collar and
pendant Badge of the Order of the Elephant.
The black leather scabbard with
three gold mounts, each chased and engraved with continuous tied sprays of
laurel framing panels of polished gold, the chape tip decorated with a panel of
cast and chased acanthus leaves and the upper and middle mount having two plain
loose rings.
Overall length 33 ¾”,
blade length 28 ½”.
The sword.
Surely one of the finest British
presentation sabres ever made, this sword exhibits gold and enamel-work at its
best, in company with a range of Royal and national iconography rarely
encountered on anything but the most important and exquisite British Royal
presentation swords. The reasons for this combination are clear: this was a
sabre commissioned by a Danish colony in the Caribbean that could not send to
Copenhagen for it to be made because of the exigencies of war. Hence, it was
made in London, by the finest craftsmen-artists of the day, and incorporating,
instead of British Royal and national iconography, that of Denmark - an old
nation possessing just as much symbolism on which artists could call as did
Britain. This is a Danish presentation sword made in Britain and in the British
artistic manner: only its iconography is Danish and even that is rendered in a
particularly British manner.
John Ray and James Montague probably
trained and worked in the workshop of James Morisset. Certainly, they succeeded
Morisset in his premises in Denmark Street, Soho, in 1800 and maintained the
extraordinarily high standard of work and in the same type of goods, for which
Morisset had been known. Their output, especially in the realm of sword hilts
in precious metals and enamels, and occasionally with precious stones, has been
the subject of the same research as has been that of Morisset and the
similarities of style and quality are such that the two firms must have shared
more than just the same premises. Ray and Montague registered their joint mark
at Goldsmiths’ Hall in May 1800 and continued in partnership until 1821,
by which time the ending of the wars with France had meant that demand for
pieces for presentation to martial heroes had come to an end.
As far as presentation sword hilts by
Ray and Montague (and, indeed, also by Morisset) are concerned, those for
sabres, as opposed to small-swords, are in the minority. Whereas sabres and,
less frequently, other styles of martial sword seem to have been popular as
presentation pieces for the officers of auxiliary regiments - such as the
Yeomanry, Militia or Volunteers - these seem more often to have been
commissioned from other makers, of whom there were many actively producing such
items during the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Thus,
presentation-quality sabre-hilts from the workshop at 22 Denmark Street are
rare: other than the example offered here, only four have been recorded - two
with hilts by Morisset, 1797 (item 39 in Peter Finer’s catalogue of 1999)
and 1802 and two others, by Ray and Montague, sold at auction in London in 1971
and 1983 and dateable, respectively, to 1805 and 1800.
Because even the finest of workshops
must be limited in its ingenuity, especially when work is being produced under
pressure, there are elements of similarity between all five recorded sabre
hilts, although to a greater degree between the hilt and mounts of this sword
and the two others by Ray and Montague. Thus, the shaped form of the grip with
inset enamel ovals is paralleled by a similar grip on a Ray and Montague hilt
for the sabre made for presentation to a naval officer in c.1800; the scabbard
mounts of the two swords are strikingly similar too. In addition, the boldly
cast and chased langets are clearly from the same mould as those on the hilt of
the sword of heavy cavalry form, but with a moving stirrup hilt, hallmarked in
the London assaying year of 1805-06; this latter sword also features a grip
ferrule of identical type.
Although the procurement path for
such swords is as yet unclear, it is probable that Richard Clarke, whose name
appears on the blade of this sword, would have commissioned the hilt and
scabbard mounts from Ray and Montague and the blade from another contractor,
assembling them in his workshop for sale - he having been commissioned to
produce the entire sword. Clarke (c.1741-1812) seems to have been in
partnership with one of his sons from about 1797, to have worked at 62
Cheapside, in the City of London, and, although advertising himself as a
“Hardwareman” in 1797, by 1808 was calling his business that of
“Silversmiths, Jewellers and hardwaremen”. He is not known as a
blade-maker and so must have left the details of the decoration of the
sabre’s blade to his customers and his sub-contracting cutler.
