1589, the Year of the Three Kings

Henry III's Liberties of Navarre As we saw in the dedicated section, 1584 was the last year of the Navarrese livres. The same year was also the first year of the quarter escudos minted in Donapaleu; at the same time that the minting of the livres and half escudos ended, the mint of Donapaleu began minting quarter escudos.

The silver quarter escudos were created by order of King Henry III of France on November 28, 1577. As we saw in that section, the quarter escudos had a value of 15 shillings, a quarter of the gold escudo coin or ¾ of the pound unit of account used until then (although in France, counting in pounds instead of escudos was prohibited in these early years). Compared to the silver escudos, despite their lower weight, they had a higher silver purity and, since they allowed the silver brought from the Spanish kingdoms to be easily worked, they were a complete success.

These coins, with a fineness of 917 thousandths and a nominal weight of 9.712 grams, were struck by hammer in Donapaleu until 1652. As a result, for 68 years (although no quarter escudos were struck in each of these years), the Donapaleu mint, one of the last to give way to the wheel press, was the creator of these beautiful struck silver coins.

Silver Navarrese Pound minted in 1584 at the Donapaleu Mint – 13.69gr, 34mm Diameter – Cgb Auction House – Large bust

Found: HENRICVS.II.DGREX.NAVARRE. (Four-leafed Flower) Coat of Arms of Navarre

Hell: GRATIA.DEI.SVM.ID.Q.SVM.1584 – Lily and letter C or moon

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1584 at the Donapaleu Mint – 9.31gr, 30mm Diameter – Another video

Found: HENRICVS.II.DGREX.NAVARRE.

Hell: GRATIA.DEI.SVM.ID.Q.SVM.1584 Lily and letter C or moon

These quarter shields completely transformed the imagery of the last Valois royal coins of France, where in the previous issue the king's image was usually shown in the foreground. The quarter shields replaced this royal image with a cross surrounded by lilies. In France, and at least in the case of the coins of Navarre, the complex and varied coat of arms of the libers was replaced by the half-divided coat of arms of Navarre and the House of Bourbon. Coinage now took precedence over art, as Henry was deeply involved in the religious wars of France.

The letter R that appears on the quarter shields of Donapaleu and the following five years is probably also a characteristic of the coiner Roger de Vergez. The appearance of this letter R was in 1585, where we can find specimens with and without the letter R:

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1585 at the Donapaleu Mint – 9.47gr, 27mm Diameter – Without letter R – Another video

Found: HENRICVS.II.DGREX.NAVARRE.

Hell: GRATIA.DEI.SVM.ID.Q.SVM.1585 Lily (again the letter C or the moon?)

Silver Quarter Coin minted in 1585 at the Donapaleu Mint – Letter R

Found: HENRICVS.II.DGREX.NAVARRE.

Hell: GRATIA.DEI.SVM.ID.Q.SVM.1585 Lily (again the letter C or the moon?)

Unfortunately, only the first two years of quartering have survived; however, we can be absolutely certain that Henry III had quarterings minted at Donapeleu every year until he became Henry IV of the French kingdom in 1589.

	Number of Pounds and Half Pounds Crafted	Number of Quarter Shields Crafted
1584	45802	48582
1585	–	81904

Number of pounds and quarter escudos minted at the Donapaleu mint in 1584 and 1585

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1586 at the Donapaleu Mint – 9.44gr, 29mm Diameter – Another video

Found: HENRICVS.II.DGREX.NAVARRE. Letter R

Hell: GRAT(I)A.DEI.SVM.ID.Q.SVM.1586 Lily and letter C or moon

Similar to what was seen with the pounds and half pounds, eighths were also minted alongside the quarter escudos. These coins had a nominal weight of 4.856 grams and a diameter of around 24-25mm, although the few coins that have survived to this day are below this nominal weight. At least I have found eighths from 1585, 1586 and 1589, the researcher Françoise Dumas is said to have known about the coins from 1587 and therefore it would be quite likely that eighths were also minted in 1584 and 1588. In any case, the number of these eighths is very small today and here too, we can say that the number of eighths minted in these years was much smaller than that of quarter escudos.

