SCOTTISH PRIDE! WORCESTER BOWL, C.1790

Scottish reconciliation period, two generations after Culloden when the Scottish rebels were broken and Scottish royalists tolerated at length. The pressures of war with America and France (with Spain waiting in the wings) demanded that England, with her Hanover king, enlist every resource. Despite their defeat, the voracity of the Scots was universally acknowledged and their military support was eagerly courted. The display of the thistle, an icon of Scottish pride, was forbidden by law (1746 Act of Proscription) before 1782. Yet, politics dictated that it be tolerated, and Scottish pride, insisted that it be displayed against the law which called for imprisonment for such a display, and merely a few years earlier, would have been fully enforced. The decade that followed saw it, along with the Scots for which it stood, rise to prominence, no more subjugated than during the Rebellion. 8 3/8” in diameter with central gold thistle. Slight surface degradation but no damage.