Edward the Martyr, Penny, Tamworth Mint, moneyer Deorwulf

Edward the Martyr (975-978), silver Penny, Tamworth Mint, Moneyer Deorulf, draped portrait left, linear circle and legend with outer beaded circle surrounding both sides, +EADPEARD REX ANGL-, terminal contraction mark, rev. small cross pattée, +DEORVCE M-O TAMP.O, weight 1.21g (BMC I p.191; cf.Hild 9; SCBI 2:763 Hunterian; N.763; S.1142). Toned, extremely fine, of the highest rarity and with a great provenance.

Deorulf was one of only two moneyers listed by North working at Tamworth, one of 35 mint towns named for Edward the Martyr, most of the mints being one moneyer only.

Edward born circa 961, the eldest son of Eadgar was only 14 when he ascended the throne, his mother having died when he was a youngster. He was crowned on the 18^th July 975, however famine and pestilence shortly broke out in the Kingdom, as well as pillaging of monasteries blighting the new reign. Edward's Stepmother Aethelfryth the third wife of Eadgar also favored her youngest surviving son Aethelred for the throne as being "born in the purple" of Eadgar's reign. An unfortunate accident at a Royal council meeting at Calne in Wiltshire in early 978 where an upper storey of a building collapsed killing many important people did not help matters, Dunstan narrowly surviving as he was standing on a beam that withstood the collapse. On the 18^th March 978 Edward was murdered near Corfe Castle in Dorset, the legend being that upon visiting his Stepmother, one of her attendants (or even herself) stabbed him as he leant down from his horse to grasp a drink. The horse bolted and he either died from his wound or from falling from the horse aged around 18. Buried in haste at nearby Wareham it was not long before miracles began to occur in connection to his body and he was later reinterred at Shaftesbury and sanctified as Edward the Martyr.

Tamworth on the River Tame in Staffordshire was the capital of Mercia and fortified by Queen Aethelflaed in 913 to repel the Danes and upon her death in 918 the town was seized by Edward the Elder. In 926 Aethelstan gave his sister in marriage to Sihtric here and the town was later stormed by the King of Dublin Anlaf Guthfrithson in 940.

The legends translate on obverse as "Edward King of the English" and reverse "Deorulf Moneyer of Tamworth".

Provenance:

Ex Duke of Argyll Collection (d.1949), purchased by Spink 1952.

Ex B. W. Hunt Collection, purchased by Spink 1954.

Ex Ernest Danson Collection, Dix Noonan and Webb, Auction 68, 12^th December 2005, lot 166.

Ex Collection of an English Doctor, part one, Sovereign Rarities, London, March 2022.