tour 11 of 11
Our Top Ten British Treasures
The Fishpool hoard
The hoard comprises 1,237 coins, four rings,
four pieces of jewellery and two lengths of chain. It was probably
deposited some time between winter 1463 and summer 1464, during a
rebellion against the Yorkist king Edward IV (reigned 1460-83) on
behalf of the Lancastrian Henry VI, in the first decade of the Wars
of the Roses
(1455-85).
Most of the
coins in the hoard were English nobles, half-nobles and
quarter-nobles, ranging in date from the reign of Edward III
(1327-77) to the latest coins in the group: 63 coins of Edward IV,
of a type issued between 1460 and August 1464. The hoard also
included 223 foreign coins: issues of James II of Scotland
(1436-60), Charles VII of France (1422-61) and Philip the Good,
duke of Burgundy (1419-67), who dominated the Netherlands. Margaret
of Anjou was raising money in these areas on behalf of her husband
Henry VI in 1461-63.
The
face value of the hoard when deposited was about £400, equivalent
to around £300,000 today. Medieval coin hoards generally consist of
much smaller sums, since the rich and powerful never needed to
resort to hiding their treasure in the ground. Thus, the Fishpool
hoard must have been deposited in a very unusual, emergency
situation, in the circumstances of the failed revolt of 1464. It
may have formed part of the Lancastrian royal treasury, entrusted
to someone fleeing south after the Battle of Hexham (15 May 1464)
and concealed by him, perhaps with the help of a local Lancastrian
sympathiser, deep inside Sherwood Forest.