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22 2011 (2012)

Major international Volume 22 numismatic auctions held Journal of the Numismatic Association of Australia in Sydney & Melbourne

With three major numismatic auctions each year, consignments are wanted. Be a part of our success. Contact our Sydney offi ce (02) 9223 4578 or our Melbourne offi ce (03) 9600 0244 for a free, confi dential valuation. Journal of the NOBLE www.noble.com.au NUMISMATICS PTY LTD Numismatic Association of Australia ground fl oor 169 macquarie street sydney [email protected] level 7 / 350 collins street melbourne [email protected] The ‘Crookston Dollar’ and the historic muse

David J Rampling

To make up for the rarity of strictly am indebted to a nineteenth-century accurate annals, interest in old castles historian, David Semple, who is usually sustained by the aid of documented his exhaustive researches traditional tales…and in the supply of in a monograph refuting the validity of such legendary ware Crookston Castle any connection between the coin and kept well to the front. the Crookston estates.3 Some of his R Renwick (1910) themes are incorporated into my paper4; moreover, as Semple’s concluding hope England inaugurated the silver that “the day is now past for continuing crown denomination in the reign of the false name…of the coin”5 has not Edward VI with the striking ‘king on been realised more than a century later, horseback’ design in 1551. Scotland it is perhaps salutary to re-examine the followed in 1565 under Mary and Henry myth. Darnley with a silver ryal or thirty The ryal is composed of silver shilling piece, bearing facing portraits with a fineness of eleven deniers and (Fig. 1).1 It was rapidly withdrawn and weighs one Scottish ounce (c. 30.5 g). replaced by a design featuring the arms The obverse bears the arms of Scotland of Scotland on the obverse and a palm crowned, between two thistles, with the tree, tortoise and scroll on the reverse legend: MARIA. &. HENRIC9. DEI. (Fig. 2).2 The ryal became popularly GRA. R. &. R. SCOTORV surrounding known as the ‘Crookston dollar’ these central elements. The reverse sometime in the eighteenth century, bears a crowned palm tree with a tortoise due to a presumed romantic association climbing the trunk; across the tree is a with Crookston Castle, near Glasgow. scroll on which is displayed the motto The term, ‘dollar’, was commonly used DAT GLORIA VIRES (Glory gives from the late-sixteenth century onward strength6). The date is positioned across to describe crown-sized silver coins. the lower trunk with two numerals In this paper, I trace the origin either side. The legend: EXVRGAT. and some of the ramifications of the DEVS. &. DISSIPENTR . INIMICI. EI9 ‘Crookston’ connection, in numismatic (Let God arise and let His enemies be antiquarianism, literature, and art. I scattered7) surrounds the central design. 80 JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) The ‘Crookston Dollar’ and the historic muse

Figure 1. Copper electrotype cliché of obverse of Henry and Mary portraits ryal.

Figure 2. Mary and Henry ryal (Crookston dollar). This remained the design for three principal features, with their weights years with annual changes of dates from and dimensions being in proportion. All 1565-7. Henry’s name was dropped display minor variations within each following his death in February 1567. denomination (Fig. 3). The majority of coins of 1567 bear the The unusual design chosen for the obverse legend: MARIA. DEI. GRA. reverse of these coins has provided SCOTORVM. REGINA. endless fascination for numismatists, The two-thirds and one-third ryals and has invoked various hypotheses follow the design of the ryals in their as to its emblematic significance.8 As JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) 81 David J Rampling

