I've just got my first piece of these great coins, for a bargain price. Anyway it's a shilling, but instead of a date it says either 1 then 10 below or r 10 below, this is what I have marked it up as a 10r coin, but obviously it's the other way round. What does this mean ?
What examples of these do you have ? They are fantastic to show the history of the country and mark the end of the Catholic heads of house of Stuart. Well, I think it did as I believe Anne wasn't too bothered and Mary just did what her husband told her like a good woman should. :P
Along with the Royalist siege money from the 1640's, James II gun money is probably the most historically interesting series ever. I'd love to pick up a piece or two.
As far as I am aware, gun money wasn't intended for general circulation although it ended up that way because of coin shortages. It was made from obsolete cannons along with anything else that could be seized and melted down as a way to pay the troops and the army's provisioners. The month is included on the coins so that once James was victorious a correct amount of interest could be paid to the holder, rather like Confederate war bonds.
James was the last Stuart king and arguably the last English monarch. The claims of his successors were somewhat flimsy. Half of the Windsor (Sax-Gotha) lineage was fighting against Britain during WWII. The early Hanoverian rulers were a bunch of inbred degenerates who considered England a foreign country, no wonder the Americans left us! It wasn't until the glorious Victoria that the English monarchy dragged itself out of the gutter.
I visited the battlefield at Culloden as a child and have had a fascination with the Jacobite cause ever since.
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
Yeah, I know that's why George stripped all of his foreign relatives of their titles and renamed the house in WWI wasn't it ? Going to Catholic school we learned about this in history and as we got older we got to know William as William the bastard lol. I think it was a disgrace that the government betrayed their king and invited a foreigner to rule their land.
You would have thought maybe Anne would have done something about that!
Yeah the Georgians were strange although at least mad George was born and lived in England, unlike his predecessors; George I never even set foot in England did he ?
Jacobite sentiment was still strong in the North of England in the post war years. Old men would drink a toast to "The little gentleman in the black velvet coat", One of the Hanoverians, possibly the Butcher of Cumberland was killed when his horse stumbled on a molehill.
If Charles Stuart would have had at least one military advisor of the calibre of Prince Rupert who served Charles I so well, the Jacobite army would not have halted at Derby in 1745 with the road to London wide open and the Hanoverians poised to flee.
The early Hanoverians spoke heavily accented English and made no secret of their contempt for their subjects. This feeling resurfaced during WWII where the deposed Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor) disobeyed orders to retreat towards Calais during the fall of France and actively supported the German cause. The shift in strategy by the Luftwaffe from attacking RAF airfields to bombing the civilian population was due at least in part to the advice of "our" ex-King. Churchill wanted to put him on trial for treason but the Palace intervened and he was exiled to The Bahamas for the duration where he became involved in some dubious activities. After 1945 he continued his exile in Paris.
I have the utmost respect for the English monarchy, particularly Elizabeth, but they have a lot of murky secrets which the UK press doesn't publish.
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
I know it's one of the most corrupt things out there.. lol
It's a shame the Jacobites didn't prevail, it is worng that a foreigner should be invited to take charge and ruined history in my own opinion :S lol
Saying that I wouldn't change anything - the Victorian era changed the world as we know it !
Here is the shilling I have. The obv is a bit worn, I think it may have spent time in the ground looking at it but it's still an awesome piece and worth having; although I will look for a better one in the future. I will not be letting this one go as the reverse is great except for the slight mis-strike.
Quote: Mark240590It's a shame the Jacobites didn't prevail, it is worng that a foreigner should be invited to take charge and ruined history in my own opinion :S lol
Saying that I wouldn't change anything - the Victorian era changed the world as we know it !
I loved the episode of Blackadder goes fourth when Blackadder is interrogating Captain Darling. Darling blurts out "I'm not a spy, I'm as English as the Queen" and Blackadder replies "So your father's German, you're half-German, and you married a German?"
The greatest strength of Englishmen is their abilty to laugh at themselves.
Of course if one of those Johnny Foreigners said the same thing we would just have to declare war on them. What other nation could have fought a war called "The War of Jenkin's Ear"?
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
Yeah it is, I love stuff like this. It's an important part of who us Brits are today ! Same as my Queen Anne shilling dated 1707 - I have the union type but there is also a type which shows her as a separate entity for Scotland too..
I am desperate for a Commonwealth penny too !
Just found out that the Anne shilling I have was re-struck after the union of Scotland into Great Britain on the coinage of which it was classed as a separate entity, so I guess that explains the bending on it, and to some extent the odd digs !
