The games board is thought to have been owned by King Charles I, who may have inherited it from his father King James I (1566-1625) or his elder brother Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594-1612); it later came into the ownership of the Hesketh family of Rufford Hall, Lancashire and Easton Neston, Northamptonshire.
According to Hesketh family tradition (recorded in 1855), the board was bequeathed by King Charles I to his close confidant, William Juxon, bishop of London, on the day of his execution, January 30, 1649.
If the tradition is to be believed, the games board subsequently descended in the Juxon family and was conveyed to the Heskeths in the 18th century. The possible Stuart royal provenance is given credence by the superlative quality of the games board which can be attributed to the leading practitioner of the day, Georg Schreiber, the celebrated ‘master of royal chess-sets’.
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