Figure 3. Ryal, two-thirds and one third ryals (reverses). these conjectures bear only indirectly romantic fable that it once offered shade on my subject, I shall not review to Mary and Henry Darnley pursuing them here except to point out that the their courtship beneath its branches. climbing tortoise or ‘schell-padocke’ Charles Mackie in The Castles of Mary, as it is designated in the ordinance, Queen of Scots, (1835) recorded: “The is commonly identified with Henry site of the yew tree is still pointed Darnley. out…under whose ill-omened branches In tracing the origins and course of Mary is said to have sat with her lover, the appropriation of ‘Crookston’ to the enjoying that reciprocal felicity, which coin, there is the interweaving of several was so soon to be embittered by the threads: first, the ‘romantic’ linking of blackest malignity…”.9 Mackie went on Mary to Crookston and its yew tree, to state the then entrenched belief that secondly, the imaginative palimpsest the “impress of the tree of Crookston engaged in by numismatists of effacing is on the reverse of the large pieces of the palm with a yew, and finally, the an ounce weight coined by Queen Mary immutability of the term ‘Crookston after marriage with Henry Darnley”.10 dollar’. This figment of imagination was The association of the Mary ryal based on a double falsehood. First, the with Crookston Castle (Fig. 4) is based tree depicted on the coin is a palm, and on the once popular presumption that was stated as such in the ordinance of the tree depicted on the reverse of the 22nd December, 1565 for the striking of coin is a yew that grew within the castle the ryals; secondly, there is no evidence grounds, the ancestral home of the that Mary and Henry were ever together Stewarts of Darnley. This tree caught at Crookston. the popular imagination through the How, then, did these mythical 82 JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) The ‘Crookston Dollar’ and the historic muse

Figure 4. Crookston Castle viewed from the east.

JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) 83 David J Rampling associations evolve, and become of death: enshrined in the vernacular designation of ‘Crookston dollar’? A reference is As I did sleep under this yew to be found in The Scottish Historical tree here, I dreamt my master Library by Nicolson published in 1702. and another fought, And that my Describing the coin he noted: master slew him A Palm-Tree crown’d…Some call the Tree on the Reverse an Yew- The first major work on the Scottish Tree; and report that there grew coinage, James Anderson’s Selectus a famous one of that kind in the Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotiae Park (or Garden) of the Earl of Thesaurus, published in 1739, affirmed Lenox, which gave occasion to the that the tree represented on the coin was Impress…11 not a yew but a palm: “in quo non taxus, There appears to be no earlier sed palma”.13 Anderson presumably had publication attesting a connection access to the Act of the Privy Council between the yew tree and the coin, but of 1565 authorising the coinage of ryals, Nicolson made it clear that a tradition as this had been made freely available had arisen prior to the eighteenth in an Edinburgh publication four years century. He is silent as by what licence previously.14 the palm was transformed into a yew I am unaware of any further in the popular imagination. The myth reference to a relationship between the was repeated by at least two historians tree of Crookston and the Mary ryal during the early decades of the until 1763, when an engraving made by eighteenth century.12 Robert Paul from a sketch by Charles While acknowledging the romantic Cordiner and published by Foulis, associations of later generations, it is included the tree in the foreground of tempting to speculate that the tradition the castle and the reverse of a Mary may have originated from events ryal beneath the main scene (Fig. 5). contemporaneous with the coinage, As if to make plain a link between the namely the consecutive murders of Crookston tree and the arboreal image Mary’s secretary David Rizzio, and on the coin, the artist placed some roots subsequently, her husband, Henry emerging from the rim of the coin!15 Darnley. Yew trees have historically The following year saw the provided wood for weaponry, are publication of The Clyde, a poem by of themselves poisonous, and have John Wilson (1720-1789), containing an ancient connection to seership as these lines: portrayed in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act 5, Scene 3, wherein By Crookston Castle waves the Romeo’s servant Balthasar has a vision still green yew, 84 JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) The ‘Crookston Dollar’ and the historic muse

