Siege money (Newark)
Newark
Siege money or money of necessity was minted in Newark-on-Trent in 1646 during the third and final siege (1645–1646) — the last year of the First English Civil War. To meet need for money, the besieged Royalists set up a mint that manufactured lozenge-shaped coins — half-crowns, shillings, ninepences, and sixpences.
Royalist noblemen and gentlemen freely gave their flagons and drinking cups, and these were fashioned into the lozenge-shaped coins. On some of them it is possible to see the pattern of the cup and salver from which they were hastily cut.
The coins bore on the obverse a Royal crown between C R, and the value in Roman numerals; and on the reverse OBS Newark (OBS is an abbreviation of obsidium, Latin for siege), and the year 1645 or 1646, in which they were coined.
The year 1645 is confusing because all the coins were probably struck in 1646. Those struck with the year 1645 would have been struck before 25 March (the official start of the year Old Style) and those from 25 March with 1646.
History
The First English Civil War (1642–1646), commenced when the King Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham on 22 August 1642, 20 miles (32 km) south west of Newark. The town was a mainstay of the Royalist (Cavalier) cause: "Newark was besieged on three occasions and finally surrendered only when ordered to do so by the King after his own surrender". The town fielded at times as many as 600 soldiers, and raided many nearby towns of the opposing Parliamentarians (Roundheads).
“Siege money (Newark)” enters the record as newark. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Siege, money and Newark can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Siege money (Newark)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.