The sword is inscribed: “To Lieut. Colonel Lord Burghley of the 48th Northamptonshire Militia on the occasion of its second disembodiment”.
The ivory hilt is set with garnets above quillons and the scabbard with elaborate silver-gilt mounts in Renaissance taste, 92cm overall.
The sword is of a type known as a mameluke; the name derived from the sabres used by Mamluk warriors of Mamluk Egypt in the early 16th Century.
Lord Burghley (1825-1895) inherited the title as 3rd Marquess of Exeter on the death, of his father in 1867.
