Charles Stuart (Charles I) coins

@jamesicus, those are very impressive. I like the contrast (very impressionistic, as such) between the early Restoration portrait and the fact that they're milled.
A little aside: the first early Charles II halfgroat I got (no pics, yet), from the very first coinage, was milled. Naturally, I had to get one of the second coinage, which reverted to hammered. In the context of halfgroats, it almost evokes Elizabeth's experiment in milled coinage in the 1560s. Cool to see how, in higher denominations, milling was more consistent from the onset.

 

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Is there any evidence to date this 1644? I'm sceptical.

I'm querying it because the bust and crown style would be more suited to Briot's first milled Tower issues of 1631-2. In fact the bust punch could be the same as that used on the crown - see pic. The size fits because the crown is 19mm diameter. It might be slightly different to the scanned image, but I'm not sure if they used a single punch for shoulders, face & crown at this point in time. For shillings, the first time a single bust punch in place of three punches was used was Sharp E3 which was 5 or 6 years later. I don't know about other denominations though.

Another consideration is that there was only one Oxford double crown struck in 1644 and the style was completely different. Plus, were the provincial gold coins struck for circulation, or presentation pieces?

 

What a nice piece and great history.

Thank you for posting.

Please post more from this era (although my historical interest begins after the restoration, especially Queen Anne's reign-1702 to 1714).

 

Beautiful coin! My ancestor, Thomas Carrier, was allegedly the man who executed Charles I. He had an interesting life.

 

I once had several Charles I coins and medals, but sold them all except for this one small medalet:

England 1625, Marriage of Charles I to Henrietta Maria. Obv. Busts face to face; above, celestial rays. He, head bare, wears ruff, doublet buttoned, and George of the Garter suspended to riband; she, hair jeweled, wears earrings, necklace, dress, and stiff ruff, CH. MAG. ET. HEN. MA. BRIT. REX. ET. REG [Charles the Great, and Henrietta Maria, King and Queen of Britain] / Rev. Cupid walking, right, scattering roses and lilies, above, celestial rays, FVNDIT. AMOR. LILIA. MIXTA. ROSIS [Love pours out lilies mixed with roses (alluding to the union of the lilies of France with the roses of England)]; in exergue: 1625. AR 24 mm. Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. I p. 238 No. 1 (1885, reprinted 1969); Eimer 105A.

 

Wow, @jb_depew, Please, tell us more!

Wow, @jb_depew, Please, tell us more!
...Looks from here as if this would be of serious relevance to this thread. Especially since it so resonantly gravitates toward the Civil War end (...) of the reign.
(Most of my Puritan ancestors --dozens-- had the wit to migrate to New England before the festivities were well underway. You'd also be cordially welcome to write me from the 'Conversions' function. ...No, consider the source, but I really think some of it belongs here.)

 

@+VGO.DVCKS - I'm happy to elaborate. Thomas Carrier, my great grandfather 8 times over, was Welsh and served in the personal guard of Charles I. He was of extraordinary height for the era (nearly 7' tall allegedly) which could have been a qualifier for his position in the guard. Supposedly, on the day of Charles' execution, the executioner could not be found, and so my grandfather had to step in and lop off the king's head. Fast forward in time, he immigrated to Massachusets and was married to Martha Carrier, who was later executed in the Salem witch trials. In her defense, she was the only "witch" who never confessed. Thomas lived to be either 109 or 113 years old (depending on the source) and was in excellent health in his advanced age, supposedly without gray hair even after the age of 100 and being able to carry a heavy sack of corn the long distance between Colchester, CT and Glastonbury, CT... a distance of 15 miles each way according to Google maps. When I saw the coin of Charles I, I couldn't help but share this weird little bit of my family history.

 

Wow. I just looked at the Wikipedia article, which names about 8 different candidates for the executioner (who wore a mask), but not your ancestor. Would you prefer it if he were absolved, or if he really did it? Are you also descended from Martha Carrier? If so, also something to dine out on!

 

Thank you, @jb_depew! That's Just Brilliant. No, All of it. Wow.
...The only Salem witch I have any known connection to was Susannah Martin, the stepmother of someone in the direct line. She also protested her innocence, in memorably emphatic terms. ...Thank you, didn't help very much.
But the story of your ancestor Thomas's, um, critical participation in the execution is fantastic.
Beheading was already considered a much more humane form of execution than hanging, especially before the invention of modern nooses and gallows. Which was the alternative punishment for treason (...and, what, everything down to petty theft), where the culprit would be near-literally 'strung up.' No fun at all. ...With (insufficient) apologies, the guillotine was invented out of comparable humanitarian motives; the ruthless efficiency served to ensure that death would be instantaneous.
...Of course, a good axeman could do the same job nearly as quickly, but real skill was involved. Modern hanging, and the guillotine, were mostly about leaving less to chance. ...Although, if memory serves, when the surviving conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln were hung, all in a row, from a specially-constructed gallows, one of them didn't have an instanteous broken neck, and strangled, in front of God and the assembled audience.

 

I got some examples i will post tomorrow but wonder if these I just got are in the same realm, sorry for the crap pics.

