Cast gold medal of King Charles I,
by Nicolas Briot: the Dominion of the Seas
London, England, AD 1630
The Divine Right of the
King
When Charles I (reigned 1625-49) inherited the
English throne he determined to have a series of medals made that
commemorated the events in his life and which reinforced the
concept of the monarch's divine right to
rule.
The success of his
ambitious plans was largely due to the French engraver Nicolas
Briot (about 1579-1646). Briot was a Protestant who had been
appointed Chief Engraver at the Paris Mint in 1605-6. He had a
criminal streak, overreaching himself while attempting the
mechanization of French coin production, fraudulently using an old
unmechanical method, rather than the non-existent new one he
promoted. Despite his behaviour in Paris, he persuaded the
government to make use of his technical abilities: a 'mill
and engines which will prevent counterfeiting' and in 1626
he was ordered to make puncheons and dies for 'certain
pieces of largesse of gold and silver in memory of his
Majesty's coronation', the first of the sequence of
medals for Charles I. Briot made cast and struck versions of the
medal.
The medal was a
formal assertion of English power at sea that had been made at
regular intervals in the past. The Latin legend boldly asserts
'Nor is that a limit to me, which is a boundary to the
world'.
M. Jones, A catalogue of the French me-1 (London, The British Museum Press, 1988)
E. Hawkins, Medallic illustrations of the (London, Trustees of the British Museum, 1885)