News from Spink

A Rare And Historically Interesting Triple Unite Of Charles I From The Bridgewater House Collection

September 27th 2007
Spink's Auction during Coinex Week

There is an interesting selection of coins of the reign of Charles I in Spink’s 27 September auction, our annual auction during Coinex week. From the busy mint at Oxford during the Civil War there is an intriguing Triple Unite from the Bridgewater House collection. This was a superb collection of coins that had remained intact in the family of the Earls of Bridgewater since the early 18th century, until it was sold in London in June 1972.

John Egerton, the second Earl of Bridgewater (1622-1686) began the collection, which, due to his efforts, was very strong in the Tudor and Stuart series. His son the third Earl, also called John, and grandson, Scrope Egerton, the fourth Earl, continued the collection, completing the milled gold and silver series up to 1740.

There were two Triple Unites in the collection. Lot 110, dated 1642, with the squat portrait of the king holding a short sword and palm branch, and this coin, which was lot 111 in the Bridgewater collection, dated 1643, showing a more artistic rendering of the monarch who holds a long thin sword and a longer palm branch. The king’s shoulders are less hunched, giving him a more regal bearing, and his sash floats out behind him, giving a sense of movement to the portrait. On the reverse the declaration has also been improved, from the earlier piece which has three separate lines of text, to the later, more flowing, declaration on a continuous scroll. At the Bridgewater sale both these Triple Unites were purchased by a Mr Corfield for the then quite considerable sums of £2,800 and £2,200. Sadly the coins were then separated, and the present piece reappeared fifteen years later at a sale in New York, illustrated on the cover of the catalogue. In this later catalogue, mention was made of the ‘one visible and several faint short scratches across sword on obverse’, a detail which was not mentioned in the Bridgewater House catalogue, though the marks are faintly visible in the illustration. It is almost certain, given the provenance of the coin, that these ‘faint short scratches’, which are clearly deliberate, were made at the time of the Civil War or immediately after the execution of the king. It is most unlikely that the Earl of Bridgewater himself would have made these marks. The family kept a very low profile during these troubled times combining prudence with loyalty, and emerged at the restoration with all their lands, influence, and reputation, intact. Though the family was staunchly Anglican, the Earls remained loyal to the monarchy. The epitaph to the First Earl (who died in 1649, at the end of the same year that witnessed the execution of the king), on his monument at Ashridge the family seat in Hertfordshire, describes him thus;

‘He was a dutiful son to his mother, the Church of England in her persecution as well as in her great splendour; a loyal subject to his Sovereign in those worst of times, when it was accounted treason not to be a traitor.’

Who made these ‘several faint short scratches’ we will probably never know, but the fact that one Triple Unite in the Bridgewater collection had them and the other did not points clearly to the marks being made while the coin was in ‘circulation’ rather than while it was in a cabinet in the Bridgewater library. This poses several questions. Just how much circulation would a large gold coin of such high value have seen? Given that this was royal money, used to pay supporters of the royalist cause, how would it fall into the hands of an individual whose personal feelings against Charles were so intense that it would cause him to perform such an act? If the intention was to insult the king, why mark the king’s sword and not his portrait? On the other hand it is possible that the marks are not a sign of disloyalty to the king at all. The sword on this coin is a flimsy affair, almost reduced to a thin single line. It is possible someone in the mint at Oxford was contemplating an improvement in the design. Whatever the real reason for these marks, there is an extra piece of history behind this handsome gold coin.

The Bridgewater Triple Unite is lot 588 in the auction on 27 September. The estimate is £20,000-25,000

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