● Next Meeting Status:

Cancelled

● Host Society for the

 BANS 2011 Congress

held in Southport

The Tower Coins of Charles I

A New ‘Transitional’ Category Proposed

The London coinage of Charles I is usually described as being from ‘the Tower mint under the King’ or ‘the Tower mint under Parliament.’

Our member Chris Leather proposes that this is not strictly accurate, and that there is a ‘Tower Mint  transitional issue’ which deserves recognition, and a separate listing. This will aid the understanding of the chronology of the transfer of power at the Mint at the start of the English Civil War

The English Civil War has left a confused but interesting pattern of coinages, from the Tower Mint, and from a number of Provincial mints. Spink lists the Tower coinages in one section with a compound title: Tower under the King 1625-1642 and under Parliament 1642-49.

Within this listing, individual coin types are described and assigned either to King or Parliament based on style and issue mark. With no dates on the coins, we can place individual coins in sequence by means of issue marks, which are dated according to when the relevant Trial of the Pyx was held. All the coins with issue marks up to and including Triangle In Circle are given to the King, and all the subsequent coins starting with issue mark (P) are given to Parliament.

This suggests a neat changeover, where change in management resulted in a change of issue mark. This is not the case, however, and I believe that there should be a revision of categories as follows:

1. Tower Mint under the King 1625 – 1641 all the coins with issue marks up to and including Star.

2. Transitional Issue 1641-1643 all the coins with issue mark Triangle in Circle.

3. Tower Mint under Parliament 1643-1649 all the subsequent coins starting with issue mark (P)

The Trial for coins with issue mark Star was held on 15th July 1641 and the Trial for coins with issue mark Triangle in Circle was held on 29th May 1643. All the Triangle in Circle coins would have been produced within this period.

What is quite definite is that all the coins with issue mark Star were issued under the King, and that all the coins with issue mark (P) were issued under Parliament. We need to consider how the Triangle In Circle coins fit in between the two.

Where to next?

Coins with issue mark Star were Tried on 15th July 1641  ◄

Coins with issue mark  Triangle-in-Circle were Tried on 29th May 1643

Coins with issue mark (P) were struck after 29th May 1643 ►

▲Tower Mint seized by Parliament on 10th August 1642

Tower Mint Under The King

Tower Mint Under Parliament

▲

Coins struck with issue mark Triangle-in-Circle

►

◄

Coins struck with issue mark (P)

Coins struck with issue mark Star

The King left London on

10th January 1642

▼

▼

From the end of the Star period on 15th July 1641 until the King left London on 10th January 1642, at least, the Tower mint issued coins with issue mark Triangle-in-Circle under Royal authority, and possibly this continued until Parliament seized control of the mint on 10th August 1642. Coins from that date until the end of the Triangle-in-Circle period on 29th May 1643 were definitely issued under Parliamentary authority, even though retaining Royal types.

Given that this issue mark is the commonest for all Charles I coins, and huge quantities of silver were being struck – an average of some £80,000 per month over the whole period - it is most likely that production continued more or less without interruption. We cannot really doubt that Triangle-in-Circle coins were issued under both authorities, and should therefore be considered as a transitional issue.

Examining surviving examples show some struck reasonably well – perhaps these were the earlier pieces – and some struck very crudely, when presumably quantity was more important than quality – these may well have been the later pieces.

Perhaps further research into coin hoards may help clarify the sequence of issues, but in the meantime I believe it is helpful to regard the Triangle in Circle pieces as a separate and stand-alone category of Transitional coins due to the current impossibility of determining just which authority issued any particular coin.