Figure 5. Castle and ryal linked in engraving of 1763. (The same perspective as in Fig. 4.) The first that met the royal Mary’s contemporary readership. view, In 1786, Adam de Cardonnel When, bright in charms, the perpetuated the myth in his Numismata youthful princess led Scotiae16, notwithstanding the assertions The graceful Darnley to her of Nicolson in 1702, Anderson in 1739 throne and bed: and Snelling17 in 1774 that the tree Embossed in silver, now its depicted on the coin was a palm. Having branches green quoted Anderson and the ordinance of Transcend the myrtle of the 1565, he added the footnote: Paphian queen This was the first large silver piece that was coined in Scotland. It is This reference to the Crookston yew observable, that this is almost the being “embossed in silver”, suggests only instance of the king’s name that the connection of castle and coin being placed posterior to that had by mid-eighteenth century achieved of the queen; however, to make popular acceptance, or the allusion amends as it were to the king…the would have had little meaning for a famous yew tree of Cruickstone, JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) 85 David J Rampling the inheritance of the family of better founded. That on what is Darnley in the parish of Paisley called the Cruickston dollar there is made the reverse of this new is a tree engraved, is very true, but coin…18 then this tree is not a yew, but a It was not until the next century that palm, and the order of the Scottish the term ‘Crookston dollar’ appeared in Privy Council…for this particular print. The first reference to the term that device…is still extant… I have been able to find is contained in a Under-pinning the persistent letter published in The Times in 1819.19 associations of castle, queen and coin The writer was at pains to point out was a heightening of the romantic taint the falsity of any romance beneath the in historical writing. One expression of branches of the Crookston yew, and the this was the eulogistic excesses with misappropriation of this legend to the which the Queen’s physical attributes coin: were described. “The incomparable …the whole story of Queen Mary’s beauty and expression of Mary’s connection with Cruikston-castle, countenance,” wrote Gilbert Stuart in and the Cruikston yew, is now 1782, “the exquisite propriety of her known to be a mere tissue of fable. stature, and the exact symmetry of her On this subject we find a double shapes attracted and fixed the admiration tradition extant. One part is, that of every beholder. In her air, her walk, in this fortalice she made her her gesture she mingled majesty and frequent abode, and that it was grace. Her eyes, which were of a dark here, under the yew tree, she first grey, spoke the situations and sensibility consigned herself to the arms of of her mind; the sound of her voice was Darnley; the other, that in memory melodious and affecting; her hair which of this event, she caused a coin, was black improved the brightness of or medal, to be struck, the piece her complexion…”.20 so much prized by antiquarians The portrayal of both Mary, and under the name of Mary’s rial, her relationship with Darnley, reached or the Cruickston dollar, having a romantic zenith with the publication for impress the said yew…in all of Lives of the Queens of Scotland this there is not a single word by Agnes Strickland in 1853.21 She of historical truth. As for any devoted the whole of the fourth volume residence at Cruickston-castle by of her eight volume work to Mary Mary and Darnley, that was quite and Darnley, including a quotation impossible, because… the edifice from Mary’s contemporary Thomas was quite uninhabitable, being Randolph, regarding the Queen’s little more than a mass of ruins. maturity – ‘there is now so much Nor is the story of the medal added of perfect beauty…far excelling 86 JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) The ‘Crookston Dollar’ and the historic muse

Figure 6. Snuff box made from wood of Oriental Plane tree planted by Queen Mary.28 any…that ever was made since the and subsequently sited Mary in the first framing of mankind’.22 Strickland grounds of the castle on her flight from concludes the volume with an appeal Lochleven, extolling the significance of – “Is there the female heart that has the yew tree: ever felt the power of a constant and enduring love” that does not imagine “To yonder tree,” she said, Mary’s “realm would have been to her pointing to a yew-tree which grew as a desert in the absence of the object on a small mount close to the of her yearning affection…?23 castle; “I know it well…”… And The influence of Sir Walter Scott freeing herself from her assistants, on nineteenth century Scottish culture she walked with a determined, cannot be overestimated. Both his yet somewhat wild step, up to the involvement in contemporary affairs stem of the noble yew… and his historical imagination as “Ay, fair and stately tree,” she realised in the Waverley novels, cast a said, as if at the sight of it she romantic glow over Scottish history. Sir had been rapt away from the Walter’s historic muse was given free present scene, and had overcome rein in his novel, The Abbot published the horror which had oppressed in 1820. Here, through the witness of her at the first approach to Lady Fleming, he reported Mary as Crookstone, “there thou standest, holding her first court at Crookston gay and goodly as ever, though Castle after her marriage to Darnley, thou hearest the sounds of war, JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) 87 David J Rampling instead of the vows of love. All is gone since I last greeted thee- -love and lover--vows and vower-- king and kingdom.”