Silver Eight Shields minted in 1585 at the Donapaleu mint – 4.38gr

Obverse: HENRY II.DGREX.NAVARRE. Letter R

Ifrentzua: GRATIA.D.SVM.Q.SVM.1585 Lily. Letter C or moon

Aureo & Calicó Auction 396, Lot 3411 18.10.2022

Silver Eight Shields minted in 1586 at the Donapaleu Mint – 4.50gr

Obverse: HENRY II.DGREX.NAVARRE. Letter R

Ifrentzua: GRATIA.D.SVM.Q.SVM.1586 Lily. Maybe the letter C or the moon?

ALDE, PUBLIC AUCTION OCTOBER 2015, LOT 1387 26.10.2015

Silver Eight Shields minted in 1589 at the Donapaleu mint – 4.49gr

Obverse: HENRY II.DGREX.NAVARR. Letter R

Ifrentzua: GRATIA.D.SVM.Q.SVM.1589 Lily.

Editions V. Gadoury, Spring 2022 Auction, Lot 778 12.03.2022

The quarter and eighth shields struck at the Donapaleut mint have another distinctive feature, when compared with the Bearn or French kingdom coins of the same years. The Donapaleut coins do not have the Roman numerals IIII or VIII, which were the hallmarks of value. These features will appear when Henry becomes king of France, along with the appearance of new text images. As an example, let us see a quarter shield struck at the Pau mill mint in 1585:

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1585 at the Pau Mint – 9.51gr 30mm diameter – Another video

Found: HENRICVS.II.DGREX.NAVARRAE.DB Monogram (Dominus Bearnie)

Ifrentzua: FREE.CALL.SVM.QDSVM.1585 letter C or crescent

Or this other coin minted in 1586 at the Morlaas mint:

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1586 at the Morlaas mint – Another video

Found: HENRICVS.II.DGREX.NAVARRAE.DB (Dominus Bearnie)

Ifrentzua: (Star) GRATIA.DEI.SVM.QDSVM.1586

As can be seen, the Biarritz mints display unified text images, with NAVARRAE and DB in the foreground, instead of NAVARRE in Donapaleu. In Ifrentz, again GRATIA DEI SVM QVOD ID SVM, Donapeleu GRATIA DEI SVM ID QVOD Instead of SVM (throughout history, in previous years, the Donapaleuo text image was used in all mints).

After the section dedicated to the libres of Navarre, a reader asked me: If you wrote about the libres of Henry III, how does Henry II appear in those libres? Have you made a mistake?

These quarter shields seen so far bear the name of Henry II again, was I wrong? Well, no, at least I haven't made a mistake here. Henry III. ordinal belonged to him as king of Navarre, after Henry I (1270-1274) and Henry II (1517-1555) his grandfather. How then does the II. ordinal appear on modern coins?

This ordinal belonged to Henry as Lord of Bearn and since the coin models minted in Donapala came from the Bearn mints (remember, the Donapala mint was only reopened in 1579), the Bearn coinage became rooted in the last independent territory of the old kingdom of Navarre.

In fact, when they referred to the title of the kingship of Navarre, the same Bearn coins had the ordinal III. The use of the ordinal was established in Bearn, after the death of Queen Joan, in 1572, on the first coins of the same Henry, and as we have seen, from the very beginning the Bearn ordinal was used even when referring to the kingship of Navarre.

