Charles I memento mori

Memento mori medallion of Charles I. The front of the medallion is decorated with an enamelled portrait of Charles I. The reverse has enamelled decoration of the letters 'CR' (for ‘Carolus Rex’, meaning ‘King Charles’) underneath a crown. Below that is a skull and cross bones flanked by the numbers 16 and 48, a reference to the year of Charles I’s execution. Today we refer to the year of the execution as 1649 but many records and objects at the time recorded the date as 1648. This is because they were using the old Julian calendar in which a new year began on 25 March instead of 1 January. Jewels with King Charles I’s initials or portrait were circulated among Royalist supporters. Some were produced to inspire devotion but many were issued after his execution with inscriptions mourning his death or exhorting his followers to remember him.