A contemporary fascination for venerable trees seems to have been a popular preoccupation. A paper entitled ‘Remarkable Scottish Trees’ published in Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal in 1834 24, is a synopsis of a catalogue of remarkable Scottish trees published in 1812.25 Scott also had arboreal interests, manifesting in a quaint habit: Wherever I went, I cut a piece from a branch of a tree – these constituted what I called my log- book; and I intended to have a set of chessmen out of them, each having reference to the place where it was cut – as the kings from Falkland and Holy-Rood; the queens from Queen Mary’s yew-tree at Crookston…But this whimsical design I never carried into execution.26 The interest in historic trees did not appear to wane27, especially trees associated with Queen Mary (Fig. 6). Sir Walter Scott can also be credited with an early reference to the Crookston dollar. In a letter to his friend, the artist James Skene, dated 14 July 1829, referring to a plan to incorporate the coin in the fabric of a Scottish drinking Figure 7. Quaich made from wood of the cup or quaich, he wrote: Crookston Yew incorporating Mary testoon.30 MY DEAR SKENE,—I write in great haste to acknowledge your kind letter, and thank you for your 88 JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) The ‘Crookston Dollar’ and the historic muse

Figure 8. Brass plaque originally in the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. © Glasgow Museums opinion about the coins. I think fragments dispersed in various relics. your idea of putting the Crookston A cutting taken in 1789 grew for many dollar, if to be had, in the bottom years in the Glasgow Botanic Gardens, of the large one is excellent and if but this daughter tree fell victim to Wrighton can show the reverse as works attending construction of the well as obverse of the coin in the underground railway in the 1890’s. A small cups, keeping them whiskey- brass plaque given in 1817 was placed at tight at the same time, it will be the foot of the tree, serving to augment admirable. 29 the numismatic myth in the popular I do not know whether this plan was imagination. (Fig. 8) The plaque is now put into effect, but I illustrate a quaich housed at Kelvingrove Museum.31 made from the wood of the Crookston Nineteenth century historians and yew, with a testoon of Mary forming its numismatists were unequivocal in base, and designed so that the reverse ascribing the term ‘Crookston dollar’ and obverse of the coin can be viewed to the Mary ryal.32 An entry in an (Fig. 7). holograph Inventary [sic] of the Cabinet When the Crookston yew appeared of Coins and Medals belonging to to be entering its decline early in the William Mitchell Innes Esq., compiled in nineteenth century, it was cut down, and the early to mid-1800s and cataloguing JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) 89 David J Rampling

