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Philip II, King of England

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jgenn

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This coin caught my attention, when it came up for auction recently, and I checked on the type in CoinFacts wiki and read that the obverse legend for this daalder included Philip's title as King of England.  

With a little more research, I can say that the July 25th, 1554 marriage of Queen Mary of England to King Philip of Spain brought about a short period where Philip gained the title of King of England and Ireland and was deemed co-ruler by an Act of Parliament.  The terms of the marriage agreement limited Philip's reign to the duration of the marriage -- it lasted until Mary's death in 1558 upon which the throne went to her half-sister, Elizabeth I.

As far as I can tell, coins using Philip's title as King of England are limited to a few issues from the Spanish ruled provinces of the Netherlands.  This interesting history plus the fact that I did not have a Spanish Empire crown from the reign of Philip II sealed the deal so I've added it to my crowns of the world collection.

Obverse: Armored bust of Philip II, legend PHS D G HISP ANG Z REX COMES FLAN 1558 (Philippus dei gratia Hispaniarum Angliae etc rex comes Flandriae -- Philip by the grace of God King of Spain and England, Count of Flanders)

Reverse: Crowned coat of arms of Philip II over the Burgundian cross, golden fleece below between a pair fire irons* emitting sparks, legend  DOMINVS MICHI ADIVTOR (dominus michi adivtor -- Lord my helper)

*Jean Elsen catalog listings consistently call these "vuurijzers" which translates to fire irons, the iron implement struck by flint to start a fire. 

~jack

1558_NL_1Ecu_v2.jpg

edited: to correct the translation of vuurijzers

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That's a very interesting write up Jack....I didn't really know much about Philip II before, but it seems I may have missed out on some interesting history.  And I never knew that any of his coins bore his title as the King of England.  That's what I love about this place......you never know what you may learn!  And I like the coin as well.  It's way before the time I generally collect coins from (my earliest collections which I pursue regularly are really late Ottoman as I focus on the Young Turk Era, which starts in 1909 and some of Victoria's coins for British India, which start in 1862) but looking at this coin and the one you posted in Revenant's journal entry is making me realize these older issues have their own charm.  Who knows?  I could probably do worse than to pick up a couple of Ottoman Yuzluks and see how I feel about them!

Cheers!

~Tom

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England and it's monarchy are interesting in that, they're among the very few countries in Europe that still has a royal family and it wasn't wiped out, but the monarchy survived by giving up a lot of power and in a lot of ways getting leashed by the parliament. It's funny to think that in the 16th century you already had a parliament passing restrictions on and dictating terms to the royals - more than 125 years before The Bloodless Revolution and more than 220 years before the American Revolution..

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27 minutes ago, Revenant said:

England and it's monarchy are interesting in that, they're among the very few countries in Europe that still has a royal family and it wasn't wiped out, but the monarchy survived by giving up a lot of power and in a lot of ways getting leashed by the parliament. It's funny to think that in the 16th century you already had a parliament passing restrictions on and dictating terms to the royals - more than 125 years before The Bloodless Revolution and more than 220 years before the American Revolution..

I find that interesting as well.  England was very progressive and ahead of its time in many ways pertaining to the relationship of parliament and the monarchy.  Also of note to European Royal Families....Though they were deposed, the Ottoman Family still exists.  I believe they go by the surname Osmanoglu.  Most of them live in France, the UK and the United States though some of them have returned to Turkey in recent years.  So they're still around too, but they have no official titles or powers.

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