As the United Kingdom prepares to start issuing coins with His Majesty King Charles III, one might notice a key feature you think would be a staple: the monarch wearing a crown.
This isn’t the first time a monarch hasn’t worn a crown on a coin. Previous British kings are known not to wear crowns on coins that feature their portraits. However, if one were to go back through coins over the last several hundred years, you would likely notice the pattern.
During the Tudor period, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I both appeared crowned on coinage. This trend changed after the English Civil War. At the time, interregnum governments initially decided to go away with the featured portrait. After he rejected the thrown, Oliver Cromwell was shown wearing a crown of laurels – similar to Roman coinage portraits that often had leaders depicted with laurels.
Once the monarchy was restored, kings and queens picked laurels or bare heads for their coinage portraits. When the reign of Queen Victoria began, she was shown crowned on her coins. Her early portraits did not feature a crown, but from the 1840s on, artists showed the monarch with several different crowns.
Victoria’s successors, Edward VII, George V, and George VI, returned to the crownless tradition on their coinage. When Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952, she chose to go without a crown on her first coins. Once she had been on the throne for some time, her coinage started to feature the monarch crowned with the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara – a tiara that was believed to be one of her favourites.
In the coming months, the 50p featuring The King will enter circulation. However, all UK coins with Her Late Majesty will remain legal and in active circulation. The Royal Bank of England expects a complete currency transition by the middle of 2024.
