Edward Alfred Jones

“ The earliest ceremonial maces, as they afterwards became, though at first intended to protect the king’s person, were those borne by the serjeants-at-arms, a royal body-guard established in France by Philip II., and in England probably by Richard I. By the 14th century a tendency towards a more decorative serjeant’s mace, encased with precious metals, is noticeable. The history of the civic mace (carried by the serjeants-at-mace) begins about the middle of the 13th century, though no examples of that period are in existence to-day. ”

“ A mace of an unusual form is that of the Tower ward of London, which has a head resembling the White Tower in the Tower of London, and which was made in the reign of Charles II. The beautiful mace of the Cork gilds, made by Robert Goble of Cork in 1696 for the associated gilds, of which he had been master, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, where there is also a large silver mace of the middle of the 18th century, with the arms of Pope Benedict XIV., which is said to have been used at the coronation of Napoleon as king of Italy at Milan in 1805. ”

“ Among other maces, more correctly described as staves, in use at the present time, are those carried before ecclesiastical dignitaries and clergy in cathedrals and parish churches and the maces of the universities. ”