This gold penny of King Henry III (1216-72) marks the first attempt for some six hundred years to reintroduce a regular gold coinage in England, at a time when no other state north of the Alps was issuing such coins. The Fitzwilliam's gold penny, recently donated by Dr William Conte, is one of only eight known. This rarity is due to the short time for which the coins were issued: introduced in 1257, they were probably produced only for a little over a year.

An unsuccessful coinage

The issue of the new gold coinage was proclaimed on 16 August 1257, and the king’s goldsmith William of Gloucester made a first delivery of 466 marks of gold in the new coins (equivalent to 37,280 gold pennies) on 27 August. The new coinage was not a success, and in November 1257 the mayor and some representative citizens of London appeared before Henry III to present their objections to it. Professor David Carpenter has suggested that William of Gloucester’s production of the gold penny probably ceased some time before he made a further delivery of 190 marks of gold in new coins (equivalent to 15,200 gold pennies) in October 1258.

The short-lived nature of this coinage and its lack of commercial success must have made it likely to be reminted or simply melted down, and this presumably explains its rarity in finds. When Sir John Evans, President of the Royal Numismatic Society from 1874 to 1908 and a significant contributor to the Fitzwilliam's collections, published the first detailed study of the gold pennies of Henry III, in 1900, he was able to record only six specimens, and this new coin is the only additional specimen properly recorded since then. (An eighth coin is not available for study at present). Two of the specimens were acquired in Italy, and they may have been sent there by Henry III in diplomatic payments to the papal court. The remaining four coins recorded by Evans in 1900, which have known provenances beginning at various dates between 1762 and 1854, might possibly have come from an eighteenth-century hoard.

In the image of the Confessor

Henry III's depiction on this coin was a departure from established practice, which had for nearly two centuries confined itself to showing only a bust of the king. This superb depiction of the enthroned monarch is a splendid and ornate presentation of royalty, to match the prestige of the precious metal of the coin. The design seems to have been inspired by earlier coins of Edward the Confessor (1042-66), founder of Westminster Abbey (on which Henry lavished much attention) and an idealized type of king whom Henry was keen to be seen emulating. One of his coins of this type is shown below.

The gold penny and its portraiture thus tell us much about how Henry wished to be understood by those aware of such hidden communication, and adds an extra dimension to our sense of his rule.

Munificent donation

Henry III's gold penny is regarded as one of the most significant coins in the history of the English currency. This specimen was generously donated by Dr William Conte via Cambridge in America in 2007 after his acquisition of it in 1991.

Read your horoscope today?

The Persian couplet on the obverse (front) of this coin might be not mean much to most, but look closely at the friendly-looking lion and he can tell you something about this coin without you needing to learn Persian. The sun behind him shows he is Leo from the Zodiac: he tells us that the coin was made in the time of year when people with the star sign of Leo are born. He also reminds us that the symbols of the Zodiac - an everyday sight to us as we scan our horoscopes today -were also meaningful shorthand for people in medieval India, the generation before the Taj Mahal was built.

The Mughals: warriors and artists

To a reader of Persian the obverse of this coin can tell more: it declares who made it, where and when. It reads:

It was stuck by Jahangir (“World-Grasper”), the ruler of Mughal India, in AH 1029 (in the Christian calendar, 1618/19), at Agra, the then capital of the Empire.

The Mughals, who first invaded India in 1525 were a Muslim people descended from Ghengiz Khan. During the fifty-year rule of Akbar, Jahangir’s father, who he proudly emphasises on this coin, they created a vast empire which stretched across the Indian sub-continent as far to the west as Afghanistan, and as far south as the Godavari river. The Mughals, despite being continually involved in military campaigns to expand and protect their empire, also created a courtly culture where art, literature, science and architecture flourished. This extended to beautiful and innovative coin design.

