Tea at Trianon: Largest Hoard of Anglo-Saxon Gold Coins in England

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Largest Hoard of Anglo-Saxon Gold Coins in England

From Bright:

A hoard of 131 gold coins and a number of other gold objects dating back 1,400 years ago stand to be the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold coins ever found in England. In A.D. 600, England, still ununited, was divided into several smaller Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. One of the most important of these was East Angles (modern-day Norfolk and Suffolk), which in later centuries would prove to yield a great number of treasures from antiquity.

These treasures include the famed Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon ship burial grounds discovered in Suffolk in 1938—and now, the more recent said stash of gold coins, which was found in a field in West Norfolk between the years 1990 and 2020—starting with just a single gold coin found before the introduction of the Treasures Act (in 1996), meaning it was not considered part of a group.

The majority of the objects in the hoard, though, were found between 2014 and 2020 by a single metal detectorist who wished to remain anonymous. The landowner also requested anonymity. The finder reported the stash to authorities in accord with the Treasures Act, which dictates that any two or more coins containing at least 10% precious metal must be turned in. Should the Crown wish to acquire the items, the finder is to be compensated per market value. (Read more.)