Introducing the British Monarchs Collection
Commencing in February 2022, the royal mint to issue a 21 coin series to be released over the next 5 years completing in 2026.
The British Monarchs collection starts with King Henry VII and will feature all Kings and Queens as they appeared on the coinage at the time of their reign. The series charts the Royal Houses of the Tudors, Stuarts, Hanover, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and our present House of Windsor, and will conclude with our present Monarch Queen Elizabeth II.
Each coin will be of Proof finish and only available in Silver or Gold guises, mintages are set to be very low with no base metal issues being planned for this series.
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King Henry VII (1485-1509) above recreated by todays technology, appears on the reverse of the first coin in the Monarchs series. Henry VII, best known for winning the battle of Bosworth and uniting the Houses of Lancaster and York which would end the War of the Roses and form the dynasty of the Tudors. Henry the VII's other claim to posterity is of course being the father of Henry VIII, probably Britain's most famous and infamous monarch.
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The House of Tudor The House of Tudor took England's throne through victory over Richard III, the last Plantagenet king, at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Its founder, the Lancastrian Henry VII laid down the foundations of his dynasty which was to last 118 years. The Tudor period gave England one of its best known monarchs, the tyrannical and bloodstained Henry VIII (1509-47), is famous for having six wives, executing two of them and bringing about the Reformation in England.
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The throne of England was inherited by all of Henry VIII's three legitimate children in succession, the boy king, Edward VI (1547-53), Mary I (1553-58), known as 'Bloody Mary' for her burning of Protestants and last but by no means least Elizabeth I (1558-1603), highly astute and wily, survived an appalling childhood and adolescence to emerge as the greatest of her house and lead England to victory over the Spanish, the greatest power of the age. The Tudor dynasty became extinct after the death of Elizabeth without a direct heir in 1603. The crown of England then passed to Henry VII's great-grandson, James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England.
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King Henry VII King Henry VIII King Edward VI Queen Mary I Queen Elizabeth I |
Jan 2022 Jan 2023 Jan 2024 Jan 2025 Jan 2026 |
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James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death in 1625. James I was the son of Mary Queen of Scots, and was on the throne during the famous Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
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The House of Stuart Charles I (1625-49) was executed on the orders of Parliament when England was declared a republic. The monarchy was restored in 1660 when his son, the previously exiled Charles II (1660-85), was invited to return. Charles, or the 'Merry Monarch' as he is otherwise known, is famous for his many mistresses and his long liaison with the actress Nell Gwyn. On the death of his niece, Queen Anne in 1714 the Stuart dynasty was displaced by its Hanoverian cousins. |
King James I King Charles I King Charles II King James II King William III and Queen Anne |
March 2022 March 2023 June 2023 March 2024 March 2025
March 2026 |
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George I Born in Hanover to Ernest Augustus and Sophia of Hanover (George Louis; German: Georg Ludwig; 28 May 1660 – 11 June 1727) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 and ruler of the Electorate of Hanover within the Holy Roman Empire from 23 January 1698 until his death in 1727. He was the first British monarch of the House of Hanover.
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The House of Hanover When Britain's last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne died in 1714, the crown of England passed by the 1701 Act of Settlement to the Stuart dynasty's German Protestant cousins, the House of Hanover, or Brunswick-Luneberg in the person of King George I, who was 52nd in line to the throne at that time. The Act effectively excluded the hereditary Stuart heir, James II's Catholic son, James Francis Edward Stuart, hereafter referred to as the 'Old Pretender.
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On the death of William IV (1765-1837), the last Hanoverian king, Hanover and England ceased to share a ruler, Victoria (1837-1901), the daughter of Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III, succeeded her uncle in England but since the Salic Law (which prohibited the succession through the female line) prevailed in Hanover the dukedom was inherited by George III's fifth son, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. Upon the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 the throne of Britain passed to the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, her son, Edward VII.
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King George I King George II King George III King George IV King William IV Queen Victoria |
June 2022 Sept 2023 June 2024 August 2024 June 2025 June 2026
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Edward VII eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha,(Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.
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The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha On the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 the royal house took the Germanic surname of her consort Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. King Edward VII, who reigned until 1910, was to become the only sovereign of that dynasty to reign in Britain. The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha descended in the male line from the Wettin family, German Prince-Electors of Saxony, the earliest traceable member of the House of Wettin was Thiedericus who died in 982
At the height of World War I, when German xenophobia had reached boiling point, Edward VII's son, King George V (1910- 1936) changed the family name to the more English sounding House of Windsor. He is described in this series as being of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha / Windsor House.
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King Edward VII King George V |
Oct 2022 Sept 2024 |
| The House of Windsor The House of Windsor came into being in 1917, when King George V, formerly of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, concerned that his Germanic sounding surname would alienate his British subjects at the height of German xenophobia during World War I, changed the name of his dynasty to the more English sounding Windsor. The House of Windsor has produced four British sovereigns, George V (1910-1936), his son Edward VIII (1936), who abdicated the throne to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Warfield Simpson in favour of his brother George VI (1936-52) and the present Queen, Elizabeth II.
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In 1960, the Queen and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh came to the joint decision that they would prefer their direct descendants to be distinguished from the rest of the Royal Family (without changing the name of the Royal House), declaring in the Privy Council that 'The Queen's descendants, other than those with the style of Royal Highness and the title of Prince/Princess, would bear the surname of Mountbatten-Windsor.
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King George V King George VI Q Elizabeth II |
Sept 2024 Sept 2025 Sept 2026 |