But they finally pointed out the mistake and corrected their mistake:

Silver Quarter Eskut minted in 1588 at the Morlaas mint – 9.56gr

Found: HENRICVS.III.DGREX.NAVARRAE.DB (Dominus Bearnie)

Ifrentzua: (Star) GRATIA.DEI.SVM.QDSVM.1588 (Star)

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1589 at the Pau Mint – 9.01gr 29mm diameter – Another video

Found: HENRICVS.III.DGREX.NAVARRAE.DB (Dominus Bearnie)

Ifrentzua: (Star) GRATA.DEI.SVM.QDSVM.1589 (Star)

This correction, however, did not reach Donapaleu; on coins minted in Navarre, where there was no trace of the mention of the lordship of Bearn in the text-images, we only find the ordinal of Henry II, lord of Bearn, in the years 1588 and 1589:

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1589 at the Donapaleu mint – 9.54gr – Another video

Found: HENRICVS.II.DGREX.NAVARRE. Letter R

Ifrentzua: FREE.CALL.SVM.ID.Q.SVM.1589 Lily and letter C or moon

It is a paradox that while the ordinal was corrected in the Bearn mints, the only mint in the Kingdom of Navarre left the II. ordinal unchanged. Perhaps they were about to correct the error when, on August 1, 1589, a Dominican friar assassinated King Henry of France and Henry III. King of Navarre became the new Henry IV. King of France.

Henry, as a hegamot, had to endure nine years of civil war before he could fully secure the French crown. But the territories and cities under his control soon began to mint new coins, among them Donapaleu:

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1589 at the Donapaleu Mint – 8.88gr 30mm diameter

Found: HENRICVS.4.DGFRAN.E.NAVAR.REX. The letter R has disappeared.

Reverse: (Letter B) GRATIA.DEI.SVM.ID.Q.SVM.1589 (Letter C or moon)

The structure of these new coins is absolutely significant.

• Although the obverse used the ordinal corresponding to the French crown, the text image made it clear that Henry was king of France and Navarre. However, in the coins minted in the territories of Navarre itself, the ordinal of the French kingdom was used instead of that of Navarre.

If we compare it with the coinage practices of the Spanish kingdoms, for example with the southern kingdom of Navarre, we can notice the differences. In the south, coins were minted under the simple title of the king of Navarre and A couple of attempts to change this led to a violent rejection by the courts.

In the North, Separate kingdoms until 1620 However, both the coins of France and those of Navarre and Bearn bore the ordinal of the French kingdom. We must also admit that the full title of the king appeared on the coins of all the French territories. Let us take this other example from Bayonne:

Silver Quarter Shield minted in Bayonne in 1590 – 9.46gr 30mm diameter – CGB auction house

Found: HENRICVS.4.DGFRAN.ET.NAVA.R. 1590

Obverse: SIT NOMEN DOMINI.BENEDICTVM (Anchor) (Shell) Letter L

Although the Ifrentzu side had different text images and coats of arms, this Bayonne specimen featured the same text on the Donapaleu coins.

• As for the royal ordinal number itself, it was first depicted in Arabic numerals instead of Roman numerals. Although most mints returned to Roman numerals between 1590 and 1591, the Donapalauc mint used the Arabic numeral 4 throughout Henry's reign, until the coins of his son Louis XIII returned to Roman ordinal numbers. Let us examine the quarter shields of Pau and Donapalauc from the end of Henry's reign:

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1590 at the Pau Mint – 9.60gr 31mm diameter

Found: HENRICVS.III.DGFRANC.ET.NAVA.REX.DB (Dominus Bearnie)

Ifrentzua: (Star) GRATIA.DEI.SVM.QDSVM.1590 (Star)

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1608 at the Donapaleu Mint – 9.43gr 29mm diameter

Found: HENRICVS.4.DGFRANC.ET.NAVAR.RX.

Reverse: (Letter F) THANK YOU.CALL.SVM.ID.Q.SVM.1608 (Letter C or moon)

And let's see how the Roman ordinal number returned as soon as Henry died:

Silver Quarter Shield minted in 1610 at the Donapaleu Mint – 9.49gr 29mm diameter – CGB Mint

Found: LVDOVICVS.XIII.DGFRANC.ET.NAVA.RX.