As can be seen from the result, which
is magnificent in its detail, intensity and quality, full opportunity was taken
to use every part of the blade to its greatest decorative extent, the broad
sabre blade giving far greater scope for the designer’s art than the
narrow blades of presentation small-swords. The blade-maker, whoever he was,
must have been familiar with the type of iconography normally incorporated into
the decoration of British presentation sabre blades and therefore simply
extrapolated it, using Danish symbolism rather than its British equivalent.
Thus, he used the Royal Arms of Denmark where usually he would have used those
of Britain; he used the insignia of the Danish Orders of the Elephant and the
Dannebrog, rather than those of the British Orders of the Garter and of the
Bath: the Royal Cypher of the King of Denmark, Christian VII, replaces that of
George III. Thus is made Danish what, at first glance, appears to be wholly
British.
The man.
Pakenham’s entry in the
Dictionary of National Biography contains one observation that may account not
only for the existence of this sword (as well as that of other souvenirs of
Pakenham’s time on the Island of St Croix) but also for Pakenham’s
military career - the early part of which was positively meteoric:
“…[he] commanded…at the reduction of the Danish and Swedish West
India islands in 1801. Socially, Pakenham appears to have been a general
favourite. In the Officers’ Mess…are some silver cups presented by
the inhabitants of Sainte-Croix, one of the captured islands, in token of the
esteem in which Pakenham and his officers were held by them…”.
Charm was certainly part of the
personality of Edward Michael Pakenham, or Ned - as he was known to his family
and friends. Born on 19th March 1778 at Longford Castle, County Westmeath,
Ireland, he was the second son of the 2nd Baron Longford and so, from his
birth, bore the courtesy title of The Honourable, a title accorded
automatically to the children of barons and viscounts in the British peerage.
His family had been settled in Ireland for centuries and had established
themselves as part of the Protestant, Anglo-Irish, landowning
“Ascendancy”. Pakenhams had sat in the Irish Parliament since its
formation in 1692, Ned’s father sitting briefly for Co. Longford in the
1760s, and so they were part of the minority network that essentially
“ran” Ireland and dominated Irish Society.
On the outbreak of war with
Revolutionary France in 1793, Britain was convulsed by a frenzy of
regiment-raising. For well-connected young men with a taste for a red coat and
a chance of glory, the new regiments and the general feeling of emergency were
heaven-sent. Ned Pakenham was one of these and acted accordingly. He obtained
his first commission in one of the new infantry regiments, becoming Ensign
Pakenham of General Crosbie’s Regiment, soon to be denoted the 89th of
Foot, on 28th February 1794: he was then just short of his sixteenth birthday.
As regiments continued to be raised in Ireland, so vacancies for officers
continued to occur and so Pakenham transferred, on promotion, to an even newer
regiment, Hewitt’s, soon to be denoted the 92nd of Foot. He became a
lieutenant and a captain in the 92nd on the same day, 31st May 1794, just six
weeks after his sixteenth birthday.
In peacetime, such granting of
commissions and rapid promotion, especially for young officers, was discouraged
but it was allowed in time of war especially if, as Pakenham undoubtedly had,
new officers had sufficient influence to be able to bring recruits with them:
thus the sons of landlords obtained commissions and promotions by coercing
their parents’ tenants into enlisting into their regiments. Clearly
ambitious to get on in his chosen career, and able to take advantage of the
continued raising of regiments and his family’s influence, Pakenham
purchased the rank of major in a regiment of light dragoons, the 33rd, that had
been raised by Sir James Blackwood MP in October 1794. Thus, with effect from
6th December 1794, he was a major of light dragoons, aged just sixteen and a
half and with no military experience at all.
