How Far Back Can We Go? Sixth Edition! Ended At 1380 Waiting On 1379

1689 K-B Hungarian Denar under King Leopold.

Love the Halfcrowns NumisRob

Calzone - yes and one more year we leave glorious Revolution and its Constitutional Monarchy and head back into the absolute Monarchy of the Stuarts. Then again in 1689, the UK was the first to ditch absolute monarchy which was huge in Europe at the time.

Spain, France, Austria, Prussia and all of Scandanavia including Denmark who became absolutist in 1665 were absolute monarchies. The Russian were all but in name, still Tsars but Peter the Great added the moniker around 1696 (Tsar and Autocrat of all the Russias). In 1689 the 17 year old Tsarevich had ditched his brother Ivan and still answerable to Sophia his elder sister.

The Ottomans controlled what was left and of course you had the Princelings in Germany and various parts of Italy. Only the Dutch was a Freeish Republic but had the Prince of Orange (Which was William III incredibly) and had long gotten rid of Johan de Witt.

In 1687, I will show you my one highlight - my James II Halfcrown!

1688 -- Duchy of Brunswick-Luneburg-Calenberg, 6 mariengroschen:

@princetane, interesting indeed! And that sounds like a great lot. On the earlier discussion of the absolute monarchies of Europe... I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth was a parliamentary elective monarchy since the 1570s, and hence one of the other major European powers at the time that would not have been considered absolutist, though the point is well taken that the Dutch model was way ahead of its time.
@keith, looking forward to your next contribution! As for the half crown, I'm a lot more consistent on the quality of the coins I give my wife than the ones in my own collection .

For 1688, this was the last minor type minted in the reign of Jan Sobieski of Poland (reigned 1674-1696, but coins minted 1676-1688... I am sure we will some of his earlier coins from other contributors).
1 schilling, Gdansk mint. Rare type.

1687 Let me go first.




1687 Kingdomof England, Halfcrown James II (aFine)
Year - Tertio

Nice coin and beautifully scarce, my favourite halfcrown. James was a naive and ultimately depsotic king whose incompetence led to the glorious revolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England - Good summary.

His reign started well enough, Charles II younger brother also fled in exile dressed as a woman in 1648, and distinguished himself in the 1660s and 1670s as the Duke of York (The city of New York USA, was renamed after him in 1665). Before his return to England in 1660 with his brother, he had served in the French and Spanish navies!

In 1660 he married Anne Hyde the daughter of the Earl of Clarendon and had two daughters Mary (1662 - 1694) and Anne (1665 - 1714) who both became Queen. Anne died in 1671 and James in haste married the Catholic Mary of Modena which led to Catholic rebellions (The Titus Oates Plot) and outrage.

In 1685 with the death of his brother, he became king and instantly annoyed everyone off by killing the Duke of Monmouth (Charles's illegitimate son) after a failed rebellion in July 1685 and trying to issue complete religious toleration in England, whilst becoming openly Catholic). After more disasters and allying with Catholic powers as opposed to Protestant ones and denying William and Mary succession and making a new Catholic dynasty, he was deposed as king in late 1688, yet tried to win back the Kingdom in battles in Ireland (Battle of the Boyne 1690) and finally fled to France that year. He died in 1701 at St Germain en laye in France.

He was praised for religious toleration, but trying to end the legitimacy of the Protestant line of William and Mary was just too much for the people. When he was overthrown, William came to England and saw no opposition to his rule, in fact he was welcomed everywhere he went and London threw a huge party for him.

However in parts of Scotland and most of Ireland, he was respected and hailed as a hero overcoming coming Protestant despotism (Cromwells ravishing of Ireland in 1650 along with the English stealing tracts of Irish land fuelled resentment).

The Irish supported him, as he was Catholic, the Scottish mostly as he was a Stuart (James VII in Scotland) and thus was the proper line, not the Williamite succession and then Hanoverian one agreed to by Charles II in 1670). The Scots and Irish would remain loyal supporters of the Jacobites until the 19th century in some cases.

In 1688 he had a son - Charles Edward Stuart (1688 - 1761) the old Pretender who mounted a Jacobite rebellion in 1715 - 1718 during George I's reign and his son the young pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie tried again in 1745/46 by invading England and getting as far south as Derby, the flame of Jacobitism was ended at Culloden in April 1746.

Finally in 1806, Henry, James's grandson died in Rome and so did the Stuart dynasty.

1687 (f) Free imperial city of Nürnberg Pfennig