What was the currency in England during the reign of Cromwell?
Forget the long, boring, irrelevant one above. Yes, it was pounds shillings, pence – it took fools like Heath and Wilson to get rid of that, not a great man like Cromwell. The design on the coinage was altered after the beheading of Charles I. The new coins – in gold the unite (pound) and half-unite, and in silver the crown, half-crown, shilling, sixpence, halfgroat or twopence, penny and halfpenny – had on the obverse (heads) the shield with st George’s cross in a laurel wreath and around them the words, THE COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND, and on the reverse two shilds side by side, one with a St George’s Cross and the other with the Irish Harp, and around them the legend GOD WITH VS.and the date at the top. These were called ‘breeches money’ as the shilds side by side looked like an old pair of breeches or knee-length trousers. The halfpenny was very, very small and there was no farthing. Charles I had given licenses to make copper farthings and this was made one of the objections against h
