Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria to coincide with the OMRS Convention

Admission Ticket No. 690 for the Trial of Simon, Lord Lovat in March 1747, issued by the Great Chamberlain (the Duke of Ancaster) and bearing his wax seal, framed and glazed together with the contemporary print “A Perspective View of Westminster Hall, with both Houses of Parliament assembled on the Tryal of Simon Lord Lovat” printed for and sold by Carington Bowles of 69 St.Pauls Churchyard, this with keys to the principal personages in attendence and general seating arrangements and part coloured by hand as was the practice, overall 14 1/4 x 29 1/4 ins., the ticket once firmly folded, the wax seal with hairline cracks but intact, otherwise in good condition and very rare. £500-600

Simon, Lord Lovat was thought to be about eighty years of age at the time of his trial in March 1747. Found guilty of High Treason, he was sentenced to death and lodged in the Tower prior to his execution at Tower Hill on 9th April. Word reached him that morning that one of the stands which had been erected to accommodate spectators had collapsed with loss of life, at which he is said to have remarked “The more mischief, the better sport”. A stocky figure somewhat crippled by arthritis, he was duly taken to Tower Hill by carriage and helped up the steps to the scaffold. On seeing the multitude assembled to witness his demise, he remarked “God save us, why should there be such a bustle about taking off an old grey head that can’t get up three steps without two men to support it?”

He was the last person in Britain to suffer death by the Headsman’s axe. He had hoped, and been led to expect, that his body would be conveyed to Scotland but it was interred in the Tower. His coffin was removed to the crypt of St.Peter ad Vincula in 1877 with those of his compatriots, William, Earl of Kilmarnock and Arthur, Lord Balmerino who had suffered the same fate on 18th August 1746.

Two years after his death, Lovat’s executioner was found guilty of murder and himself condemned to death. It is reported that he was haunted and terrified by the faces of all he had despatched during his term of office and was supposedly, therefore, the last to see the countenance of the doughty Lord.

PROVENANCE from the collection of the late Noel Woolf bought on commission from Spink and Son Ltd, 21st February 1973.