ROYAL MINT PLANS BREXIT COIN

It was announced and confirmed today by HM Treasury in the United Kingdom that they will officially issue a commemorative coin to mark the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union, commonly referred to as Brexit. The announcement was made after the delivery of the annual budget speech by the Finance Minister Philip Hammond, who is referred to as the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the House of Commons. Her Majesty’s Treasury will authorise the design and minting of a commemorative coin which will in itself not reference Brexit but instead include the date of departure and is also expected to be branded with a message that partially quotes America’s third president and author if the U.S. declaration of independence, Thomas Jefferson, with the words “Peace, Prosperity, and Friendship with all nations.”

The issue of a commemorative coin to mark the UK’s departure from the European Union was ostensibly the result of a campaign initiated by the tabloid newspaper, The Sun, which petitioned its readers to support the minting of the new 50-pence coin and had argued “for the Government to create an enduring gesture to mark Brexit as a landmark national moment.” According to The Sun, they have reported from Treasury sources that the department had been secretly working on plans for the Brexit coin for months before Conservative members of Parliament began to campaign for such a commemorative coin.

The iconic seven-sided 50-pence coin was specially chosen, as this was the particular denomination used in 1973 to mark the United Kingdom’s inclusion in the European Economic Community (EEC), a precursor to the European Union. In 1992, for the occasion of the United Kingdom holding the rotating presidency of the European Union commission, a 50-pence coin was issued, and a second 50-pence coin was issued in 1998 with reduced weight and diameter for the same occasion.

To read the complete article, see:
United Kingdom announces that a commemorative 50-pence coin will be issued to mark Brexit (http://news.coinupdate.com/united-kingdom-announces-that-a-commemorative-50-pence-coin-will-be-issued-to-mark-brexit/)

It will not be the first time that Britain’s relationship with Europe has been marked on its coinage. Commemorative 50p pieces were struck in 1973 when Britain joined the European Economic Community, and in 1998 to mark the UK’s presidency of the EU. But you could argue that the neatest parallel to the Brexit coin goes back almost two millennia, to the third century AD and the first, dramatic Brexit – under Britain’s breakaway Roman emperor, Carausius.

A Roman officer from modern Netherlands, Carausius was given command of a fleet whose job was to rid the Channel of Saxon raiders. But, accused of colluding with the pirates, he was sentenced to death. His response, in about AD 286 or 287, was to seize control of the Roman province of Britannia, along with a chunk of France around Boulogne.

Precisely what was really going on here is hard to unpick; there is hardly anything to go on in the historical record (a fact that probably helped rather than hindered the writer Rosemary Sutcliff in fleshing out a wonderfully compelling account in her children’s book The Silver Branch). But there are strong clues in the distinctive, highly suggestive coins Carausius struck. One declared him “the restorer of Britain”, another “spirit of Britain”. Another was inscribed with words that translate as “Come, awaited one” – an adaptation of a phrase from Virgil. Another had an image of Romulus and Remus suckled by the she-wolf – the great, resonant image of Rome’s mythical origins – with the inscription, “the restorer of the Romans”, along with the rather enigmatic initials RSR. Carausius was claiming to hark back to a better, stronger age.

However, the most intriguing coin he struck was a splendid gold medallion, the sole example of which is in the British Museum, and which I was (thrillingly) allowed to examine and hold when researching my book about Roman Britain, Under Another Sky. The coin, brought into the museum by a little boy in the 1930s, shows Carausius himself dressed in a consular toga (pure fake news, incidentally, since he was never elected consul). The reverse shows Victory in a chariot and the words “victory of Carausius Augustus”. Also on the coin are the letters INPCDA.

For years no one had a clue what the letters RSR or INPCDA alluded to. Then, in 1997, it suddenly occurred to the writer and broadcaster Guy de la Bédoyère – while running a bath for his children – that they could perhaps be something to do with Virgil. On the offchance, he flicked through the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. And there the letters were, right in front of him. RSR stands for redeunt saturnia regna, or “the Golden Age returns”; INPCDA for iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto – “now a new progeny is sent from heaven”. Together, they are the most famous line and a half of Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue – an ecstatic poem foretelling the start of a glorious new era.

To read the complete article, see:
The new 50p has echoes of the first, disastrous Brexit (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/30/new-50p-brexit-british-coins-europe)

I was both pleased and flattered by Charlotte Higgins’ generous acknowledgment of my discovery of the Virgilian Eclogue tag on the coins and medallions of the rebel Roman emperor Carausius and his regime in Britain (The 50p coin recalls the first, ill-fated Brexit, 31 October).

But Carausius was no antique Brexiteer or Boris Johnson. Quite the reverse in fact. Everything about his propaganda, flaunted on his coins which depict an array of traditional Roman virtues and aspirations, shows that he claimed to be restoring the decrepit, violence-ridden Roman empire – Renovator Romanorum (“Restorer of the Romans”), he bragged on one. He never claimed to be restoring Britain.

Carausius was turning the clock back three centuries to the great days of Augustan Rome, so he said, but starting in his power base in Britain. He even opened the first mint in London in order to produce some of his coins.

Had he been around today, far from leading Brexit, the swaggering Carausius would be claiming to be restoring the great aspirations and ideals of the European Union, but in London rather than Brussels.

In short, Carausius was the original remain hero (and martyr).
Guy de la Bédoyère
Welby, Lincolnshire

•Boris Johnson “minted on to a coin wearing a toga and surrounded by quotations” to mark a second ill-fated Brexit? “Per ardua ad calamitas”?
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire

•â€œPeace, prosperity and friendship with all nations”, the words on the proposed 50p piece to celebrate Brexit are OK, but a bit bland. Half a century ago, MLK quoted words that are unsurpassable re the Brexit coin: “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last.” Dai Woosnam Grimsby, Lincolnshire

To read the complete article, see:
Carausius was the original remain hero (and martyr), writes Guy de la Bédoyère; plus letters from Austen Lynch and Dai Woosnam (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/31/carausius-and-the-50p-brexit-coin)

To read the complete article, see:
Twitter users mint new jokes over Brexit 50p coin (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/29/twitter-users-mint-new-jokes-over-brexit-50p-coin)

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