Featured The Great Migration to America - Please post coins/medals of any period which link UK and America

Coronation in Scotland of the English king, Charles I
The Great Migration to America

An Artist’s View of London, AD 1633
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CAROLVS AVGVSTISS : ET INVICTISS : MAG : BRIT : FRAN : ET HIB : MONARCHA
AT VRBEM S : E : SOL ORBE M REDIENS
SIC REX ILLVMIN

During 1633, two significant events took place which had such historical impact that the modern world still feels their influence. The first was the coronation in Scotland of the English king, Charles I. As important as this was at the time, an even greater event occurred whose influence would carry forward not for decades but for generations, and this was the Great Migration of ordinary souls to America from England.

We should remember we are now just 33 years before the Great Fire of London that started in a baker’s shop on 2 September 1666, in Pudding Lane, close to London Bridge. The Great Fire of London raged for four nights and days. Over 13,000 houses, 87 churches and the main buildings in the City, including Old St Paul’s Cathedral, were destroyed. Incredibly, only six deaths were recorded, but as many as 200,000 people were left destitute. The great diarist and literary man, Samuel Pepys, recorded the events as follows:

“It is the year is 1633 in the 8th. year of the reign of our King Charles I of England. Know body had thought when our Charles ascended our British thrown in1625 in all ‘pomp and glory’, our British monarch would in the near future bring civil war to our Island and in the end he would lose his head in 1649. The King clearly believed in the divine right of Kings. Oliver Cromwell is a commoner and a Puritan; he changed the face of British history. Before you ask, yes Cromwell would have liked his son to be King of England but alas he was not for the thrown of England he was a farmer and was not interested in being the King of England, hence Charles II was welcomed back to England to be its King after Cromwell.”

The Great Migration to America

The year 1633 saw the beginning of the “Great Migration” to the New World, and this continued until the Civil War began almost a decade later. More than 30,000 emigrants in the nine years prior to the Civil War sailed from England to New England. They were from the English middle-class as desperate to find a place where they might live, worship, and raise their families without government harassment. In England there was church and government which was hierarchical, tyrannical, and tax-hungry. This resentment among the people led to the English Revolution beginning in 1642; and seven years later King Charles lost his head by the axe “for treason,” in 1649, after secret agents had intercepted his private invitations to foreign kings and their armies, asking that they invade England, finish off Parliament and terminate the English Constitution.

These, however, were affairs of the nobility, the rich and mighty. They were beyond the ken of the common man, the uneducated masses who laboured in the fields, who fought for king and country, who lived and died namelessly. Yet these people were the backbone of England. Many left for America, and became the backbone of the colonies, later of the new United States.

They left behind an England, a London, that has been idealized for centuries in the minds of countless millions of people. But it was not an ideal time. It was a moment in history when the very fabric of English life, and English law, was about to change forever. Within a few short decades it would no longer be the king who would make the laws and the parliament who would rubber-stamp them, but the reverse.

In 1633 began a great migration and a great transition. But what “hard memory” of these events has been left to us? What numismatic relic? Any?

Shown here is a superb medallion that was struck to commemorate our King Charles I who had travelled to Edinburgh in Scotland to have his Scottish Coronation, and was issued when he returned to London. This visit to Scotland was the King’s first since he left his native Scotland at the age of three with his family. His father was James VI of Scotland, and when his father came to England in 1603 he became James I of England.


Charles now was 33 years old, born in Fife, Scotland, on 19 November 1600, the second son of King James. Charles was a devout Anglican and married a Roman Catholic, Henrietta Maria of France, which was not popular at the time when anti-papist sentiment ran strong. He became King in 1625.

At this time Edward Greene was the king’s master engraver at the mint. When Greene died there came along two talented young men, Thomas Simon and Edward Wade, who were appointed joint mint masters under Parliament. Thomas Rawlins was the king’s own master engraver, and during the Civil War Rawlins resided at Oxford, where his intricate skills and inimitable style flowered. Doubtless, this master engraver was the artist of his time, and in fact his works on coins of the 1640s have secured his reputation as one of the finest of all artists who have worked in metal. Over the centuries, an artist’s skills are either forgotten or they become measures of their eras. We have only to think of the Greek engraver Kimon and of the Roman and Renaissance engravers.

