Elizabeth I's Great Recoinage
Elizabeth I inherited her father's ruined currency and, in 1560 to 1561, executed the first deliberate and successful monetary restoration in English history. Thomas Gresham advised her to call in all debased coins, melt them, and reissue new coins at the old sterling standard (92.5 percent silver). The operation was technically and fiscally painful — the Crown absorbed significant losses in the melting process — but restored English monetary credibility, which had been damaged for 16 years. The recoinage became the template for every subsequent deliberate currency restoration.
The Recoinage took roughly 18 months and required the establishment of special provincial mints to process the volume. Gresham's recommendation — that the Crown absorb the loss rather than try to pass it back to holders — was the key political decision. A restoration that asks holders to accept lower face value would have failed.
02 · Royal Debasement
With the fall of Rome and the fragmentation of Europe into feudal kingdoms, each monarch controlled their own mint. The temptation to debase was structural: a king who recalled all the silver coins in circulation, melted them, and re-struck them with less silver per coin kept the difference as seigniorage. Across 500 years, nearly every European kingdom did this at least once. The most spectacular was Henry VIII's Great Debasement of 1544 to 1551, which cut the silver content of the English shilling from 92.5 percent to 25 percent in seven years.
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