Description

IRELAND. Philip & Mary. 1554-1558. Base Silver Groat
26mm. Dublin mint; mm: rose. Dated 1558 (rare date).

Confronted busts of Philip and Mary; crown above.
Rev:   Crowned harp; crowned P M across fields.

SCBC 6501D

These coins are always of poor quality

Mary Tudor was the only child of Henry VIII by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to survive to
adulthood. Her younger half-brother Edward VI succeeded their father in 1547 at the age of nine.

When Edward became mortally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession
because he supposed, correctly, that she would reverse the Protestant reforms that had begun during
his reign.

• • Upon his death, leading politicians proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as queen
  • Mary speedily assembled a force in East Anglia and deposed Jane, who was ultimately beheaded
  • Mary was—excluding the disputed reigns of Jane and the Empress Matilda—the first queen regnant of England
  • In 1554, Mary married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556.

Mary’s attempt to restore to the Roman Catholic Church the property confiscated in the previous two reigns was largely thwarted by parliament, but during her five-year reign, Mary had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions.

• • This led to her denunciation as “Bloody Mary” by her Protestant opponents