AN EDWARDIAN SCOTTISH SILVER FREEDOM CASKET PRESENTED TO THE PRIME MINISTER HERBERT ASQUITH, BROOK & SON, EDINBURGH, 1909 the bombé case with foliage, rocaille and diaperwork panels surrounding one cartouche engraved with the city's arms within the banner 'Sigillum Comune Burgi de Edinburgh', the cartouche to the reverse inscribed 'TO MY FRIEND / ALBERT LEVY / FROM / OXFORD & ASQUITH', the domed rectangular lid similarly decorated around the presentation inscription and below a bud finial, the interior stamped 'MANUFACTURED BY BROOK & SON. GOLDSMITHS TO THE KING. 87 GEORGE STREET EDINBURGH.'; complete with original vellum Freedom document (or 'Burgess Ticket') admitting and receiving '...The Right Honourable / HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH / K.C., M.P., / a Burgess and Guild Brother of the City...' -- casket 25.5cm wide, 1641gr (52oz) including blue velvet lining The presentation inscription to the lid reads: Presented by the Corporation of Edinburgh along with the Burgess Ticket conferring the Freedom of the City on the Right Honourable Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister of Great Britain, 20th December 1910. The Right Honourable William Slater Brown, Lord Provost. Herbert Henry Asquith (1852-1958), following a training in the law, started his political career as a Liberal MP for East Fife. Following a stint as Gladstone's Home Secretary and a decade during which the Liberals were out of power, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1906. Upon Campbell-Bannerman's resignation (and swiftly subsequent death) in 1908 he became Prime Minister. Famous for ambitious social welfare legislation, building up the Royal Navy and ending the House of Lords' veto, he resigned in 1916, partly as a result of the failure to make progress in the war and because of Lloyd George's intrigues against him. Never holding office again, he accepted a peerage as Earl of Oxford in 1925, dying three years later.