1 Groat – England

In 1638, England's currency system was fundamentally based on silver, with the pound sterling existing as a unit of account rather than a physical coin. The primary circulating coins were the silver shilling and its subdivisions, alongside the gold sovereign. However, the monetary system was under significant strain due to the longstanding practice of "clipping" (shaving metal from coin edges) and counterfeiting, which had degraded the actual silver content in circulation. This created a discrepancy between the face value and intrinsic bullion value of coins, leading to Gresham's Law in action: "bad" debased coins drove "good" full-weight coins out of circulation, as people hoarded or exported the latter.

This instability was exacerbated by the Crown's financial policies. King Charles I, ruling without Parliament since 1629, was in desperate need of revenue. He had already employed controversial fiscal measures like Ship Money, and in 1640 he would seize the gold and silver deposits of London merchants held at the Mint in the Tower of London—the so-called "Seizing of the Mint." While this outright confiscation occurred two years later, the monetary anxieties and the Crown's search for funds were already palpable in 1638. The government lacked the means to systematically recall and recoin the debased currency, leaving the economy to function on an unreliable medium of exchange.

Consequently, the currency situation reflected and contributed to the wider political and economic tensions that would erupt in the Civil War in 1642. Merchants and landowners were frustrated by a volatile currency that hampered trade and contracts, while the Crown's financial weakness pushed it toward extra-parliamentary and legally dubious expedients. Thus, the state of the coinage in 1638 was not merely a technical economic issue but a symptom of the broader crisis of authority and trust between the monarchy and the political nation, undermining both commercial confidence and the legitimacy of royal finance.