Crown of the Double Rose: Crowned Double Rose (obverse); Crowned Royal Arms (reverse) (1526–33): Art, History and Details

Crown of the Double Rose: Crowned Double Rose (obverse); Crowned Royal Arms (reverse) (1526–33) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

For the first time the Crown of the Double Rose makes it appearance. On these coins the motto Rutilans Rosa Sine Spine, a dazzling rose without a thorn, follows the king's name on the obverse. The crowned initials on either side of the rose are those of Henry and his first queen, Katherine (or Catherine) of Aragon. Since Henry divorced Katherine in 1533, the date of this piece must fall between 1526 and 1533. It was this divorce which helped to bring about the fall of the famous Cardinal Wolsey, the beheadings of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, and the separation of the English Church from that of Rome.

Object facts

• Title: Crown of the Double Rose: Crowned Double Rose (obverse); Crowned Royal Arms (reverse)
• Date: 1526–33
• Culture: England, Henry VIII, 1509-1547
• Type: Coins
• Technique: gold
• Dimensions: Diameter: 2.5 cm (1 in.)
• Collection: MED - Numismatics
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1969.172

A detail from the museum

Henry VIII placed the initials of three of his queens on some of his coins, the only occasion on which this has been done on the English coinage.

Collection credit

The Norweb Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Emery May Norweb. English Gold Coins, Ancient to Modern Times, On Loan to the Cleveland Museum of Art from the Norweb Collection. [Catalog. 1968.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.