GoldSilverHQ
gold—silver—

1640

Mint deposits seized

Charles I seizes merchants’ bullion stored in the Tower mint. A royal warehouse is not a safe warehouse.

1771 Mexican pillar dollar of eight reales, obverse and reverse.
Pillar dollar of eight reales, Mexico, 1771. The 1640 fact is the seizure of bullion at the Tower mint, not this coin.Public domain.

In 1640 the Crown took merchants’ bullion from the Tower mint. The stated need was cash for war. Depositors who thought the royal warehouse was safe learned that a sovereign can close a window.

These pages place London’s later shift toward goldsmith running-cash notes after the Restoration, and they do not give that shift its own year. The Stop of the Exchequer is 1672. Amsterdam’s Wisselbank is already open.

Warehouses to public banks →