 

I haven't read the Wikipedia article but there are many resources available through a Google search on both he and his wife Martha Carrier. Interesting stuff! I am a natural skeptic, but my sense is that you could divide the stated facts (or legend) by 2 and the result would still be an extraordinary life.

 

All I know about such things is from reading various novels and a few articles, but it's my understanding that beheading was a privilege of nobility and royalty. And that beheading by ax was generally considered more efficient than beheading by sword, the more traditional method. A French executioner was famously imported to carry out Anne Boleyn's execution by sword to insure a quick result, and managed to achieve it in one blow.

Being hanged -- and drawn and quartered for treason -- was both more painful and more gruesome. I can never remember the difference between the long and the short drop, but know that one -- I would guess the latter -- was quicker because the neck was broken immediately.

Most painful of all, of course, was burning. Which might have been Anne's fate had Henry not shown mercy.

 

Off the top of my head, those are looking very 16th century, maybe into the 17th. Looking like they're German, or maybe to either side, Austrian or Low Countries. Sorry that not even the coat of arms is telling me anything; betting someone else here has a much better idea.
...So Yes, you're definitely in the right neighborhood! You've got a seriously good eye. Sorry for the Yoda, but Far, You Will Go.

 

To me that is a really beautiful coin, Donna - thank you for posting it! I do not have a deep knowledge of the historical significance of many coins of this period - would you tell us more about the marriage commemorated by this coin and its historical significance?

I like the term “Medalet”.

 

@DonnaML, you're spot on about the techniques. One of my ancestors was the notorious Edmund Mortimer, hung in 1335, once Edward III had gotten out from under the effective dictatorship of Edmund and his consort, Edward's mother, Isabella of France. He was spared the drawing and quartering part, but the hanging involved being elevated from the ground with the noose around his neck (hence the phrase 'strung up;' also used for lynching in this great land of ours); in other words, strangulation. Not even a short drop. ...Nope, No Fun At All. The noose as we know it was designed some time in the 19th century, again out of 'humanitarian' concerns, by way of inducing neck breakage, as you noted. ...Your reference to short vs. long drops goes sailing over my head, but intuitively, with that kind of noose, a longer drop would likely have a better chance of a quick, er, dispatch.

 

Henrietta Maria was the daughter of the King of France (and hence a Catholic, not popular in England), so their marriage in 1625 was a reflection of Charles's pro-French policy. (Thus the symbolic union on the medal between the roses of England and the lilies of France, noted above.) She long outlived her husband, surviving until after the Restoration. Notably, the colony (now state) of Maryland was named after her. (Just think: if her other name had been chosen, we would have the state of Henriettaland instead!)

The Wikipedia article on her gives a detailed account of the marriage and of her life in general: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Maria.

 

Yes it is. As @DonnaML knows from earlier posts, I had one, holed and much more worn --literally; the wear patterns suggested someone having had it around their neck. ...For a while; maybe as late as the Civil War period. It had beautiful blue toning; have always regretted selling it in one of what used to be regularly-scheduled rent emergencies, something like 25 years ago.

 

...Thanks, @DonnaML, for your explication of the context. Which is Just Fine, Thank you, despite your protestations about what you've read. ...All I have on the period is a collection of very general secondary sources (how general? covering the entire 17th century --for England, but, Still...), and two on the reign of Charles II.
Especially in light of @jamesicus's magnificent crowns, it's worth noting that Charles II spent his exile, up to his coronation in 1660 (hence the Restoration), on the Continent, primarily in France. He was a 'Crypto-Catholic,' being given Last Rites by a priest on his deathbed in 1685.
Charles II had Batches of children, several of whom he ennobled ...but none of them legitimate. His younger brother and successor, James II, legislated all sorts of religious toleration, not only for Catholics but for Protestants to the left of the Anglican consensus --including, if memory serves, Quakers. But he was much more forthcoming about being a practicing Catholic ...which was enough to p-ss people off. He was overthrown in 1688. ...That's where the term 'Jacobite' comes from, in reference to adherents of the Stuarts into the 18th century.

 

I have not researched this subject sufficiently to offer any meaningful comments here, let alone be skeptical regarding the dating.

 

@jamesicus, do you remember the source of the 1644 date? I was so taken with your coin weight that I did Google and VCoins searches for other examples, and saw nothing attributing the weight to any particular year. I suspect one would have to look at the Withers book, which is apparently the standard authority on British coin weights.

In fact, when I noticed one in decent condition for sale by Ken Dorney and saw how relatively inexpensive it was (certainly compared to almost any actual coin of Charles I, in any metal), I couldn't resist and bought it. Dorney described it as follows, with no specific date:

Charles I, 1625 - 1649
AE Double Crown Weight, Traveling Mint, 17mm, 4.51 grams
Obverse: CAROLVS REX, Crowned bust of Charles left small B below (Nicolas Briot, die cutter).
Reverse: Crown above X over S [ = 10 shillings].
Withers 992
ex James Pickering Collection.

I'll take the risk of posting the photo now, even though it hasn't been delivered yet:



Edited to add: now I'm completely confused, given Ken Dorney's identification here last year, when he was still a member, of the former owner of the James Pickering Collection. Do you have two of these weights, or did I just buy the the same weight that you just posted here?