EDWARD III AND ENGLAND’S MEDIEVAL COINAGE

In the 500 years before the 1340s there had been very little production of coins other than the silver penny. This all changed after 1351.

Background

Edward’s fifty-year reign was one of the longest in English history. He became king at fourteen after his father Edward II had been deposed by Edward’s mother queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer. In 1328 he married Philippa of Hainault who would be his wife for the next forty years bearing twelve children, half of whom survived beyond their teens and whose descendants would play such a pivotal role in the Wars of the Roses of the 15th century. At the age of seventeen Edward