Figure 9. The ‘Yew Tree Coin’ a very large general collection, has the Lennox family, where was the famous following entry under ‘Scottish Coins Yew tree of which a representation in Silver’: Mary & Henry two thirds of appears on these coins”.34 Cruickston Dollar dated 1565…another James Wingate in his Illustrations of same, indicating that the ‘Crookston’ of the Coinage of Scotland (1868) appellation was also applied to the affirmed that the Mary ryals were called fractions.33 ‘Crookston dollars’, and even used the John Lindsay in his A View of the term to label his illustrations of the Coinage of Scotland (1845) perpetuated coins and their fractions.35 He inferred the conflicting information offered by that the name derived from the estate Cardonnel in the previous century with of Crookston having belonged to Lord the following footnote, having also Darnley, a suggestion repeated in A quoted the ordinance: “These coins Handbook to the Coinage of Scotland are commonly called Cruickstown by J. D. Robertson (1878). This latter dollars from Cruickstown Castle in author also affirmed the emblem to be Renfrewshire, the property of the “a crowned yew-tree”.36 90 JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) The ‘Crookston Dollar’ and the historic muse Burns in his seminal book, The to the antiquary, Charles Kirkpatrick Coinage of Scotland (1887), with Sharpe: assurances derived from Semple, I suppose no genuine coins with debunked any connection between heads of Queen Mary or of any Crookston and the Mary ryal, and older are to be found now at affirmed the coining ordinance of Edinburgh ? Of course not. I think December, 1565 as the arbiter of truth.37 of inclosing one I have of the Perhaps the numismatic apotheosis Crookston yew-tree in glass (as I of the Crookston fable is displayed in a have had a gold coin of Ferdinand relic (Fig. 9) included amongst a small and Isabella, found on the N.W. group of items known as ‘The Penicuik coast of Sutherland), and of Jewels’: a ryal of 1565 mounted within a having it made a broach for one’s circular band so as to display the reverse plaid. It will be as safe so, and side of the coin, the band inscribed: better seen than locked up in a “YEW . TREE . COIN . STRUCK cabinet. If one wore velvet bonnets . TO . CELEBRATE . THE . with a plume, as sometime was BETROTHAL . OF . QUEEN . done, one would stick it there; but MARY . & . DARNLEY” that would be thought excentric.39 This coin and the accompanying Sharpe was an intimate friend of the items, considered to be bequests Duke and a confidant and correspondent by Queen Mary to her attendants of the Clerk family.40 A gift to ‘The at Fotheringay, were bought for the Lady Clerk’ of “some hairs which Scottish nation in 1923 when they were CERTAINLY were those of Prince disposed of by the family of the Clerks Charles Stewart”, formed part of the of Penicuik. The provenance of the coin Penicuik Jewel acquisition. This relic is among the least certain of the items in is encased in a mount of very similar the group, the author of the descriptive style to that of the coin, and inscribed monograph declaring “that there is no in the same manner with an identical convincing reason for associating it script. It thus seems that a more likely with Queen Mary”, although “it is not provenance for the Penicuik ryal is impossible, nor even unlikely, that the Sharpe’s coin cabinet41, possibly in Queen had one of these coins, and she imitation of the Duke’s initiative, or may have had it at Fotheringay”.38 indeed the actual coin described in the There is perhaps a clue to this letter.42 The inscription embellishing the coin’s history that casts light not only mount, unashamedly declares the coin on a more plausible provenance, but to be a commemorative issue, struck on past numismatic sensibilities. It is to celebrate the betrothal of the Queen, to be found in a letter from the Duke yet another belief for which there is of Sutherland, dated January 11, 1846, no foundation. It is perhaps the falsity JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) 91 David J Rampling of the inscription that accounts for the have become enshrined in the works disappearance of the mount, although of famous authors. Just as the Bible the coin’s whereabouts is certain.43 has secured the fame of the ‘Tribute Despite debunking of the Crookston penny’, and Shakespeare, the ‘Ides of myths as realised in the idyll, the March denarius’, Scottish writers other tree and the coin, the romance of a than Sir Walter Scott have played a numismatic association has continued to part in ensuring an enduring Crookston the present day. While