Medallic London in 1633

The medallion illustrated here was struck, but a number were also cast. The reverse image depicted by the artist is of mid 17th-century London prior to the plague and great fire of 1666, a town made largely of wood, while on the obverse our king is seen triumphantly riding back to his capital city.

Only 11 years after Charles’ return from his coronation in Scotland, the engraver Rawlins would be resident in the king’s new capital city of Oxford, as the Civil War broke out. During this turbulent period, with battles raging all around him and the city fortified, Rawlins found time and inspiration to engrave the only English city scene known on a crown-sized piece, today known familiarly as the Oxford Crown. We may well ask, given the circumstances of its issuance, was Rawlins really not aiming to impress only his king but, also, his colleagues in Europe? I mention the Oxford Crown as there is an affinity between this city-view medallion of 1633 and his crown of 1644. And this leads to an even more important question: who influenced whom in the design? Compare the two pieces, and it must be asked: could Rawlins have engraved part of the 1633 medallion? It has long been attributed to Nicholas Briot, but was it really entirely his work?

The medallion is of simply magisterial quality, showing King Charles I riding his horse, holding his baton in his right hand and the reigns of his stallion in the other. The horse itself is of magnificent proportions, riding over arms and the grassland. The date 1633 is pronounced. The Tudor Rose and Crown appear on the rear of the horse’s upper hind quarter. The horse’s long main and flowing tail, and his mean proportions, with his front hoofs slightly lifted, present a monarch striding with great confidence, as one well mounted on his horse–and by extension, metaphorically, well in command of his State. Surely the king himself viewed this piece as a superb piece of propaganda.

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That's a cool medal, SwK ...

Ummm, am I allowed to count "North America" as America, or do you only want a US coin response?

... I have a couple of pretty cool ol' examples from Nova Scotia (New Scotland)

*edit* ... I later corrected myself ... these coins are from "New Brunswick"

Oooops, I posted my New Brunswick coins!! ... still cool (I'll update my comments)

NOTE: both of these sweet New Brunswick examples of mine come from years where there were only 150,000 coins minted ... oh my!!



=> pretty cool, eh? ... "20" cent coins!! (you don't see that every day, eh?)

 

great cool information, never stop learning, please tell more of the history between the Britain and early Canada

regards
Jeff

 

Stevex6

Interesting also the die was either filling up or breaking it started reading PRUNSWICK.

For interest I have an Irish Charles II hallfpenny that in the ledgend instead of reading FRA it reads very clear IRA

R
Jeff

 

Hey, thanks for showing interest in my stuff ... yah, I'm not sure if the Prunswick thing makes it more, or less collectible?

... man, I love the looks of these sweet ol' Vicky coins (great portrait)

 

The more famous American shilling dated 1652 being much more expensive, I just added this to my collection in the mean time.

 

lovely SWK..and a nice write up!

I looked for something to post, this is a close to relevant as I could get. George III certainly is big figure in American history.

 

Fabulous medal @SwK !

I have nothing relevant to contribute.

 

Going back a bit closer to the OP's start of the topic:



Charles I's Scottish coronation was fraught with disaster, he delayed it nearly 8 years after his English coronation. His baggage train including the crown jewels was lost in a storm in the Firth of Forth. He insisted on an Anglican service instead of a Presbyterian service. This silver medal was distributed by the King after his coronation, it was minted by Nicholas Briot and reflects the best of 17th century minting technique. One of these was struck in gold and kept by the King.

 

The end of his rule was even more of a disaster.

 

His whole reign was one disaster after another. In Scotland it is alleged that he got the bad side of a witch who cursed his reign when it took him so long to return to Scotland. His father James VI(I) was described as the wisest fool in Christendom, but Charles I was the biggest fool.

And his reign and all the aspects of it had many effects on American history.

 

Roger Williams was a Puritan who was forced to leave England in 1620. His views were even too radical for Plymouth Colony and he was forced to find his own land. He founded the colony of Rhode Island in 1636. This coin commemorates the 300th anniversary of the founding of Providence.

 

I always believe it curious that the very people searching for religious freedom were quite often very intolerant of other religions.

 

Excellent write-up. Beautiful Medal. I very much like the London reverse. In fact I have something related.

