LONDON, ENGLAND—A family living in southeastern England discovered a cache of Tudor coins, including 63 gold coins and one silver coin, while doing yard work, according to a report in The Guardian. “That was a great deal of money, certainly more than the annual wages of the average person,” said Barrie Cook of the British Museum. The Tudor coins date from the late fifteenth century and the reign of Edward IV to the early sixteenth century and the reign of Henry VIII. Cook explained that an image of the archangel Michael killing a dragon adorns the back of many of the coins, but in 1526, Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey replaced such “angels” with a five-shilling gold coin bearing a picture of a crown adorned with the queen’s initial. Three coins in the hoard are thus marked with the initials of Catherine of Aragon (K), Anne Boleyn (A), and Jane Seymour (I), respectively. John Naylor of the Ashmolean Museum suggested that the hoard may have been concealed by a member of the clergy after Henry VIII became head of the Christian church in England, disbanded monasteries, and appropriated their assets. To read about remains of Greenwich Palace unearthed in London, go to "Henry VIII's Favorite Palace."
