Discovered in a potato barn in a small Devonshire village in 1827 (fig. I), the ‘Armada Service’ is one of the most important groups of English silver to have been found in England. It consists of a set of twenty-six parcel-gilt dishes, engraved with the arms of Sir Christopher Harris of Radford, Devon (c. 1553–1625), and those of his wife, Mary Sydenham (fig. 2). The dishes form part of the dining silver accumulated by Sir Christopher between 1581 and 1602, whenever cash or metal was available to be converted by London goldsmiths into this recognized, tangible evidence of wealth and social status. The ‘Armada Service’ is the unique survival of a type of utilitarian plate which is listed in the inventories of the gentry and aristocracy of the late Tudor and early Stuart periods. Undecorated plate of this sort would have been particularly vulnerable in times of financial need, since its bullion value far outweighed its decorative appeal.
This article revisits a locus classicus of British Catholic History, the interpretation of the coin-hoard found in 1611 by the Lancashire squire William Blundell of Little Crosby.1 This article offers new information, approaching the Harkirk silver from several perspectives: Mark Blundell offers a memoir of his ancestor William Blundell, as well as lending his voice to the account of the subsequent fate of the Harkirk silver; Professor Jane Stevenson and Professor Peter Davidson reconsider the sources for William Blundell’s historiography as well as considering wider questions of memory and the recusant community; Dr Dora Thornton analyses the silver pyx made from the Harkirk coins in detail, and surveys analogous silverwork in depth.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.