The Richmond farthings were not a royal mint issue in any conventional sense. Charles I licensed the production of small copper coinage to Richard Dawntrye and later to Lord Maltravers, collecting a fee per thousand pieces struck — a frankly mercenary arrangement that kept the Crown's hands clean while flooding Ireland with privately produced small change. The patent system was deeply controversial, widely resented, and openly counterfeited almost from the start.
Maltravers eventually held the patent through the 1630s under the title Earl of Arundel, and the coins continued striking until the outbreak of the 1641 Irish rebellion made orderly minting an irrelevance.
The Richmond farthings were not a royal mint issue in any conventional sense. Charles I licensed the production of small copper coinage to Richard Dawntrye and later to Lord Maltravers, collecting a fee per thousand pieces struck — a frankly mercenary arrangement that kept the Crown's hands clean while flooding Ireland with privately produced small change. The patent system was deeply controversial, widely resented, and openly counterfeited almost from the start.
Maltravers eventually held the patent through the 1630s under the title Earl of Arundel, and the coins continued striking until the outbreak of the 1641 Irish rebellion made orderly minting an irrelevance.