Departing from the usual tradition of Islamic coins only showing text, in 1617 Jahangir (1605-1627), chose the signs of the Zodiac to represent the months of the year (since the Mughals then used solar, rather than lunar months as we do, each sign of the Zodiac related directly to one of their months). Writing in his autobiography, Jahangir records how he directed the mints:

At this time it entered my mind that in place of the month they should substitute the figure of the constellation which belonged to that month; for instance, in the month of Farwardin the figure of a ram, and in Ardibihisht the figure of a bull. Similarly, in each month that a coin was struck, the figure of the constellation was to be on one face, as if the sun were emerging from it. This usage is my own, and has never been practised until now'.

The coins are just as he directed - see how the sun emerges from behind Leo. With both the year (in words) and the month (as a picture) indicated on the coins we can say very precisely when each coin was produced. All twelve signs of the Zodiac can be found between 1617 and 1624.

As well as an interest in coin design, Jahangir and his wife Nur Jahan, ("Light of the World") had many other artistic interests. They particularly encouraged painting, especially miniatures, portraiture and scientific studies of birds, flowers, and animals. They also created fine gardens, and established the tradition of building in marble. Such architectural innovation reached its height under Jahangir’s son and successor, Shah Jahan (1628-58), who built at the Taj Mahal at Agra as the tomb of his favourite wife.

It is likely that their beautiful imagery made the coins valued for display by contemporaries- the coin of Pisces above has been mounted with loops for wearing as a medallion or on the sash of a turban. They are also prized greatly by collectors today. They are extremely rare. Not only were they few in number since each design was only produced only for one month, but after the death of Jahangir his successor withdrew them from circulation, establishing the death penalty for their use. Many were melted down.

King John, 1199 - 1216. Silver penny, Winchester mint

"When John came to the throne, he lost his temper and flung himself on the floor, foaming at the mouth and biting the rushes. He was thus a Bad King....
John was so bad that the Pope decided to put the whole country under an Interdict, i.e. he gave orders that no-one was to be born or die or marry (except in Church porches)....
John finally demonstrated his utter incompetence by losing the Crown and all his clothes in the wash and then dying of a surfeit of peaches and no cider; thus his awful reign came to an end."

1066 and all that, Sellar and Yeatman 1930

John: An Awful King
King John (1199-1216) has gone down in British history as a ‘Bad King’, in the immortal words of Sellars and Yeatman. Stories and films inspired by the Robin Hood legends have idealised John’s brother Richard the Lionheart (1189-99), while criticising John’s harsh rule as regent during Richard’s absence on crusade. In 1199, John succeeded Richard as king. John’s reign is remembered for his murder of his nephew Arthur, and his loss of the royal lands in Normandy to the French king in 1204. He also mismanaged his relations with the aristocracy, leading to the issuing of Magna Carta in 1215. His reign ended with the barons in revolt and a French invasion of England.

What does this coin reveal about King John and life in England during his reign?
This coin was minted in Winchester in the spring of 1205, and has a unique portrait of John. English kings were generally shown full-face on medieval coins from Henry II (1154-89) to Henry VII (1485-1509), but here John is portrayed in three-quarter profile. It is a much more lively image than the very flat and static pictures on most coins of the period: compare the coin of King John from Chichester below. The reverse of the coin has the cross design of all English medieval coins and gives the name of the mint and moneyer.

Early in 1205, King John ordered the recoinage of ‘clipped’ coins. People had been cutting down coins to take the silver for themselves. John ordered all these pennies to be withdrawn and replaced by new coins. From the king’s point of view, as well as restoring the quality of the currency, the recoinage was also a useful money-earner, as his mints charged a fee to recoin old money. However, the recoinage did not solve John’s severe financial problems, and his need to levy heavy taxes contributed to the baronial revolt of 1215.

Why had clipping of the old coins occurred?
We are not entirely sure, but it may be that heavy taxation, made necessary by John’s expensive wars in Normandy, and Richard’s even more expensive crusades before him, had taken so much money out of circulation that it reduced the supply of silver available. Lack of silver may have led people to seek some by clipping coins.

Very little can improve John’s image and he seems condemned to play the villain while Richard remains the heroic crusader. However, this coin shows that John could also be an active and innovative ruler, who was prepared to take initiatives in government.