W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

378 The Coins of Europe
of Denmark with Sweden by the Treaty of Calmar in I 397.
That event proved of unforeseen importance, as Danish preponderance
led to a revolt and Sweden remained
;
during a
lengthened period under the government of Administrators,
who exercised the right of independent coinage. One of
these, Karl Knutson Bonde, assumed the title of king
(1448-67), and placed on his money a boat, the cognisance
of his family, and the legend Karolvs Rex S' G'. Other
currency of this era merely bears the name of St. Eric. Steen
Sture the Younger, administrator, 1 5 12-20, styled himself
Stcen Stvre Ritter, and struck the first Swedish thaler.
In 1523 commenced the reign of the celebrated Vasa
dynasty and the absolute autonomy of Sweden and from
;
this date we have down to the present moment an uninterrupted
body of money of irreproachable execution both in
silver and copper, as well as, on a more limited scale, in
gold. In the sixteenth century the noble double daler of
John III., said to have been a coronation-piece, 1568, stands
alone as a chef (Tceuvre ; and the singular copper mark,
1591, deserves to be signalised. We have mentioned the
daler struck to commemorate the battle of Leipsic (or rather
Breittenfeld), 1631, and there is also the sufficiently wellknown
posthumous one of Gustavus Adolphus, 1632. The
money of his immediate predecessors
and his own earlier
coinage are, with the exception of the Salvator type, very
scarce, especially in good preservation. Of Gustavus there
are the heavy copper ore and their divisions, which continued
down to the end of the century, when the still more inconvenient
and artificial dalers of Charles XII. made their
appearance. Of Christina, daughter of Gustavus, there was
also a fairly abundant coinage in silver with full -face and
profile portraits and her natural hair or a wig of elaborate
proportions. This distinguished woman, assisted by the
counsels and sagacious policy of Oxenstierna, and her successors,
Charles X. and XI., struck money for Pomerania
and Livonia ;
but the Minister of Christina virtually ruled
in her name. Her coinage comprised the gold ducat and
the heavy copper or and its divisions. Charles XL also