A coin that is part of my ancestry

I don't really collect 17th century, but I still like this coin. It's interesting, different, and very importantly, I, as someone with Spanish ancestry, feel a connection to (same thing with my Visigothic coins and my Lima-mint silver 2 reales). This is an old acquisition, bought during my first year of collecting ancients and other non-modern coins. I might have shown it years ago on another forum but this is the first time I've posted it here. As always, please post anything you feel is relevant.

Philip IV, Kingdom of Spain
AE 8 maravedis
Obv: PHILIPPVS · IIII · D · G , bare head right
Rev: HISPANIARVM REX · 1661 ·, crowned coat of arms , Y to left, MA sideways to right
Mint: Madrid
Date: 1661
Ref: Cal. 1420





Philip IV (Felipe in Spanish; Filipe in Portuguese) was born on April 8, 1605 in Valladolid, Spain, to Philip III and Margaret of Austria. At age 10 he was married to 13-year old Elisabeth of France, but possible meddling on the part of his chief minister, Olivares, might have contributed to the distant relationship between the two. Despite this, the couple had seven children, and Philip was considered to be a good father. In 1621, he succeeded his father as King of Spain and King of Portugal (as Filipe III, until 1640).

During his reign the Spanish Empire was at its largest extent, but it was already in decline by this time. Traditionally Philip IV was given the blame for this, since he supposedly was a weak ruler and a puppet of his advisers, but more recently has this viewpoint changed, and he is now considered a capable and intelligent ruler who was actively involved in the governance of his empire, and that it was factors ultimately out of his control that helped Spain's decline. Philip worked to improve the financial system in Spain's European colonies, but while this was successful, this caused tension and resentment among colonial officials, and foreign creditors took a toll on the empire's finances.

Philip's rule was also marked by the Thirty-Years War, a religious conflict between German Catholics and Protestants that turned into a general European war between Hapsburg and anti-Hapsburg forces. Spain achieved early successes, but France later entered the war. Revolts began to appear in Spanish territories, some instigated by France. Ultimately, Philip made peace with Spain's enemies, and the marriage of his daughter Maria Theresa to King Louis XIV helped end hostilities with France.

Spanish and Portuguese empires (as part of the "Iberian Union"), around 1600:



In his later years, Philip came to increasingly rely on God and faith. He did so with the help of a mystic known as Sister Maria de Ágreda, who supposedly connected with God on Philip's behalf and gave him advice.

The hardships and misfortunes that befell Spain led Philip to believe that he was a poor and ineffective ruler, and he died depressed on September 17, 1665. He was succeeded by his 4-year old son, Charles II.

His full title (by 1648): "Don Philip the Fourth, by the grace of God king of Castile, Leon, Aragon, the Two Sicilies, Jerusalem, Navarre, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Majorca, Minorca, Seville, Cerdagne, Cordoba, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, Algeciras, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, the Eastern and Western Indies, the islands and terra firma of the Ocean, archduke of Austria, duke of Burgundy, Brabant, Milan, count of Habsburg, Flanders, Tyrol, Barcelona, lord of Biscay and Molina, etc."

Spanish army during the 17th century:

 

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Very nice coin and terrific write up on an interesting time in history.

 

Nice write up!

 

Thank you for the kind words AA and ACG!

Almost forgot these, in case anyone wants to learn more about Philip and this era:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_Spain

http://madmonarchist.blogspot.com/2010/06/monarch-profile-king-philip-iv-of-spain.html?m=1

https://www.google.com/amp/www.biography.com/.amp/people/philip-iv-39076

 

Now, how cool is that? An interesting coin and nice write-up as always!

 

Excellent post, and coin.

 

Great post, ValiantKnight! Spain is awesome! It’s a beautiful country rich in great art, history, great food, and music, and beautiful—heroic people! I used to collect Spanish Civil War militaria. I still have some posters from the Spanish Civil War.

 

Great writeup and an interesting coin.