Such meteoric progression did not
last: the 33rd Light Dragoons became disgraced after a mutiny in the ranks at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne in September 1795 and was disbanded in 1796. While Pakenham
waited for a vacant majority in another regiment, Ireland was bursting with
suppressed revolution: the French had nearly landed in 1796, the country was in
ferment with courts martial and tales of the French returning to aid an
uprising and the island itself was being ever more strongly garrisoned. Part of
the garrison was a new regiment of light dragoons, the 23rd, and Pakenham
became the regiment’s senior major on 1st January 1798. He served with the
23rd throughout the Irish rebellion of 1798 and until October 1799, when he
purchased the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 64th (2nd Staffordshire) Regiment of
Foot and sailed with his battalion from Ireland to the West Indies: he was then
just twenty-two years old.
By the end of the eighteenth century,
most European maritime nations had established colonies in the Caribbean
islands. In wartime, these were fought over and regularly changed hands since
they represented important bases for trade and strategic harbours for fleets of
warships and merchant vessels. France’s possessions in the Caribbean were
gradually taken by Britain as the war progressed and, as France gained European
allies, so their islands became targets too. Early in 1801 Denmark, along with
Sweden and Prussia, had joined Russia in a Baltic League of Armed Neutrality
against Britain - this was in protest against the Royal Navy’s policy of
stopping and searching all shipping, even that of neutral countries, and of
confiscating any war matériel. Far from deterring Britain, the
formation of the Baltic League simply rebounded on its smaller and more
vulnerable nations: Nelson attacked and destroyed the Danish fleet at
Copenhagen and threatened to bombard the city and, 4,000 miles to the west,
British troops attacked and captured the Danish and Swedish Caribbean islands,
among which was St Croix.
Being a member of a League of Armed
Neutrality was, however, somewhat different from being a determined and
traditional enemy and so the British soldiers who landed on St Croix would have
been under orders to behave accordingly. It was, no doubt, this policy of good
behaviour - and the famous Pakenham charm - that resulted in the inhabitants of
St Croix rewarding the officers of the 64th with their silver cups and the
commanding officer with his gold and enamel sword.
Denmark having been knocked out of
the League of Armed Neutrality by Britain’s swift actions, and the Peace
of Amiens having temporarily halted the war, Pakenham and the 64th Foot left St
Croix late in 1802. They were part of the force used to capture the French
island of St Lucia in 1803, following which Pakenham transferred to executive
command of the 1st battalion, 7th Royal Fusiliers in 1804, with which he served
at the capture of Copenhagen in 1807 and that of Martinique in 1809.
Returning home to Ireland in 1809,
Pakenham was given a staff command in the army that his brother-in-law,
Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Wellesley, was about to take to the Iberian
Peninsula. He sailed for the Peninsula in the rank of colonel late in 1809, was
appointed brigadier and deputy adjutant-general in 1810 and advanced to the
local rank of major general in 1811. His finest Peninsular hour came at
Salamanca in 1812, at which battle he had temporary command of the Third
Division: responding swiftly to his brother-in-law’s order,
“Now’s your time, Ned”, he manoeuvred his division forward and
broke the French centre, thus conclusively winning the battle in an action that
Wellington described as, “…the most decisive and brilliant manoeuvre
of the battle…”. Wellington recorded his gratitude to Pakenham and
his approval of him in a despatch home, while - at the same time - alluding
gently to one of Pakenham’s failings, “…Pakenham may not be the
brightest genius…”.
Pakenham, genius or not, remained in
the Peninsula, being confirmed as a major general, appointed adjutant-general,
colonel of the 6th West India Regiment and a Knight Companion of the Bath (KB),
all in 1813. By the end of the Peninsular War, he had distinguished himself in
eight major actions, receiving the Army Gold Cross with four gold clasps in
recognition of his service. His star was in the ascendant in 1814, when he was
ordered to replace the late General Sir Robert Ross (the Man Who Burnt The
White House) in command of a force to operate against New Orleans during the
War of 1812 in North America. The impetuosity that had gained him objectives in
Spain proved to be a disadvantage when pitted, on his own responsibility,
against a resourceful and determined enemy and it was impatience and bad
planning that led to the British defeat at New Orleans and the death of
Pakenham on 8th January 1815 - by which time, ironically, peace had already
been signed between Britain and the USA.
Image reproduced by courtesy of Peter
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