History

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Alfred the Great to Edward the Confessor

The Oxford Mint is one of the oldest known British mints (even pre dating The Royal Mint) and first came into being during the reign of Alfred the Great circa 871 AD.

The Mint was a prolific producer of coinage under Alfred’s patronage and this continued through to Ethelred the Unready and the reign of the monarchs from the House of Wessex up until the reign of Edward the Confessor in 1066.

Charles I

Thereafter, the Mint went into hibernation until it was revived by Charles I in the 17th century during the period of the English Civil wars.

Charles had fled London and made the city of Oxford his seat of power. The King came to Oxford to be within striking distance of London. 

The Oxford Mint was revived in January 1642 at New Inn Hall (today the site of St Peters College) and Thomas Bushell and Sir William Pankhurst (former wardens of Shrewsbury and Tower Mints) were appointed as mint masters.

The presence of King Charles I in Oxford in 1642–6, during the English Civil War, is preserved in this remarkable coin, known as the Oxford Crown. It bears his fine portrait placed against the Oxford cityscape. During this period the king lived at Christ Church and the queen at Merton College. The reverse dates the coin to 1644and advertises Charles’s aims in the Civil war–to uphold the Protestant religion, the laws of England and the freedom of Parliament. Other cities have been alluded to in a stylised fashion on English coinage, but a detailed representation such as this is without parallel. The view of Oxford is taken from a north to north-westerly direction. In the forefront is the city wall, and, from the left, Magdalen College Tower, the spires of All Saints Church (now Lincoln College library) and the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, and the roof and tower of the Bodleian Library.

 Stocked with silver from Oxford and Cambridge colleges, and with converted foreign money, the Oxford mint was a hugely successful enterprise and managed to cover Charles’s needs for coinage in his war effort. The Oxford Crown of 1644 represents only a fraction of this production. 

This Triple Unite of 1643 shows a crowned armoured half-length figure of King left, holding upright sword and palm branch, Oxford plumes with bands in field behind, legend and beaded borders surrounding, initial mark Oxford plumes, CAROLVS. D: G. MAGN: BRIT: FRAN: ET: HIB: REX.:, rev. legend commences upper left on continuous scroll, toothed outer border surrounding, no initial mark, EXVRGAT: DEVS: DISSIPENTVR: INIMICI:, running into Declaration inscription on three line scroll at centre, RELIG: PROT / LEG: ANG / LIBER: PAR, date below, three Oxford plumes over III value above, weight 26.78g.

The gold Triple Unite represents the largest hammered gold denomination ever produced in the English series of coinage at a face value of Three Pounds. Such coins were produced at a time of duress, when the King had moved his Capital from London after the Battle of Edgehill, to the Royalist Universities of the City of Oxford, where he made a state entrance on 29th October 1642. 

The King lived at Christ Church, with the Queen installed at Merton; the Royalist Parliament met in the Upper Schools and Great Convocation House; the Privy Council at Oriel; and the Mint worked at New Inn Hall from the 3rd January 1642/3. 

These magnificent gold coins were struck for only three dates, 1642, 1643 and 1644 with some variation as there are 24 different varieties of obverse and reverse across these three dates, plus an extremely rare 1642 piece struck in Shrewsbury. Today, it is estimated the 25 different combinations exist in a mere surviving sample of some 250 pieces.

When the Triple Unite was introduced as currency it was more than double the value of any previous English coin produced, and would have been seen as a magnificent piece of propaganda against the Puritan cause, to show that though the King had moved from London, Oxford was a rich alternative City.   Perhaps the King was inspired by similar large extremely rare Scottish coins produced some 70 years earlier by his Father, King James VI of Scotland in 1575-6. The King had introduced the first regular newspaper printed in Oxford the "Mercurius Aulicus" from the 1st January 1642/3 (1642 old calendar style), and the introduction of the new Triple Unite as currency is featured in the edition produced around the 18th February 1642/3, and features a woodcut illustration of the new denomination (dies 1/S1 combination). This is thought to be the first ever illustration of a current coin of the realm in contemporary print.   As the new year in the old calendar style commenced on the 25th March this means all the 1642 dated coins were produced in only a very limited time from mid-February to probably April at latest when 1643 dated pieces were no doubt produced. It seems the issue of this great coin ceased with the great fire of Oxford as reported in the same newspaper of 6th October 1644, as there are only three reverse types known of 1644. 

The mint marks associated withThe Oxford Mint are the Oxford Plume and The Floriated Cross