1642 CHARLES I SHREWSBURY MINT HALF POUND

1642 Charles I Shrewsbury Mint (1642) Silver Half Pound well proportioned horseman trampling over a pile of arms (no canon in arms or plume in obverse field) (obv. F) rev.Declaration in two lines , RELIG PROT LEG ANG LIBER PAR, three Shrewsbury plumes above and mark of value, date below. Colon Stops both sides (single after REX) mm. Plume on obverse only (S.2924; N.2368; Brooker 804 [same dies] ; Morr. F-3 ) weight 58.78 grams.

An impressive example of the early and one year provincial issue.

These coins were hand struck in makeshift conditions in a mint hastily set up – quickly and carelessly to get coin out to pay the troops – only the weight was important. When the Civil War began in 1642, the Tower mint fell into the hands of Parliament and Charles was forced to open a mints in Royalist held western England at Oxford and Shrewsbury (1642 – 46) and further west. The week after raising his standard at Nottingham, Charles I proceeded into Shropshire, arriving in Wellington on 19 September 1642. On 20 September he issued the famous 'Wellington Declaration' (promising to uphold the Protestant Religion, the Laws of England and the Liberty of Parliament. This declaration in Latin is displayed on these western mint coins giving them the name of Declaration pieces) and inspected his troops below the Wrekin. From Wellington he marched to Shrewsbury, where he was joined by his two sons, the Prince of Wales and James, Prince Rupert, and great numbers of noblemen and gentlemen, and established a mint in the town (at which point this coin was struck). He remained there until 12 October, when he marched to Bridgnorth, and from there advanced to Edge Hill, in Warwickshire, where the first pitched battle of the First Civil War was fought.