twentieth century mythology. John Wilson’s Crookston cataloguers of named collections yew ‘embossed in silver’ is explicit in appear to have been circumspect in regard to the coin, and later poets have their use of the vernacular term44, the dwelt on other aspects of the story. present century has already seen the Robert Tannahill (1774-1810), used return of the ‘Crookston’ descriptor in Crookston’s bleak and wild desolation sale and standard catalogues, and on to suggest tragic romance: the internet.45 It is true that some real or fancied association to an important Thro Cruikston Castle’s lanely wa’s historic figure assures a coin of a certain The wintry wind howls wild and totemistic appeal, and this quality dreary; often carries a monetary premium. The Tho mirk the cheerless e’ening fa’s denarius of Tiberius is usually offered Yet I ha’e vowed to meet my Mary: under its vernacular title of ‘Tribute Ah! Mary, tho the wind should rave penny’. A spectacular recent example Wi jealous spite to keep me frae thee, is the ‘Ides of March denarius’ of The darkest stormy night I’d brave, Marcus Brutus which recently fetched For ae sweet secret moment wi thee over half a million dollars at auction.46 But factors other than monetary William Motherwell (1797-1835), gain are also important. There is an employed the famous yew tree both as understandable reluctance to let go of a memorial of love and a foreboding of a tradition that may derive its impetus things to come: from unrecognised wishes to redeem or condemn a figure as romantically …Beneath yon tree – tragic as that of Mary. From a less Now bare and blasted – so our obscure perspective, there is also the annals tell – sense of continuity and belonging that The martyr Queen, ere that her comes from familiarity with a term fortunes knew collectors and antiquarians have used A darker shade than cast her over centuries – an accepted communal favourite yew, dilettantism. Loved Darnley passing well – Aspects of the Crookston myth 92 JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) The ‘Crookston Dollar’ and the historic muse The use of hendiadys in the phrase illustration is of a copy of the British “bare and blasted” serves to heighten Museum specimen. 2. At this time, Scottish coins were the vacillation between romance and current in England for one-sixth of their tragedy, between transparent good and denominational value; hence thirty shillings scheming evil. Scots was tariffed at five shillings sterling. It is perhaps this tension between the The immediate stimulus for the minting of the Mary ryal was a dearth of silver creative potential inherent in the beauty, specie. A significant differential between its power, happiness and religious faith intrinsic value and a higher currency value of the young Mary and the thwarted acted as a deterrent to the export of the ambitions, deprivations, tainted morality precious metal and gave the crown a greater profit than that provided by the preceding and tragic circumstances of her later silver coinage. The silver for the coinage years that imbue memorials of her life was licensed to come from the melting of with talismanic powers. She epitomised extant silver coins, but given the few silver to an extreme degree, the trials, coins then circulating and the considerable size of the new coinage, additional supplies ambiguities, and emotional responses of bullion may have been required. that encumber all lives. Thus the sense 3. Semple, D. (1876) The Tree of Crocston: of familiarity inherent in referring to the being a refutation of the fables of the courtship of Queen Marie and Lord Mary ryal in the vernacular, reassures us Darnley, at Crocston Castle, under The that we belong at the very least to the Yew Tree; and of the Poet, Robert Burns, human race, and at best to an erudite carving his name on The Yew Tree. J. & J. collegiate body of numismatists! Cook, Paisley. 4. Semple (ibid.) adopted a somewhat grandiose and censorious tone in much of Acknowledgements his writing, being critical of antiquarian Professor Michael Bath, Nicholas colleagues for their “ignorance…in calling the Mary Ryall the Crookston dollar, Holmes, and Lord Stewartby, kindly because, I suppose they…did not know the sent me copies of their papers. The difference between a palm tree and a yew staffs of the National Museum of tree on the coins exposed in the cases in their museums” (p.50). He suggested that Scotland, Edinburgh, and Kelvingrove the ‘Crookston Dollar’ label may have Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, served “to gratify the pride and vanity responded helpfully to my requests. of some individuals connected with the Crookston estate” (p.51), and proclaimed Neil and Rosa Taverner facilitated my the term ‘Crookston Dollar’ as an invention visit to Crookston Castle, and provided “unworthy of the age” (p.52). warm hospitality during my stay in 5. ibid.: 52. Scotland. 