Here is my Jacobite Medal showing what I believe to be one of the first medals to show London after the Great Fire.



George I and James III, The South Sea Bubble (Appeal against the House of Hannover), Silver Medal (50 mm, 51 gm.) 1721, by O. Hamerani EF Rare
Obv: VNICA SALVS, Bust of the Pretender James III right,
Rev: QVID GRAVIVS CAPTA, Britannia seated weeps as the Horse of Hanover tramples on the Lion and Unicorn, behind a family escape with a few possessions, view of the City of London in the distance
Eimer 493

 

What a great thread and coins.

I especially like the historically significant medal with its Jacobite propaganda from 4to2centBC .

Quick refresher: Jacobites were those who wanted the return of King James II and his son James III, as well as their later heirs, to the throne. The crown had been usurped by James II's daughters, first Mary (with her Dutch husband William) and later Anne. After neither Mary and William nor Anne produced any surviving heirs, Parliament looked to the Hanoverians in Germany for an acceptable sovereign. The Hanoverians, starting with George I, ascended the throne with Queen Anne’s death in 1714.

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/british-the-queen-has-died.249659/

The Hanoverians had bypassed dozens of others who were closer in the hereditary order to the throne. These other claimants were passed over because they were not Protestant.

This medal was issued as a result of the financial crisis and chaos precipitated by the South Sea Bubble during George I’s reign. The South Sea Bubble was a stock fraud that resulted in the loss of many fortunes and the ruin of many reputations. Before the financial hoax was exposed and the stock market collapsed, however, George I, his mistress, and several prominent members of his cabinet had benefited, frequently from unethical insider dealings of the South Sea stock.

As he mentioned, the obverse of the coin is of James III (later known as the Old Pretender). The inscription VNICA SALVS means “the only safeguard.” This suggests that only the return of the “rightful” heirs could protect Britain from the plundering and greed of the Hanoverians.

The reverse of the coin is fascinating. A Hanoverian horse (representing George I and his court from Hanover) tramples over a lion (England) and a unicorn (Scotland). To the left Britannia weeps while the now impoverished citizens flee London across London Bridge and out of the city with their few remaining and meager belongings.

The legend QVID CRAVIVS CAPTA on the reverse means (I think) “what is more calamitous than a captured city.”

This medal is a powerful indictment of the moral decay supposedly caused by the foreign Hanoverian "usurpers" with their corrupt minsters.

Great coin and great history. Thank you for this coin. And thank you everyone for the entire thread.

guy

 

"My tail's for sale. Half-a-crown will lay me down!"

The line is from Kathleen Winsor's infamous 1944 historical novel "Forever Amber", which was set in England during the Restoration period of King Charles II, approximately 1660-1670.

The main character, young and beautiful Amber St. Clare, decides to improve her lot in society by attaching herself to successively wealthier men. She finally becomes a mistress of Charles II.

On her way up, Amber has a brief career as a stage actress, and during one performance, she wonders why people are laughing at her when she turns around.

She discovers that a rival has pinned a sign to the back of her dress which reads:
"My tail's for sale. Half-a-crown will lay me down!".


Great Britain Charles II Half Crown 1663 - 33mm 14.32gm

The book ends with Amber being tricked by two noblemen into sailing to America.

 

Chuck was a busy boy. Fathered at least 27 illegitimate children, many of whose descendants are the scions of British society to this day - Camilla Parker Bowles being such a notable. Charles commented of his younger brother's mistresses that surely they must have been proscribed as a penance since they were so ugly.

 

The War of 1812:


http://www.mint.ca/store/coin/5-oz-pure-gold-coin-hms-shannon--uss-chesapeake-mintage-200-2013-prod1680016?rcmiid=link|search|searchresults|5_oz_Pure_Gold_Coin_-_HMS_Shannon_USS_Chesapeake_-_Mintage_200_2013&#.VxS_rDArKUk

 

The War of 1812:

http://www.mint.ca/store/coin/200th...f_Fine_Silver_Dollar_Coin_2012_&#.VxVIQDArKUk

 

The War of 1812:

http://www.mint.ca/store/coin/fine-...War_of_1812_-_Mintage_2000_2012&#.VxVIjzArKUk