Pontefract Beseiged

Sale: Triton XII, Lot: 1146. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Monday, 5 January 2009.  Sold For $11500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

STUART, Siege money. Pontefract. 1648-1649. AR Shilling (4.35 g, 6h). Dated 1648 (immobilized; in the name of Charles II, February - March 1649). CAROL’ : II : D : G : MAG : B : F : ET : H : REX, crown above HANC : DE/VS : DEDIT/1648 in three lines / POST : MORTEM : PATRIS : PRO : FILIO, city gate with banner; P C above, OBS on right; cannon on right. Hird 282 (same dies); Brooker 1235; North 2649; SCBC 3151. VF, toned, small mark at bottom of obverse. Well struck on a broad flan. Rare.

Ex Spink 174 (30 June 2005), lot 119.

Built during the Norman period, Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire was famous as the location of the murder of Richard II in 1400. During the English Civil War, Pontefract became a royalist stronghold, and, according to Oliver Cromwell, it was "[...] one of the strongest inland garrisons in the kingdom." Pontefract underwent three Parliamentarian sieges. When the third siege ended on 24 March 1649, the inhabitants surrounding the castle, fearing the possibility of another siege, petitioned Parliament for the castle to be demolished. On 5 April 1649, demolition began, and although efforts were for the most part successful, ruins of the castle remain visible today.