Tiny Tuesday - ‘Alike, But Different’

Here are two tiny silver sixpences, alike but different. One is from the reign of William III and the other from Queen Anne’s.

William III (also William of Orange) married his first cousin Mary, the Protestant elder daughter of the Catholic James II, and they co-reigned from 1689 after they had usurped James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, with the backing of many influential Protestants in England. When Mary II died of smallpox in 1694, William ruled as sole monarch until his death in 1702 from pneumonia. This was a complication from breaking his collarbone in a fall from his horse, which had stumbled on a molehill. Many Jacobites, who had tried unsuccessfully to oust William and restore James II to the throne, toasted "the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat". My William III silver sixpence was minted sometime between 1695-99, but the coin is rather worn so that only the ‘16’ part of the year is readable. William was succeeded by his Protestant cousin and sister-in-law Anne, James II’s younger daughter. During her reign the Acts of Union was ratified in 1707 merging the kingdoms of Scotland and England and making her Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. She died in 1714, three years after my little Queen Anne silver sixpence was minted, the last monarch of the House of Stuart. She was succeeded by her second cousin, George of Hanover, senior Protestant descendant of his great-grandfather James I, who became George I.

I have quite a number of coins in my collection, dating from Roman times through the ages right up to Queen Elizabeth II. I started acquiring them during the pandemic, but haven’t bought any more for over two years.

Thank you to loisbiz for hosting the Tiny Tuesday challenge for January, with this week’s theme of ‘Alike, but Different’.