Historically silver astronomical verge watch Circa 1660

Historically significant silver astronomical verge with engraving
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An English verge pocket watch, fire gilt full plate movement, circa 1660. Screwed-on florally decorated pierced balance cock, plain steel balance, worm and wheel set-up, Egyptian pillars, concentric astronomical gilt and silver dial indicating months and number of days in the month, date, hours, age of the moon, twice times twelve hours and moon-phases within a fixed night sky, silver inner case and silver outer case, back centred by an engraving of Charles I in prayerbased on a seventeenth-century engraving by William Marshall (1617 – 1649), large flower heads framing the scene and to the bezel.
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Diameter: 58 mm
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Signed: Richard Bowen Londini Feci
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Richard Bowen (c.1636-1677) was apprenticed to Robert Smith in 1650 and was free of the Clockmakers’ Company in 1657. The engraving on the outer case is a faithful rendering of a scene after William Marshall (1617-1649), produced immediately following Charles I’s execution in 1649. It was used for a frontispiece Eikon Basilike published the same year. The Eikon Basilike contains a combination of prayers and contemplations, supposedly by Charles I right before his death. The book portrays him as a martyred, pious king, and was published shortly after his beheading. It is most likely the engraving was done about the same time as the watch was made or soon after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and before Bowen’s premises were burnt down during the Great Fire in 1666. Certainly, the large flower heads framing the scene are commensurate with this period. On the back of the inner case a young man in doublet and hose listens to a figure in a heavenly cloud whose words are engraved within a ribbon – ‘And what I sai to you, I sai to all, watch’ – suggesting Charles II being encouraged by his father. One imagines this may have been some sort of rallying cry for royalists during the Civil War – they should watch, not lose heart, and be ready! In any event, double meanings in general and the guardedness that they afforded had, no doubt, been especially popular and continued to be so.