Pair of silver-gilt flagons with pear-shaped bodies, scrolling handles and double pomegranate thumbpieces, on circular spreading feet; chased all over with overlapping ostrich feathers with a plain circular panel at the front chased with the Stuart arms; the lids are chased with a DJ cypher and coronet. This pair of flagons is very similar to another pair of flagons (RCIN 31756), supplied for Charles II around 1660. For many years, this cypher was believed to represent the conjoined letters DL, but since the same cypher appears on some of the Duke of York's bookbindings, the cypher is therefore almost certainly the Duke of York's and probably represents a conjoined D and inverted J for Dux Jacobus (Duke James). The Duke was perhaps emulating Louis XIV, who used a similar conceit for his cypher. The unusual form and feather decoration of both pairs of flagons appear to be a deliberate and perhaps symbolic re-creation of early sixteenth century feathered flagons: the 1521 Jewel House inventory included 'two great gilte pottis chased wt fetheres.' The 1649 Jewel House inventory listed 'one great fether pott' and 'one old fethered ewer with a broken handle'. These may have been part of the new plate ordered by James I to replace the 14,000 ounces of Jewel House plate given to the Tsar of Russia in 1604. Many of these pieces reproduced the portcullises, roses and 'feather fashion' of the Tudor plate they replaced. Both pairs of flagons were often described as 'potts' rather than flagons in Jewel House inventories, a reference to their anachronistic pear-shaped form. They are recorded in the 1721 inventory as being in Whitehall Palace Chapel, and are described as, '2 gilt ffeather potts 419.0.0'. They also appear in the 1832 inventory.