‘Capitanus Stone’

Abstract

Chapter 13 examines the administration of the Commonwealth Sale and the identity and political activities of Capt. John Stone, leader of the Sixth Dividend, to whom a Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo da Vinci was disbursed on 23 October 1651. Stone, traditionally understood as a Royalist sympathizer, is unveiled as a member of Oliver Cromwell’s Council of State. The chapter reviews the fate of royal goods disbursed to Stone, their locations during the Interregnum, and the goods returned at the Restoration in 1660 from documentary evidence contained in a master inventory of goods disbursed to the Sixth Dividend between 1651–3 and Parliamentary papers. A ‘virtual inventory’ of goods belonging to the Sixth Dividend is provided in the Appendix.