Reverse: (Letter F) THANK YOU.CALL.SVM.ID.Q.SVM.1610

• Regarding the Ifrentzu side, the Roman numerals representing the quarter and eighth escudos appeared for the first time:

Silver Eight Shields minted in 1598 at the Donapaleu Mint – 4.63gr 25mm diameter

Obverse: HENRY.4.DGFRANC.ET.NAVA.REX.

Reverse: GRATIA.DEI.SVM.Q.SVM.1598 (letter C or moon) – V and III next to the coat of arms

• Regarding the coat of arms that appeared in Ifrentzua, it changed from Navarre-Bourbon to France-Navarre. The Bourbon house first obtained the kingship of Navarre, and from there the kingship of France, before later obtaining the kingship of Spain. But in the original kingdom of Navarre itself, they made it clear that France came first and Navarre after.

But that wasn't always the case...

One of the last silver quarter coins minted at the Donapaleu mint in 1651 – 9.62gr 32mm diameter

Found: LVDOVICVS.XIIII.DGFRANC.ET.NAVAR.

Ifrentzu: GRACIA.CALL.SVM.ID.Q.SVM.1651 (Letter V)

Navarre-France coat of arms instead of France-Navarre

• Throughout this section we have described several letters around the text images or images of the coins. Among these letters, the letter C, which could be a crescent moon, appears most frequently. We also saw this letter in the section on the Navarrese libras, around the crown of these coins. Some authors attribute the value of the engraver's mark to this letter. At the same time, they compare it to the engraver Jerome Le Normand between 1590 and the first decade of the 17th century. In my opinion, however, the quarter and eighth shields of Donapaleu did not have the mark of the engraver (at least until the flywheel press coins appeared) and we need to analyze the meaning of this crescent elsewhere.
• The remaining letters seen are, however, the hallmarks of the mintmaster. And these hallmarks, from 1589 onwards, gave the mint of Donapaleu another special feature. Together with the mints of Bearn, and unlike the French mints, they were the only mints to designate the mintmasters by letter. Since it was forbidden in the mints of the Kingdom of France to distinguish the mintmasters by letter, in 1540 the minting law decided to distinguish the mints by letter; for example, the letter L was the letter corresponding to Bayonne. If the mintmasters used a letter, it could be confused with the letter designation of the mint that had struck the coin and therefore any such activity was prohibited.

Let's review the capital letters of the Donapeleu coins seen in this section:

• • Letter R: Quarterly shields from 1585: Roger de Vergez (1581-1589)
  • Letter B: Bertrand de la Lande (1589-1595)
  • Letter F: Jehan du Four (1595 – 1611)
  • Letter V: Jean Verdoye (1649 – 1659)

After this section we can say the following! Just as the Roman Empire had the Year of the Four Emperors in 69 AD, the Kingdom of Navarre had the Year of the Three Kings in 1589; But there were not three different kings sitting on the throne, but the same king, who appeared on the coins of the kingdom as Henry II, Henry III and Henry IV!!

Bibliography:

MINT OF NAVARRE AND BEARN – WIKIPEDIA – link

Histoire monétaire du Béarn – Jules Adrien Blanchet – 1893 – link

MONNAIES DE FRANCE, DE NAVARRE ET DU BÈARN – Jean Claude Ungar – 2010

Les frappes monétaires en Béarn et Basse-Navarre d'après les comptes conservées aux Archives départementales des Basses Pyrénées - Françoise Dumas - 1959 - link

LES MONNAIES FRANCAISES ROYALES – Tome 1 et 2 – 2° Edition -1999 -Jean Duplessy (In Memoriam 1929- 2020)

Le livre des monnaies feodales de Béarn et de Navarre – Henri II (III de Navarre) 1572-1589 – Club Numismatique Palois – Serge Salles – link

COLLECTION DAVID NAVARRE–Youtube Videos – link

Les monnaies béarnais de Louis XIV (I) – CHRISTIAN CHARLET – 2012 –  link

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