page_title: Royal Mint
section_title: Civil War mints
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Mint / History / 886 to 1660 / Civil War mints
caption_attribution_description: Commonwealth of England. 1649-1660. Unite (9.04 gm, 8h). Dated 1653 Coat-of-arms of England; mintmark: sun Coats-of-arms of England and Ireland. Schneider 341; North 2715; SCBC 3208. From the Dr. Thomas Dailey Collection.
context_page_description: The Royal Mint is a government-owned mint that produces coins for the United Kingdom. Operating under the name Royal Mint Ltd, the mint is a limited company that is wholly owned by Her Majesty's Treasury and is under an exclusive contract to supply all the nation's coinage. As well as minting circulating coins for use domestically and internationally, the mint also produces planchets, commemorative coins, various types of medals and precious metal bullion. The mint exports to an average of 60 countries a year, making up 70% of its total sales. Formed over 1,100 years ago, the mint was historically part of a series of mints that became centralised to produce coins for the Kingdom of England, all of Great Britain and eventually most of the British Empire. The original London mint from which the Royal Mint is the successor was established in 886 AD and operated within the Tower of London for approximately 800 years before moving to what is now called Royal Mint Court where it remained until the 1960s. As Britain followed the rest of the world in decimalising its currency, the Mint moved from London to a new 38 acres plant in Llantrisant, Glamorgan, Wales, where it has remained since.
context_section_description: In 1630, some time before the outbreak of the English Civil War, England signed a treaty with Spain which ensured a steady supply of silver bullion to the Tower mint. Additional branch mints to aid the one in London were set up, including one at Aberystwyth Castle in Wales. In 1642 parliament seized control of the Tower mint. After Charles I tried to arrest the Five Members he was forced to flee London, and established at least 16 emergency mints across the British Isles in Carlisle, Chester, Colchester, Cork, Dublin, Edinburgh, Exeter, Newark, Pontefract, Salisbury, Scarborough, parts of Cornwall including Truro, Weymouth, Worcester, and York (see also siege money).
  After raising the royal standard in Nottingham marking the beginning of the war, Charles called upon loyalist mining engineer Thomas Bushell, the owner of a mint and silver mine in Aberystwyth, to move his operations to the royalist-held Shrewsbury, possibly within in the grounds of Shrewsbury Castle. The mint there was however short-lived, operating for no more than three months before Charles ordered Bushell to relocate the mint to his headquarters in the royal capital of Oxford. The new Oxford mint was established on 15 December 1642 in New Inn Hall, the present site of St. Peter's College. There, silver plates and foreign coins were melted down and in some cases just hammered into shape to produce coins quickly. Bushell was appointed the mint's warden and master-worker, and he laboured alongside notable engravers Nicholas Briot, Thomas Rawlins and Nicholas Burghers, the later of whom being appointed Graver of Seals, Stamps and Medals in 1643. When Prince Rupert took control of Oxford that same year, Bushell was ordered to move to Bristol Castle where he continued minting coins until it fell to parliamentary control on 11 September 1645, effectively ending Bushell's involvement in the civil war mints.
  In Southern England in November 1642 the king ordered royalist MP Richard Vyvyan to build one or more mints in Cornwall, where he was instructed to mint coins from whatever bullion could be obtained and deliver it to Ralph Hopton, a commander of royalist troops in the region. Vyvyan built a mint in Truro and was its Master until 1646 when it was captured by parliamentarians. In nearby Exeter, which had been under control of Westminster since the beginning of the war, a mint was ordered to be set up after parliament debated the proposal on 8 December 1642. After approval was granted, a mint and moneyers were dispatched on 8 December 1642 to the town, which was under constant threat of attack by loyalist troops. In September 1643 the town was captured by the Cornish Royalist Army led by Prince Maurice, leading to Vyvyan moving his nearby mint in Truro to the now recaptured town. The exact location of the mint in Exeter is unknown; however maps from the time show a street named Old Mint Lane near Friernhay, which was to be the site of a 1696 Recoinage mint. Much less is known about the mint's employees, with only Richard Vyvyan and clerk Thomas Hawkes recorded.
  Following Charles I's execution in 1649, the newly formed Commonwealth of England established its own set of coins, which for the first time used English rather than Latin and were plainly designed compared to those previously issued under the monarchy. The government invited French engineer Peter Blondeau, who worked at the Paris Mint, to come to London in 1649 in the hope of modernising the country's minting process. In France hammer stuck coins had been banned from the Paris Mint since 1639 and replaced with milled coinage. After arriving, it was not until 9 May 1651 that his testing began in Drury House, having first required permission from parliament. He initially produced milled silver pattern pieces of half-crowns, shillings and sixpences; however rival moneyers favouring hammer stuck coins continued using the old hammering method. In 1656 Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell ordered engraver Thomas Simon to cut a series of dies featuring his bust and for them to be minted using the new milled method. 
caption: Commonwealth Unite 1653
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