Peter Lely
Portrait of Edward Proger (1621-1713), 1650s
Oil on canvas
30 x 24 7/8 in. (76.2 x 63.2 cm)
Philip Mould & Co.
To view all current artworks for sale visit philipmould.com Edward Proger spent almost his entire life in royal service. He began his career as a page to Charles I in...
To view all current artworks for sale visit philipmould.com
Edward Proger spent almost his entire life in royal service. He began his career as a page to Charles I in 1636, and on his death in 1713 he was 92 years old and still a crown employee – the only former servant of Charles I still living. Born in the reign of James I, the first Stuart, he died in that of Queen Anne, the last, and was typical of those ardent royalists who never wavered in their allegiance to that house.
Proger, whose name derived from the welsh Ap Roger, was the son of Philip Proger of Gwernvale, Brecknockshire, an equerry to James I. During the Civil War, he served Charles I at the court in Oxford, and almost certainly fought in some of the battles of the time, probably that at Naseby. After the royalists were comprehensively defeated, he escaped into exile with Charles II, who appointed him one of the grooms of the bedchamber, a post he held until the King’s death in 1685.
Edward Proger spent almost his entire life in royal service. He began his career as a page to Charles I in 1636, and on his death in 1713 he was 92 years old and still a crown employee – the only former servant of Charles I still living. Born in the reign of James I, the first Stuart, he died in that of Queen Anne, the last, and was typical of those ardent royalists who never wavered in their allegiance to that house.
Proger, whose name derived from the welsh Ap Roger, was the son of Philip Proger of Gwernvale, Brecknockshire, an equerry to James I. During the Civil War, he served Charles I at the court in Oxford, and almost certainly fought in some of the battles of the time, probably that at Naseby. After the royalists were comprehensively defeated, he escaped into exile with Charles II, who appointed him one of the grooms of the bedchamber, a post he held until the King’s death in 1685.
Provenance
Probably by descent through the sitter’s eldest daughter, Philippa, at Gwernvale; Her husband Dr. Samuel Croxal (d.1751); His beneficiary, Mrs. Hester Bailiss; Purchased in 1789 by Rev. Henry Thomas Payne, archdeacon of Carmarthen; At Rushbrook Hall by the late 19th Century; Gallerie Charles Bruner, Paris; Private Collection, Argentina; Private Collection, USA.
Literature
‘West Stow Parish Registers 1558-1850’, Sydenham Hervey (Woodbridge 1903), p191; ‘Oxford Dictionary of National Biography’ (Oxford 2004), under the sitter’s entry. To be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Lely’s works, Millar, Dethloff and Macleod eds.