A James II Silver Chocolate Pot, Maker's Mark TEB in Monogram (revised Jackson, p. 129), London, 1686

Symon Patrick , Bishop of Ely, to his great-great-great granddaughter

Emily Fosbery (1868), thence by descent, sold

Sotheby's, New York, April 12, 1995, lot 346

The Collection of Charles L. Poor, sold

Sotheby's, New York, Early English Silver from the Collection of the Late Charles L. Poor, October 26, 2005, lot 96

The inscription reads, "That it may not be forgotten that this belonged to Symon Patrick, sometime Bishop of Ely. his Great-Great-Great Granddaughter Emily Fosbery caused these words to be engraved A.D. 1868."

This is one of the earliest surviving English chocolate pots. While the base is fully marked for London, 1686, there are traces of additional earlier marks from the Commonwealth period, indicating the baseplate was cut from an older, marked piece of silver.

Simon Patrick (1626-177), bishop of Ely, was born in Lincolnshire, the son of a prosperous mercer and merchant. He attended Queen's College, Cambridge, from 1655 he was chaplain to Sir Walter St. John at Battersea, and from about 1658 to 1675 he was vicar of St. Mary's, Battersea.  In 1662 he became rector of St. Paul's, Covent Garden and held this wealthy living until 1689. He was considered an exemplary parish priest, particularly for staying with his parishioners during the plague of 1665. In 1671 he was made a royal chaplain "whether I would or no", and in 1675 he married Penelope Jephson. 

Patrick accepted the deanery of Peterborough in 1679 and was one of the defenders of Anglicanism at the court of James II. Under William and Mary he was named bishop of Chichester, then of Ely.  Alongside his parochial duties, he improved "the material fortunes of the diocese," reconstructed the bishop's palace at Ely, and purchased an estate at Dalham in Suffolk for his family before his death in 1707 (Oxford DNB).