6. Ovid Tristia, 5.12. 7. Psalm 68, v. 1. 8. Rodgers, I. (June 1984) ‘Tropical touch Notes in medieval Scotland’, Australian Coin 1. There are only two known examples of Review 20/12: 45-48; Holmes, N. (January/ this short-lived coinage: one in the British February, 2004) ‘The Coinage of Mary Museum, and the other in the National and Darnley’, History Scotland 4/1: 22-25; Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. The Lord and Lady Stewartby (2007) ‘Mary JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) 93 David J Rampling Stuart, the tortoise and the palm-tree’, Hopkins, Glasgow. The Stewarts 22/4: 224-228; Bath, M. The inscription beneath the engraving of the ‘Do Tortoises Climb Trees? Emblematic castle and surrounding the coin reads “This Coinage of Mary Queen of Scots’, paper View of the ancient castle of Cruikfton, of presented at The Society for Emblem old the Mansion of the Lords of Darnly, Studies Eighth International Conference, is in testimony of their respect, inscribed Winchester, England, 28 July-2 August to Sir James Maxwell Baronet, by R G A 2008. Foulis”. (‘Crookston’ has been subject to a 9. Mackie, C. (1835) The Castles of Mary heterogeneity of spellings!) Queen of Scots (3rd Edition), Thomas Tegg 16. Cardonnel, A. de (1786) Numismata and Son, London; Richard Griffin and Co., Scotiae, George Nicol, Edinburgh. Glasgow: 123. 17. Snelling, T. (1774) A View of the Silver 10. ibid.: 125. Coin and Coinage of Scotland, Thomas 11. Nicolson, W. (1702) The Scottish Historical Snelling, London. Snelling (p. 16) simply Library, T. Childe, London: 323; Nicolson repeats the statements of Nicolson. acknowledged his debt to Dr John Sharpe, 18. Cardonnel (footnote pp. 18-19) replicates Archbishop of York (293). Sharpe’s almost word for word the observations of Observations of the Scots Money, written Robert Keith (see note 12); Semple (p. 49) in the last years of the seventeenth century points to another example of his plagiaristic but not published until 1785, had noted propensity in comparing Cardonnel’s that the “yew-tree in the park... of the Earl description of the yew tree idyll with that of Lenox... gave occasion to the impress given in Thomas Pennant’s A Tour in of the coin...”. Bibliotheca Topographica Scotland, and Voyage to the Hebrides, 1772 Britannica, No. XXXV containing published twelve years earlier. Archbishop Sharpe’s Observations on 19. The Times, London (7 Oct. 1819) Issue the Coinage of England &c., J. Nichols, 10744: 3. London, 1785: 60. 20. Stuart, G. (1782) History of Scotland from 12. Crawfurd, G. (1710) Genealogical History the Establishment of the Reformation of the Royal and Illustrious Family of the till the death of Queen Mary, J. Murray, Stewarts from the year 1034 to the year London, Vol. II: 386. 1710; to which are added the Acts of 21. Strickland, A. (1853) Lives of the Queens of Sederunt and Articles of Regulation relating Scotland and English Princesses, William to them; to which is prefixed a General Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and Description of the Shire of Renfrew, J. London: Vol. IV. Watson, Edinburgh; and Keith, R. (1735) 22. ibid.: 104. The History of the Affairs of Church and 23. ibid.: 384. State in Scotland, T and W. Ruddiman, 24. Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal (22 March Edinburgh. 1834): 112, 58-59. 13. Anderson, J. (1739) Selectus Diplomatum 25. Walker, J. (1812) Essays on Natural History et Numismatum Scotiae Thesaurus, T. and and Rural Economy, Longman, Hurst, W. Ruddiman, Edinburgh: 102, footnote (f). Rees and Orme, London; and Guthrie & 14. Robert Keith published the whole Act of Anderson, Edinburgh. nd the Privy Council of 22 December 1565, 26. Lockhart, J. G. (1839) Memoirs of the life authorising the coinage of Ryals, in an of Sir Walter Scott, bart. Robert Cadell, Appendix to The History of the Affairs of Edinburgh, 2nd Edition, Vol. I: 72- 73 Church and State in Scotland (see: note 27. See for example: Hutchinson, R. ‘Old and 12). Remarkable Trees in Scotland.’ A series of 15. The illustration forms the Frontispiece in: papers in Transactions of the Highland and Guy, F. (1909) Crookston Castle, Hugh Agricultural Society of Scotland 1873-92, 94 JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) The ‘Crookston Dollar’ and the historic muse passim. 