 

I have a picture of the tomb of Philip IV which I took in El Escorial, Spain, the summer Palace for the Spanish monarchs. He is the bottom tomb on the far right corner of the picture. This was taken in the royal burial vaults, where photography is strictly illegal and you can go to jail for snapping pictures. Being a young 20-something year old at the time, you better believe I ignored that and covertly photographed a lot of it.

How cool is that? Now you have a picture of the tomb of Philip IV to go along with the coin.



Here are a few more pictures from the Royal burial Vaults



It was quite a beautiful place to visit. Too bad they don't allow pictures of the inside, but if you are sneaky like I was, you can probably get away with it without getting caught. Here are some shots of the interior areas of the Palace.





And some outside shots, including one with me in the interior courtyard (where pictures were allowed).

 

Awesome.

 

Wow these are some really great photos! Really appreciate you sharing them Sallent thank you. I can imagine how much fun that trip must have been. I hope to visit Spain in the near future. In addition to the well-known places I also want to visit a small Catalonian town that I happen to share my last name with.

In the meantime, I think I can further connect to my ancestral homeland with some more Spanish coins

 

If you are in Catalonia and stop by either the town of Sabadell or Sallent, take some pictures for me. Sabadell was the birthplace of my great-grandfather, and Sallent (only 20 miles away) was actually founded by my ancestors in medieval times...and where my last name comes from.

 

Am currently a 20-something. Can confirm I would have done the same

 

Definitely will do if I get the chance. I need to do a family/geneological tree one day. Found out who my great great grandparents were when my grandfather showed me a copy of his birth certificate when I visited him and my grandmother, so I've gotten to at least the mid-late 1800s in on my father's side.

 

As far a physical records for family in the Catalonian region, I can only get as far back as early 1800s. The burning of churches in the area during the Spanish Civil War destroyed a lot of records. I doubt you'll be able to go much further back as far as actual records, though maybe through family stories you might be able to reconstruct some of that lost ancestry (keep in mind anything oral can be mistaken due to faulty memories, etc).

 

Great write-up. Love the story and the photos. Thank you for taking the time and effort to post them.

 

Thanks for the comments everyone!

 

@ValiantKnight I forgot to mention El Escorial has a massive royal library, and according to a sign on the door, by Papal Decree, anyone who is late in returning a book would suffer something like 100,000 years in purgatory, and stealing a book was automatically a one-way ticket to hell as well as excommunication. At least if you believe in that stuff from some Pope in the 1500s.

Shows you just how tight the relationship between Spanish monarchs and the papacy was at the time. King Henry VIII of England couldn't get the Pope to divorce him, but the Spanish Emperor Charles V could get the Pope to issue a Papal Bull regarding late books at his library.

 

In the Netherlands, where I grew up, King Philip II of Spain (1555-1598) was more or less the Big Bad Wolf, the man of the cruel 80 Years War that in the end liberated the Netherlands. However, that's a long time ago, no hard feelings, at all!
On the other hand, the Roman Empire was much, much longer ago, and I'm interested in the earliest coins from my part of the world.

In what was to be the Southern Netherlands lived the Celtic tribe of the Menapians. I'm associating them with the Dutch city of Tilburg (my brother was born in Tilburg). There was one usurpator, the anti-emperor Carausius, in full Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Valerius Carausius, who was a Menapian. A smart man, maybe a bit of a pirate on the side, but for a time (287-293) he managed to be the king of Britain, sort of. Sadly enough, Carausius had a mean and untrustworthy accountant, who murdered his boss when he was in dire straits: Allectus. Soon Allectus perished, and that was that.

I have a barbaric imitation of an antoninianus of Carausius, who must have been a large-jowled, thick-necked guy, so probably not a forefather of my family, he doesn't look one inch like my brother (which raises the question: do you know anyone looking like one of the Roman emperors?).
Anyway: here's the Emperor of Tilburg!

 

Not personally, but...













For more, see the old Totally Looks Like thread