The Morpeth Great Mace

During the recent and successful Congress held by the Institute at Newcastle, the Mayor and Corporation of Morpeth exhibited in the temporary museum, formed in the Black Gate, their great mace ; and as that mace is a little singular in form, and otherwise of much interest, I propose to describe it rather carefully, and to compare its heraldry with the heraldry of Naworth Castle : the reason for this will presently appear.In form the Morpeth great mace, which is 2 feet 2-J inches long, is simple, consisting of a shaft with three knops, and a bell-like bowl, whose sides contract towards the top, or " tumble home," as a sailor would say.The mace is silver, but the bowl ancl knops are gilt.The knops are much flattened spheroids, and are best described by being likened to oranges without their skins.The bowl has a cresting formed of thirty fleurs-delys ; on its top, or table, which is four inches in diameter, is a small flat boss, two inches in diameter, surrounded by a similar cresting of fifteen fleurs-de-lys.On this boss a shield is engraved bearing the royal arms, as used by the Stuarts, 1603-1689, enamelled in their proper colours, viz.: Quarterly, 1 and 4 grand quarters, Erance modern and England quarterly ; second grand quarter, Scotland ; third grand quarter, Ireland ; above the shield is the date 1604, filled in with dark blue enamel.This is the usual place for the royal arms on civic maces.Below the cresting of the bowl is a narrow band five-sixteenths of an inch wide bearing the following inscription, in two lines, in italic characters

Mace · Internal Medicine · Medicine · melanin and skin pigmentation