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Auction: 24005 - The Official Coinex Auction of Ancient, British and World Coins
Lot: 272A

Henry VI, Readepted (October 1470 - April 1471), Angel, Tower (under Sir Richard Tunstall), hENRIC 'x DI GRA x REX x ANGL x S x FRAnC : trefoil stops, St Michael (the Archangel) vanquishing the Dragon (Satan), rev. PER C | RVCE TVA ' SALVA x nOS x XPC 'x REDE'TO x 5.15g [79.47grns], 9h, no m.m. (Allen [NumChron, 1937], dies B/r the pairing unlisted; Blunt & Whitton, "The Coinages of Edward IV and Henry VI (Restored)", type 1/13; Schneider I, 430-432/441 same dies; North 1613; S.2078), softly struck to portrait, otherwise residually lustrous with a honey golden tone across a broad, fuller flan, an excellent example of this short-lived 'War of the Roses' specie, a most pleasingly good very fine, very rare, and with a magnificent provenance, with NGC Certification ~ UNC Details ~ Cleaned (Cert. 6945997-005)

Provenance

~ Gloucestershire Echo, 26 January 2014 featured

Smiths of Newent Auction, 24 January 2014

Found by Gwyn Williams on Pamington Court Farm, Tewkesbury (Gloucestershire), September 2013

Lost by defeated Lancastrian forces after the Battle of Tewkesbury, 4 May 1471




The readeption of King Henry VI on 13 October 1470 at the behest of Warwick the Kingmaker is one of the more extraordinary, albeit largely forgotten, chapters of the Bloody 'Wars of the Roses'. In consequence of this six month return to power, a short-lived series of Gold Angels was struck in his name. This revised issue was entirely incongruous with the first years of Henry VI's reign in the 1420s when the gold Noble reigned supreme in English and continental commerce. However decades of internecine conflict had decimated the domestic economy and caused inflation to spike. The Angel introduced under his Yorkist adversary Edward IV, was thus co-opted by moneyers at the Tower Mint as well as those of Bristol for new coins in the first months of 1471. Whilst it is invariably dangerous to tie archaeological events to specific events in time, the contextual analysis for the present coin is particularly compelling for the probable circumstances for its loss.



The fresh appearance of the "Tewkesbury Angel" is entirely consistent with it having been almost new at the time of its deposition. Thanks to surviving documentation for this febrile period, a notional "line of carriage" can be traced from its place of mintage at the Tower of London to its final resting place in the environs of Tewkesbury mirroring Edward IV's resurgent Yorkist army and its harrying of the Lancastrians from power for a second time.



The Battle of Tewkesbury was pitched on 4 May 1471 just 2.7 miles west of the known findspot for this coin. The protagonists on the field included King Edward IV, Richard, Duke of Gloucester (the future Richard III), George, Duke of Clarence (of Malmsey Wine fame) and Edward Plantagenet, (the fateful Edward V). The Lancastrians were under the command of Sir John Courtenay, 15th Earl of Devon who himself was slain in the rout. Interestingly amongst those pursuing his withdrawing Lancastrian forces was William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings, a long-serving Master of the Royal Mint between 1464 and 1469; a Yorkist loyalist who would be re-installed after Edward IV's return to power only to be summarily executed on 13 June 1483, by the usurper, King Richard III.



In the local annals, the following account is also to be found: 'The Parish Church of Didbrook, near Winchcombe, was the scene of the slaughter of a number of Lancastrians who had sought refuge there after the Battle. They were mercilessly put to death within its walls, despite the appeal of the clergy. So horrible did this act of sacrilege appear to the Rector, William Whythchurch, Abbot of Hailes Abbey, that he had the desecrated church pulled down and re-built at his own expense.'



Once again, following the notional withdrawal path of the Lancastrian army to Didbrook Church from the battlefield, the journey would pass to the south of Pamington Court Farm.


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Sold for
£7,500