36. Robertson, J. D. (1878) A Handbook to 28. The inscription inside the lid reads: “Made the Coinage of Scotland, George Bell and from an Oriental Plane, which was brought Sons, London: 78-79. from France, by Mary Queen of Scots, and 37. Burns, E. (1887) The Coinage of Scotland, planted by her in the Garden of Holyrood Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh, Vol. house AD, 1561, Blown down 1817”. II: 339. 29. Skene, J. / edited by Thomson, B. (1909) 38. Seton, W. (1923) The Penicuik Jewels of Memories of Sir Walter Scott, John Murray, Mary Queen of Scots, Philip Allan & Co., London; T. and A. Constable, Edinburgh: London. The illustration of the ‘Yew Tree 160. The letter “refers to the appropriate Coin’ faces p. 26. mounting of a set of Highland quaichs, 39. Allydice, A. (ed.) (1888) Letters from and or cups, made of the wood of various to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., Vol. II, remarkable trees and other relics. Sir Walter William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh took much pleasure in displaying them on his table and in relating the merits and and London: 576. I have rendered Sharpe’s historical anecdotes connected with them. abbreviations in full for clarity. As he had requested me to take charge 40. ibid.: 382. of their embellishment, I had obtained 41. Sharpe’s coins and other collectables were from the collections of the Antiquarian sold at auction in June, 1851, following Society several very interesting and his death in March of that year; “his house beautiful Scottish coins, duplicates of a veritable museum”. See: Manville, H. their series, which the Society very liberally E. and Robertson, T. J. (1986) British presented to Sir Walter for the use intended Numismatic Auction Catalogues 1710- to be made of them.”: 161. 1984, A. H. Baldwin & Sons Ltd. and Spink 30. The inscription on the decorative & Son Ltd., London: 98, no. 17. silver band encircling the quaich reads: 42. Sharpe had a large coin collection, and it is “Presented to John Black by Andrew Adie quite possible that he was an intermediary of Dominica Obit 9th November 1864. This recipient of such a gift before bestowing it wood is of the Crookston Yew under which on the Clerk family. The undated note to Tree Queen Mary spent her happiest days Lady Clerk accompanying the gift of hair and the coin is a Testoon of Queen Mary”. concludes – “I have many more relics… 31. The plaque was a gift of James Spreull, which I long to show you”, suggests a City Chamberlain, whose initiative had further gift may have been in the offing! secured the original cutting in 1789. The (Seton: 46-47). plaque measures 247 mm x 247 mm x 132 43. I am indebted to the staff of the National mm and weighs 4678 g. Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, for their 32. See for example: Fraser, W. (1863) Memoirs unsuccessful attempt to locate the mount. of the Maxwells of Pollok, [Thomas The coin is in the Museum’s collection, Constable] Edinburgh, Vol. I: footnote p. 8 and is illustrated in: Holmes, N. M. McQ. – “the coin is now generally known as the (2006) Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles, ‘Crookston Dollar’”. 58, Scottish Coins in the National Museums 33. The ‘Inventary’ [sic] is in the form of of Scotland, Edinburgh, Part 1 1526-1603, a leather-bound book in the author’s Oxford University Press and Spink & Son possession. Mitchell Innes was for nineteen Limited: Plate 44, No. 1169. years, Cashier of The Royal Bank of 44. The Marquess of Bute sale (Sotheby & Co., Scotland. 11th June, 1951) is one exception - see lot 34. Lindsay, J. (1845) A View of the Coinage of 247. Scotland, Messrs. Bolster, Cork: 51. 45. See: Baldwin’s Auction, No. 30, 7-8 May, 35. Wingate, J. (1868) Illustrations of the 2002, lot 674. The standard catalogue, Coinage of Scotland, Aird and Coghill, Coins of Scotland Ireland and the Islands, Glasgow: 98. 2nd Edition, Spink, London, 2002, includes JNAA 22, 2011 (2012) 95 David J Rampling the term in the description of the Mary ryal. Interestingly, the Seaby catalogue Coins and Tokens of Scotland (1972), on which the Spink publication is based, makes no mention of the term. A recent eBay offering of a Mary and Henry ryal of 1566 informed the potential purchaser that the coin is “sometimes called a Crookeston Dollar”. 46. http://www.coinnews.net/2011/09/29/ roman-ides-of-march-ancient-coin-sets- record-at-heritage-long-beach-auction/

David Rampling is a retired medical practitioner, having enjoyed a career in academic, public and private settings. He has been a keen student of Scottish numismatics for many years. [email protected]

96 JNAA 22, 2011 (2012)