THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

VII
UNITED KINGDOM
The fourth and concluding division of the work is
devoted to the coinage of those races which have suc-
cessively occupied and governed the region now known
as the United Kingdom. It is hardly requisite to men-
tion that down to comparatively recent days this section
embraced several numismatic systems more or less dis-
tinct from each other. England itself, from the second
half of the tenth century, may be said to have pos-
sessed a single authorised regal coinage ; but Scotland
had its own money, at first autonomous and subse-
quently of independent type, till the union of the
crowns ; and even Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the
Channel Islands have enjoyed intermittent or partial
monetary privileges down to our own time.
The historical and artistic value, if not interest, of
the British coinage sensibly declines after the death
of Anne in 1714. The best period may perhaps be
said to lie between the reigns of Edward III. and
Charles II. With the House of Brunswick-Luneburg,
although foreign artists were generally employed to
execute the work, the style becomes monotonous and
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