A CIVIL WAR COIN SPILL? : JAMES I AND CHARLES I SHILLINGS
PERIOD: ENGLISH CIVIL WARS, LOCATION: LINCOLNSHIRE, UK MATERIAL: SILVER
There’s this one period in history that we rarely get to explore in the finds from our permission: The English Civil Wars. And it’s not because Lincolnshire wasn’t important enough during the Civil Wars to have seen much activity, because it was. Lincolnshire was a major military frontier between the Parliamentarians and the Royalist forces in the North and Midlands, and saw several campaigns and numerous battles and sieges. So maybe we simply haven’t been looking in the right place?
On this visit, as a result of the heavy rains and difficult winter season that the entire UK has suffered this year, our permission, like many farm lands, has been a bit washed away. Several rivers have appeared that didn’t used to exist and some of the fields may as well be designated as a new swamp. So we have taken to the pasture slopes, one of the more difficult sections of our permission to search but at least the least damp. At the very top of the slope runs an abandoned public footpath, one that disappeared off the maps some time in the 20th Century. There’s no real way to know how old this footpath is, but we have never found anything of great age up there in previous visits. Not to say that that means there’s nothing up there.
Lincolnshire was a major military frontier between the Parliamentarians and the Royalist forces in the North and Midlands, and saw several campaigns and numerous battles and sieges.
It’s now day 2 scouring the stretch of abandoned footpath and we are somewhat oblivious to the glaring omens that looking back appeared on day 1. Our first find up here was a silver Victorian sixpence, one that was pierced and worn as a good luck charm. Then a robin came to visit us, a symbolic bird who for centuries has been believed to herald good times ahead. And then we were graced with the appearance of an incredible red sunset, you know what they say: ‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight’. Triple omens, only we never could have guessed what they were leading up to.
There we were, battered by the relentless wind, just enjoying being out in the elements and hoping to find a lost Victorian curio when the latest blinding mid 20’s signal has Ellie sitting back in disbelief over the hole. Just sitting in the dirt, are two of the largest silver coins we’ve ever dug. Resting together as if it is the very same day that they were dropped. Not almost 400 years later. Two hammered silver shillings lost at a time where England was in complete political and social upheaval. A period in UK history that ended with the first ever and only execution of an English King. The English Civil Wars.
The events of the English Civil Wars were unprecedented. They were the catastrophic result of a long and drawn out struggle for total power and control between the monarch and parliament. People were bitterly divided, caught between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists, and left with no choice but to fight for their cause. It is estimated that as many as one in four adult men took up arms. All sections of society were affected. Many livelihoods were lost, some were gained. But the general consensus was that nobody really had any certainty about what the future may hold. Law and order was breaking down and acts of violence were often going unpunished.
Triple omens, only we never could have guessed what they were leading up to.
So were these two shillings buried for safekeeping during this period of unrest? Well, the sheer level of coin hoards that were buried during the English Civil War is only comparable to those of the 3rd Century, at another period of great unrest, when Roman rule began breaking down. And minted under James I (1607 AD) and Charles I (1640 - 41 AD) these coins are the perfect example of such a coin hoard. Shillings would have represented around 12 pence each. A large denomination and a significant amount of money for the time. For comparison a common Civil War Soldier received only 8 pence a day, and they only saw half of that, and sometimes even less, as money was deducted from their wages for lodgings, clothes and weapons. So these two shillings here could have been as much as a whole week's worth of wages.
The real question is, is this a hoard buried for safekeeping? In 1644, not much longer after the latest coin here was minted, Lincoln did find itself on the front line. Lincoln Castle was stormed and the Royalists forces here defeated in one of the key turning points of the Wars. Was this a soldier, nervous before battle, burying his savings in the earth, only to never return? Or was this simply an unfortunate purse lost on a footpath that saw a week's wages lost to time? Either way it would have certainly been a monetary loss that was noticed. But what we do know for certain is that they are treasure. Real life buried treasure that under the UK treasure law now needs reporting, the finds handed over, sent off for conservation and analysis. We won’t hear back about them until the report has been finalised and their fate has been determined. Our first ever small ‘hoard-spill’.
